15 Sep
2012
15 Sep
'12
12:54 p.m.
On 15 Sep 2012 at 20:01, Tony Duell wrote:
As an aside, much of the electronicv work for
codebreaking in the UK
in WW2, including Colossus, was done, IIRC, by people from the GPO
research labs. GPO = General Post Office, who at the time ran the
telephone system in the UK, and who therefore had great expereience of
switching systems.
Maybe, but in the 70s when I visited, telephones in Britain were a
nightmare compared to their US counterparts--particularly pay
telephones. And doesn't England still have coin-op residential
electrical service? When I heard this referred to on an old
"Steptoe and Son" broadcast, it seemed very backward to me (you
apparently needed a lot of 1s coins to keep out of the dark).
And how many computer debvelopments came from the Bell
Telephone labs?
A lot, granted. But that came from a time when Ma Bell was
prohibited from getting into the computer business. After the
consent decree and breakup, she went downhill fast.
--Chuck