We spent Monday at Bletchley Park, home of the wartime code breakers. The following day, it was announced that they were receiving £500,000 of Lottery money – and quite right too. Thoroughly deserving, as an important part of our national history, that is in disgracefully poor condition in parts. Without the geniuses that worked there, we wouldn’t be where we are today. Whether that’s a good thing just at the moment is a matter for debate…
First up, this just made me smile – somehow I always imagined that Bomber Command would be far more impressive…
This is a real, actual, proper German Enigma machine. It’s in a glass case so that no nutter can nick it again. Anyway, why did they give it back to Jeremy Paxman? Stephen Fry must have been gutted.
This is part of a superb slate statue of Alan Turing, father of modern computing. Without him, it is quite possible I would be doing something completely different for a living. Some people might say this would be a good thing.
These last two are of the re-created Colossus computer. If you run the simulation program on a modern 2GHz computer, it takes the same time to crack the codes as Colossus did during WWII. Personally, I think it could do with a few flashing lights before it looks like a *proper* computer.
