Difference between revisions of "Colossus Computer"

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The Colossus is arguably the first digital computer in human history. Created during World War II in order to decipher encrypted German messages sent by the Lorenz Cipher, it stands as both an influential, technological advancement as well as a singular creation unto itself. Although its creation spawned a technological revolution in terms of electronic computation, its existence remained secret for over 30 years. Unlike the majority of technological media, the Colossus Computer was built with a singular purpose in mind, achieved its goal, and was immediately destroyed. It was never re-appropriated for a new use, except perhaps as an historical object, as it has recently been 'restored' as part of a museum for World War II code breaking at Bletchley Park.

In this way, as a technological medium, the Colossus is both hugely influential and entirely unique. Its role as a translator of another medium, that of German code, is a position not seen easily today. Perhaps this is why the Colossus can be easily forgotten, but deserves acknowledgement and remembrance.

Life of the Colossus

Cryptography Before Colossus

A New Cipher, A New Problem

Mind of the Colossus

Tommy Flowers

Tommy Flowers was a British Post Office electronics engineer working at the Research Station at Dollis Hill. He was recruited as an automaton specialist by the Government Code and Cipher School (GC&CS). Along with Jack Good, he worked on theories derived by noted mathematicians Alan Turing and J von Neumann that led to the production of the Colossus (Ratcliff 205).

PICTURE 41 FROM COPELAND

The biggest contribution to the Colossus construction from Tommy Flowers was the suggestion that the wheel patterns in the machine be generated electronically. In this way, there was no need for dual paper tape, and the issue that plagued the Heath Robinson machine, synchronization, was eliminated (Sale, 354).

Jack Good

Bill Tutte

Max Newman

Body of the Colossus

Shadow of the Colossus

Rebuilding

Meaning of the Colossus

Bibliography

Andresen, S.L. “Donald Michie: Secrets of Colossus Revealed.” IEEE Intelligent Systems. Vol. 16. No. 6

Budiansky, Stephen. Battle of Wits: The Complete Story of Codebreaking in World War II. New York, NY: The Free Press, 2000.

Cragon, Harvey G. From Fish To Colossus: How the German Lorenz Cipher was broken at Bletchley Park. 2003.

Copeland, B.J. “Colossus: Its Origins and Originators.” Annals of the History of Computing, IEEE. Vol. 26. No 4.

Copeland, B.J. Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Park’s Codebreaking Computers. Oxford University Press, 2006.

Good, Jack. “Enigma and Fish.” Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park. Eds. F.H. Hinsley & Alan Stripp. Oxford Univeristy Press, 1993.

Halton, Ken. “The Tunny Machine.” Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park. Eds. F.H. Hinsley & Alan Stripp. Oxford Univeristy Press, 1993

Hayward, Gil. “Operation Tunny.” Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park. Eds. F.H. Hinsley & Alan Stripp. Oxford Univeristy Press, 1993

Hinsley, F.H. “An Introduction to Fish.” Codebreakers: The Inside Story of Bletchley Park. Eds. F.H. Hinsley & Alan Stripp. Oxford Univeristy Press, 1993.

Ratcliff, R.A. Delusions of Intelligence: Enigma, Ultra, and the End of Secure Ciphers. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Sale, Anthony. “The Colossus of Bletchley Park.” IEEE Review. Vol 41 Issue 2. 1995

Sale, Anthony E. "The Colossus of Bletchley Park – The German Cipher System." The First Computers: History and Architectures. Eds. Raul Rojas and Ulf Hashagen. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2000.

Wells, Benjamin. “Advances in I/O, Speedup, and Universality on Colossus, an Unconventional Computer.” Unconventional Computation. 8th International Conference, 2009.