Bletchley Park

Bletchley Park, home of the World War II code breaking effort, held a special event to mark the (sort of) completion of the Bombe rebuild. The Bombe was the machine that helped decode messages from the German Enigma machines. The rebuild has been going on for ten years, and this event demonstrated the working machine, and also brought back those veterans who worked with the machine.

The demonstration went well, and it was a great opportunity to chat with those who were involved in the rebuild. They had to rediscover some of the thinking behind it as plans for the original machine were not available. Although the machine was running, the rebuilders don't consider it complete until they have it stopping automatically when candidate solutions are found.

We also chatted to one of the Wrens who operated the machines (in 8 hour shifts, using tweezers to fix the wiring inside the drums).

Elsewhere in the park, there's the rebuild of the Colossus, the world's first computer. There's also a museum of old (but working) computers. Some of them are not that old, in my opinion, but maybe I'm just getting older.

(17 images.)

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Indy
Indy
Bombe Drums I
Bombe Drums I
Bombe Drum
Bombe Drum
Bombe Drums II
Bombe Drums II
Bombe Drum Parts
Bombe Drum Parts
Enigma machine
Enigma machine
Behind the Drums
Behind the Drums
Bombe Wiring I
Bombe Wiring I
Bombe Wiring II
Bombe Wiring II
Colossus
Colossus
Tony Sale
Tony Sale
Tape I
Tape I
Tape II
Tape II
Harrier I
Harrier I
Harrier II
Harrier II
Crowborough
Crowborough
Type X
Type X

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