INDEX	February 1, 2024
Colossus had companions
SOURCES	My father who was a telephone engineer during the Second World War and worked on the secret phone system used by organisations like the Free French in London, told me that there was more than one code breaking computer since the Bletchley Park machine had a companion and that they were networked. At the time I took this with a pinch of salt but it looks like he was right. A publication I am not familiar with but which seems to be the house journal of GCHQ, has issued a photo of Colossus (for that was what the Bletchley Park machine was called) along with a typically badly written press release. It is badly written because it lacks clarity. "After the Second World War eight out of the 10 machines were destroyed and (Tommy) Flowers (the guy who actually designed and built it) was ordered to hand over all documentation on the Colossus build to GCHQ," the release says. Ten machines? That's a lot of valves. Why did they need ten? The release pedals the usual story (almost certainly rubbish) that the machines had to be destroyed because they were too effective. Er yes? The depressing thing is that it looks like Tommy Flowers was leaned on to stay out of the computer business. Of course, J Lyon & Co, a British company best known for its cafes, did produce the first commercial computer. But it was the Americans, especially Xerox, who took up the technology and created the companies that changed the world. Poor old Tommy Flowers. Poor old Britain.
Forces.net GCHQ releases never-before-seen images of code-breaking computer that helped win WW2
INDEX Jonathan Brind	February 1, 2024