9 Feb
2015
9 Feb
'15
9:21 p.m.
Forgive me if I missed earlier discussion, but has anybody
seen the
Imitation Game movie, ostensibly about Alan Turing?
There certainly were some real howlers in there, like the
bit where Turing
single handedly decides what info they would share with the
British
government, so as not to alert the Nazis that the Enigma
code was
broken!
Also, there is only one instance of the Bombe, while it is
pretty well
known they had a set of 350 of them at Ft. Meade running 24
hours
a day. And those were the NCR Bombes, running at 1800 RPM,
insted
of the one in the movie going clunk-clunk-clunk. Some other
papers
seem to indicate there were another 350 Bombes at Bletchley.
It only makes sense for there to be a big array of NCR
Bombes, not
the slow British-built ones, but
with all the ships being sunk, how could they be sure such a
shipment
could make it across the Atlantic? These things were
critical national
resources, so I just can't image the US shipped a batch of
them to
Britain. (Also, there is the security issue of how to keep
prying eyes
off the Bombes while being shipped.)
Also, they have Turing building the Bombe with his own
hands. Various
descriptions have hundreds of people at Bletchley wiring the
rotors and
doing much of the other work. The Bombe parts must have
been made
in machine shops across England.
At the end of the movie, they sort of imply by a confusing
flashback that
Turing tells the whole story of the code cracking work at
Bletchley to
the police officer. It is well documented that he never
revealed anything
to anybody about what he did there.
Any comments?
Jon
10 Feb
10 Feb
2:12 a.m.
At 12:21 AM 10/02/2015, you wrote:
Forgive me if I missed earlier discussion, but has
anybody seen the
Imitation Game movie, ostensibly about Alan Turing?
There certainly were some real howlers in there, like the bit where Turing
single handedly decides what info they would share with the British
government, so as not to alert the Nazis that the Enigma code was
broken!
Also, there is only one instance of the Bombe, while it is pretty well
known they had a set of 350 of them at Ft. Meade running 24 hours
a day. And those were the NCR Bombes, running at 1800 RPM, insted
of the one in the movie going clunk-clunk-clunk. Some other papers
seem to indicate there were another 350 Bombes at Bletchley.
It only makes sense for there to be a big array of NCR Bombes, not
the slow British-built ones, but
with all the ships being sunk, how could they be sure such a shipment
could make it across the Atlantic? These things were critical national
resources, so I just can't image the US shipped a batch of them to
Britain. (Also, there is the security issue of how to keep prying eyes
off the Bombes while being shipped.)
Also, they have Turing building the Bombe with his own hands. Various
descriptions have hundreds of people at Bletchley wiring the rotors and
doing much of the other work. The Bombe parts must have been made
in machine shops across England.
At the end of the movie, they sort of imply by a confusing flashback that
Turing tells the whole story of the code cracking work at Bletchley to
the police officer. It is well documented that he never revealed anything
to anybody about what he did there.
Any comments?
Jon
When Hollywood handles a story strange things happen. We are
lucky they mentioned
Bletchley Park at all.
Charlie Fox
2:39 a.m.
On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 05:12:03AM -0500, Charles E. Fox wrote:
When Hollywood handles a story strange things happen. We are
lucky they mentioned
Bletchley Park at all.
Indeed, the movie "Enigma" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0157583/) didn't
include Turing at all.
/P
3:21 a.m.
Strictly speking about its artistical values I like this movie. I think
that computing aspects are reasonably well treated.
Kind Regards
Sergio
El martes, 10 de febrero de 2015, Pontus Pihlgren <pontus at update.uu.se>
escribi?:
On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 05:12:03AM -0500, Charles E.
Fox wrote:
--
Gracias | Regards - Saludos | Greetings | Freundliche Gr??e | Salutations
?
--
*Sergio Pedraja*
--
mobile: +34-699-996568
twitter: @sergio_pedraja | skype: Sergio Pedraja
--
http://plus.google.com/u/0/101292256663392735405
http://www.linkedin.com/in/sergiopedraja
http://www.quora.com/Sergio-Pedraja
http://spedraja.wordpress.com
https://www.xing.com/profile/Sergio_Pedraja <http://spedraja.wordpress.com/>
-----
No crea todo lo que ve, ni crea que est? vi?ndolo todo
When Hollywood handles a story strange things happen. We are
lucky they mentioned
Bletchley Park at all.
Indeed, the movie "Enigma" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0157583/) didn't
include Turing at all.
/P
12:41 p.m.
Oh, I like Enigma, it was just an example of Hollywood handling
a story.
/P
On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 12:21:19PM +0100, SPC wrote:
Strictly speking about its artistical values I like
this movie. I think
that computing aspects are reasonably well treated.
Kind Regards
Sergio
El martes, 10 de febrero de 2015, Pontus Pihlgren <pontus at update.uu.se>
escribi?:
On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 05:12:03AM -0500, Charles
E. Fox wrote:
--
Gracias | Regards - Saludos | Greetings | Freundliche Gr??e | Salutations
?
--
*Sergio Pedraja*
--
mobile: +34-699-996568
twitter: @sergio_pedraja | skype: Sergio Pedraja
--
http://plus.google.com/u/0/101292256663392735405
http://www.linkedin.com/in/sergiopedraja
http://www.quora.com/Sergio-Pedraja
http://spedraja.wordpress.com
https://www.xing.com/profile/Sergio_Pedraja <http://spedraja.wordpress.com/>
-----
No crea todo lo que ve, ni crea que est? vi?ndolo todo
When Hollywood handles a story strange things happen. We are
lucky they mentioned
Bletchley Park at all.
Indeed, the movie "Enigma" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0157583/) didn't
include Turing at all.
/P
3:33 a.m.
On 2015-Feb-10, at 2:39 AM, Pontus Pihlgren wrote:
On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 05:12:03AM -0500, Charles E.
Fox wrote:
I haven't seen the Imitation Game, but did view the trailer and what I saw there left
me with the sense while it might be fine as entertainment, the historical inaccuracies
would be annoying.
Maybe I shouldn't judge too much by the trailer but it left the impression it was
going to be dramatised along the stereotypical lines of the
'solitary-brilliant-genius-battling-alone-against-the-dumb-officious-bureaucrats-who-would-never-understand-what-he-was-doing'
(to get the Bombes constructed). I'm rather skeptical that was at all accurate to the
way things transpired.
As I recall, Enigma was different in that it wasn't trying to be an historic
docu-drama, it was just using Bletchley and WWII code-breaking for the setting of a
fictional story.
When Hollywood handles a story strange things happen. We are
lucky they mentioned
Bletchley Park at all.
Indeed, the movie "Enigma" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0157583/) didn't
include Turing at all. 
5:09 a.m.
On 2/10/2015 3:33 AM, Brent Hilpert wrote:
On 2015-Feb-10, at 2:39 AM, Pontus Pihlgren wrote:
I always worry about any storyteller who confused breaking Enigma
and
codebreaking with Ultra. The trailers for this movie have it in spades.
I don't know the setting for one comment from a female character saying
"I was happy I went thru a town you saved" or some such, but it would
have been very unlikely that anyone would say that during the war, and
until Winterbottom said fuck it, noone could say anything w/o a
violation of the Official Secrets Act (or whatever the accurate name is
for it).
The codebreaking is better told if it includes all the players,
including the Polish who had a good go at breaking it, and I think
pointed out and held to death in the case of captured members of their
group what the critical error was that the Bletchley park people's
automation exploited.
The automation exploited a common practice in encoding messages which
allowed the presets for the Bombes. W/o that guess the automation
didn't have that much to go on, and you were back to tedious methods
that relied on much guesswork as to what the wheel settings were.
This is not going to affect telling the human stories other than leaving
out some of the groups who joined together to create Ultra. Ultra was so
successful that even though the Germans got wind of it, they suspected a
traitor rather than the actual truth.
Another miniseries, Manhattan aired here on WGN and was somewhat
entertaining, but again the pronouncements of the characters were
totally unbelievable when one considers what was being done. One
particularly silly line has to do with the project being so secret the
Vice President didn't know about it. The character uttering that would
have had no clue about that. Makes it hard to watch things when they
screw things up like that and get no payback.
I appreciate movie and tv writing enough to know about liberties in
facts that are taken, but respect when they do something and get a
really big plot payback for it, not just some sillyness.
thanks
Jim
On Tue, Feb 10, 2015 at 05:12:03AM -0500, Charles
E. Fox wrote:
I haven't seen the Imitation Game, but did view the
trailer and what I saw there left me with the sense while it might be fine as
entertainment, the historical inaccuracies would be annoying.
Maybe I shouldn't judge too much by the trailer but it left the impression it was
going to be dramatised along the stereotypical lines of the
'solitary-brilliant-genius-battling-alone-against-the-dumb-officious-bureaucrats-who-would-never-understand-what-he-was-doing'
(to get the Bombes constructed). I'm rather skeptical that was at all accurate to the
way things transpired.
As I recall, Enigma was different in that it wasn't trying to be an historic
docu-drama, it was just using Bletchley and WWII code-breaking for the setting of a
fictional story. When Hollywood handles a story strange
things happen. We are
lucky they mentioned
Bletchley Park at all.
Indeed, the movie "Enigma"
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0157583/) didn't
include Turing at all.
9 a.m.
On 02/10/2015 05:33 AM, Brent Hilpert wrote:
Yup, and you would have been right. I can accept MOST of
the changes due to
dramatic license, etc. But, the part where Turing HIMSELF
decides what info can
be acted on is so FAR out of touch! Churchill PERSONALLY
had to make some
of the toughest decisions, such as to not evacuate Coventry
when they knew it
was next for getting blitzed.
Jon
On Tue, Feb
10, 2015 at 05:12:03AM -0500, Charles E. Fox wrote:
> When Hollywood handles a story strange things happen. We are
> lucky they mentioned
> Bletchley Park at all.
I haven't seen the Imitation Game, but did view the
trailer and what I saw there left me with the sense while it might be fine as
entertainment, the historical inaccuracies would be annoying.
14 Feb
14 Feb
12:32 p.m.
New subject: Enormous Early Books/Docs/Software Collection available for the asking - FFS
Finally, after 16 months of effort, Barry Dobyns' collection of early
manuals, books and software is fully cataloged and available on a FREE
for SHIPPING basis to the classic list group. Barry is a reader here
and you are welcome to query him directly on how this all came to be but
rest assured that this offering is under his direction and with his
approval! Al Kossow has also been involved from the beginning and has
reviewed and selected the materials he wanted for CHM.
There are over 4000 individual items described in an Excel spreadsheet
organized in two worksheets, one is generic and the second is
exclusively media without supporting documentation. To support the
...eclectic tastes of this group, I've also posted the collection
catalog as PDF files and as tab delimited text files. If someone wants
it in a different format, let me know. The files are located at
www.classiccmp.org (thanks Jay!) and the link is posted below.
The descriptions are fairly detailed, with an eye towards their
usability and/or collectible value. In particular, media descriptions
contain ALL writing present on the labels. None of the media was
mounted for a content review or a readability test so the label is all I
know.
Anything not finding a new home will probably go to the recycler at the
end of this.
OK. the conditions to make this work without flooding the list:
1. This has been a major effort to help Barry and this stuff is NOT
being offered for sale but I do expect reimbursement for shipping from
95006. (If your conscious bothers you and you just have to pay for
something, I'll donate anything I get to a local cat rescue outfit.)
2. Tell me what you want using the "seq #" that is the leftmost column
for each item. That will stay static if I update the list of items.
3. Send me an email OFFLIST using sjshumaker at att.net. Note that is
different than what I'm using here. If I get more than one request for
an item, it simply goes to the first person to ask based on email time
stamp.
4. I will send you a shipping cost. I can do Paypal at
sjshumaker at att.net, USPS MO, or whatever.. ask me in your email.
5. I have a day job! I have no idea what sort of response this will
generate so be patient. I will acknowledge ALL emails.
6. FWIW, If anyone would like to come take the entire thing, it is 100+
boxes of material located in Boulder Creek, CA. Bring a box truck!
Here is the link:
http://www.classiccmp.org/sjsclassicdocs
Steve
12:37 p.m.
New subject: Enormous Early Books/Docs/Software Collection available for the asking - FFS
oops.. it's your conscience I was talking about... oh well lol
stve
2:01 p.m.
New subject: Enormous Early Books/Docs/Software Collection available for the asking - FFS
I am happy to take all of it or any part people don't want. They'll be
stored at the Internet Archive and ultimately digitized.
On Feb 14, 2015 3:33 PM, "steve shumaker" <shumaker at att.net> wrote:
Finally, after 16 months of effort, Barry Dobyns'
collection of early
manuals, books and software is fully cataloged and available on a FREE for
SHIPPING basis to the classic list group. Barry is a reader here and you
are welcome to query him directly on how this all came to be but rest
assured that this offering is under his direction and with his approval!
Al Kossow has also been involved from the beginning and has reviewed and
selected the materials he wanted for CHM.
There are over 4000 individual items described in an Excel spreadsheet
organized in two worksheets, one is generic and the second is exclusively
media without supporting documentation. To support the ...eclectic tastes
of this group, I've also posted the collection catalog as PDF files and as
tab delimited text files. If someone wants it in a different format, let
me know. The files are located at www.classiccmp.org (thanks Jay!) and
the link is posted below.
The descriptions are fairly detailed, with an eye towards their usability
and/or collectible value. In particular, media descriptions contain ALL
writing present on the labels. None of the media was mounted for a content
review or a readability test so the label is all I know.
Anything not finding a new home will probably go to the recycler at the
end of this.
OK. the conditions to make this work without flooding the list:
1. This has been a major effort to help Barry and this stuff is NOT being
offered for sale but I do expect reimbursement for shipping from 95006.
(If your conscious bothers you and you just have to pay for something, I'll
donate anything I get to a local cat rescue outfit.)
2. Tell me what you want using the "seq #" that is the leftmost column
for each item. That will stay static if I update the list of items.
3. Send me an email OFFLIST using sjshumaker at att.net. Note that is
different than what I'm using here. If I get more than one request for an
item, it simply goes to the first person to ask based on email time stamp.
4. I will send you a shipping cost. I can do Paypal at
sjshumaker at att.net, USPS MO, or whatever.. ask me in your email.
5. I have a day job! I have no idea what sort of response this will
generate so be patient. I will acknowledge ALL emails.
6. FWIW, If anyone would like to come take the entire thing, it is 100+
boxes of material located in Boulder Creek, CA. Bring a box truck!
Here is the link:
http://www.classiccmp.org/sjsclassicdocs
Steve
10 Feb
10 Feb
5:41 a.m.
On 10/02/2015 05:21, Jon Elson wrote:
There certainly were some real howlers in there, like
the bit where Turing
single handedly decides what info they would share with the British
government, so as not to alert the Nazis that the Enigma code was
broken!
I've not seen it but there's been a lot of criticism about historical
(in)accuracy.
Also, there is only one instance of the Bombe, while
it is pretty well
known they had a set of 350 of them at Ft. Meade running 24 hours
a day. And those were the NCR Bombes, running at 1800 RPM, insted
of the one in the movie going clunk-clunk-clunk. Some other papers
seem to indicate there were another 350 Bombes at Bletchley.
I'm not an expert, but I think you're a bit wide of the mark in places.
You're evidently referring to the US Navy bombes. Although the
original contract was apparently for 350, only 121 were ever built,
including prototypes, and they were used at the US Navy Communications
Annex in Washington, not Ft Meade. The US Army also had a small number
of bombes built closer to a British design. And the reproduction at
Bletchley doesn't run at the full speed of the later British ones,
although it's true the US Navy Bombe was a good deal faster (850rpm or
1725rpm vs 120rpm; various sources suggest between 5 and 10 times faster
in practice).
Bletchley itself had only a small number of bombes. Most of the 224
built in Britain were housed at outstations.
Because I've not seen the film, I don't know what the
"clunk-clunk-clunk" you refer to is, but I've seen and heard the bombe
running and I would bet it's the sound of the middle wheels advancing,
roughly once a second on the replica, but faster on most of the British
bombes.
It only makes sense for there to be a big array of NCR
Bombes, not
the slow British-built ones, but
with all the ships being sunk, how could they be sure such a shipment
could make it across the Atlantic?
They didn't. No bombes were ever shipped across the Atlantic. Only
design drawings and information were, in the care of officers from the
US Army and Navy in 1941, and later two USN and some senior Bletchley
staff in 1942. The US Navy bombe was an adaptation of the British
design from the latter exchange, and went into service in 1943. Britain
had been using their bombes for several years by then, of course.
Bletchley apparently did use USN bombes, but not directly. They did it
by sending cribs and getting the stops and settings back over encrypted
cable, to be used for decryption of 4-rotor Naval Enigma messages at
Bletchley Park.
Also, they have Turing building the Bombe with his own
hands. Various
descriptions have hundreds of people at Bletchley wiring the rotors and
doing much of the other work. The Bombe parts must have been made
in machine shops across England.
All made by the British Tabulating Machine Company (BTM), though they
subcontracted some parts.
--
Pete
6:39 a.m.
It only makes sense for there to be a big array of NCR
Bombes, not
the slow British-built ones, but
with all the ships being sunk, how could they be sure such a shipment
could make it across the Atlantic?
Spread the shipment over quite a few ships. The machines may have been
tagged as expendable items, like most military things. If a few get
sunk with the ship, make more.
These things were critical national
resources, so I just can't image the US shipped a batch of them to
Britain. (Also, there is the security issue of how to keep prying eyes
off the Bombes while being shipped.)
This is a non-issue. One a thing was export packed, it was just
another big crate to the dockworkers and seamen. One of thousands per
manifest. And I mean BIG crate. I have had to bust up more than a few
World War 2 export crates, and I can tell you that you will need a
much bigger tool that just your eyes!
The Bombe parts must have been made
in machine shops across England.
This was standard practice for just about every nation in World War 2,
just as it is now. Little bits and pieces are farmed out carefully,
and none of the little shops see the big picture.
Any comments?
I have not seen the movie, but I will warn that Enigma people are
almost as nutty as the Tesla fanboys. There are a *lot* of
misconceptions and misinformation out there.
--
Will
9:18 a.m.
On 02/10/2015 08:39 AM, William Donzelli wrote:
I have not seen the movie, but I will warn that Enigma
people are
almost as nutty as the Tesla fanboys. There are a *lot* of
misconceptions and misinformation out there.
Yes, the Brits have declassified much, but they word things
so as to give the
impression that they were solely responsible for all WW-II
codebreaking.
The US has just recently allowed declassifying what NCR did
to build a
higher speed Bombe (they give FULL credit to the Brits and
Turing for
the design of the Bombe and the methods used to crack Enigma
start
positions), and the massive operation for bulk cracking and
decoding of
the full Enigma traffic. This was apparently done at Ft.
Meade in Maryland.
The war going on now at Bletchley Park between the Bletchley
Park Trust
and the National Museum of Computing, is certainly an
indication of what you
are talking about.
Jon
10:19 a.m.
On 10/02/2015 17:18, Jon Elson wrote:
The US has just recently allowed declassifying what
NCR did to build a
higher speed Bombe (they give FULL credit to the Brits and Turing for
the design of the Bombe and the methods used to crack Enigma start
positions), and the massive operation for bulk cracking and decoding of
the full Enigma traffic. This was apparently done at Ft. Meade in
Maryland.
No, it wasn't. For a short while, the first two were operated at NCR in
Dayton where they were built, for testing and training but transferred
to Washington. At the time, Fort Meade was a PoW camp. It had nothing
to do with cryptography until well after the war.
--
Pete
9:23 a.m.
On 02/10/2015 08:39 AM, William Donzelli wrote:
I have not seen the movie, but I will warn that Enigma
people are almost as nutty as the Tesla fanboys. There are
a *lot* of misconceptions and misinformation out there.
OK, my only comment to that
is the stuff that says "Turing
was THE father of the computer, period, full stop."
Note the singular.
What about Charles Babbage and (Augusta) Ada Byron? How can
you leave them out?
How about John von Neumann? Geez, I think he really ranks
above Turing, at least
as far as building real machines. Turing sure contributed a
LOT of really important
theoretical underpinnings, no way to doubt that. But, this
singular THE father stuff,
really makes me steam.
Jon
9:42 a.m.
On 02/10/2015 09:23 AM, Jon Elson wrote:
misconceptions and misinformation out there.
OK, my only comment to that is the stuff that says "Turing was THE
father of the computer, period, full stop."
Note the singular.
What about Charles Babbage and (Augusta) Ada Byron? How can you leave
them out?
How about John Antansaoff? From Wikip, to refresh your memory:
"John Vincent Atanasoff (October 4, 1903 ? June 15, 1995) was an
American physicist and inventor, best known for inventing the first
electronic digital computer."
--Chuck
9:56 a.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Chuck
Guzis
Sent: 10 February 2015 17:43
To: General at classiccmp.org; Discussion at classiccmp.org:On-Topic and Off-
Topic Posts
Subject: Re: imitation game movie
On 02/10/2015 09:23 AM, Jon Elson wrote:
Just because Turing didn't build a computer doesn't mean he wasn't the father
of computing. The work he did defined both what a computer is, and allowed us to divide
problems into those which can be solved on a computer, and those where the computer can
guess the answer enough times that it will eventually get it right.
Dave Wade
G4UGM
misconceptions and misinformation out there.
OK, my only comment to that is the stuff that says "Turing was THE
father of the computer, period, full stop."
Note the singular.
What about Charles Babbage and (Augusta) Ada Byron? How can you leave
them out?
How about John Antansaoff? From Wikip, to refresh your memory:
"John Vincent Atanasoff (October 4, 1903 ? June 15, 1995) was an American
physicist and inventor, best known for inventing the first electronic digital
computer."
--Chuck
10:24 a.m.
> > misconceptions and misinformation out
there.
> > OK, my only comment to that is the stuff that says "Turing was THE
> > father of the computer, period, full stop."
> > Note the singular.
> > What about Charles Babbage and (Augusta) Ada Byron? How can you leave
> > them out?
> How about John Antansaoff? From Wikip, to refresh your memory:
Or Zuse?
Paternity will always remain disputed.
Since we can't even ever fully agree on the meanings of "COMPUTER",
or even "FIRST", eventually it will end up as arguments about whether
it was Bill Gates or Steve Jobs.
And most writers don't care much about what was around before they
got into it. Most end up saying something on the order of, "Although
there were some predecessors, the first really USABLE computer . . . "
PC? (sometimes acknowledging the prior existence of CP/M)
PC/AT? (acknowledging existence of PC)
Mac? (acknowledging existence of Apple][+)
And truth and accuracy will always get short shrift.
The schools still teach that Columbus heroically discovered America
in order to prove that the earth is round, ignoring Leif, and asian
immigrants (who were there to greet Columbus and whom he said would
make a good source of slaves)
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at xenosoft.com
10:30 a.m.
On 02/10/2015 09:56 AM, Dave G4UGM wrote:
Just because Turing didn't build a computer doesn't mean he wasn't
the father of computing. The work he did defined both what a computer
is, and allowed us to divide problems into those which can be solved
on a computer, and those where the computer can guess the answer
enough times that it will eventually get it right.
The point is that a lot of people were responsible for the development
of mechanical computation (I include electrical and electronic in this
definition).
Turing didn't invent computation any more than Edison invented the
incandescent lamp or Shockley et al invented the transistor.
In fact, it could be argued that the ball-and-disc integrator was more
responsible for the eventual Allied victory in WWII than Turing's work was.
The problem is that history is written by the victors and worse, the
historians, each with his own particular agenda--and that nothing
happens in a vacuum.
Let's just say that conditions were ripe for the technological advance
in computation.
--Chuck
6:28 p.m.
On 02/10/2015 05:27 PM, William Donzelli wrote:
Certainly the case. Where would the west have been without the First
Ukrainian Front?
WWII was big enough that everyone had bragging rights.
--Chuck
In fact, it
could be argued that the ball-and-disc integrator was more
responsible for the eventual Allied victory in WWII than Turing's work was.
The real reason for Allied victory was that we had more Russians then they had.
8:34 p.m.
On 02/10/2015 08:28 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
WWII was big enough that everyone had bragging rights.
Another really great story is the X gerat, (X equipment in
English) that sent narrow,
high frequency radio beams over England. the bombers
followed the beams to
their targets. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Beams
Very interesting stuff.
Jon
7:57 p.m.
On 02/10/2015 11:56 AM, Dave G4UGM wrote:
Just because Turing didn't build a computer
doesn't mean
he wasn't the father of computing. The work he did defined
both what a computer is, and allowed us to divide problems
into those which can be solved on a computer, and those
where the computer can guess the answer enough times that
it will eventually get it right. Dave Wade G4UGM
OH, I don't mean to take away
from the large contributions
Turing made!
He contributed some REAL fundamental understanding of what
you needed
to have to make a computer useful and flexible. I was just
bugged by
some places that claim he is the SINGULAR father, period.
That is
clearly false, a LOT of other incredible people contributed
a lot of
really great ideas.
And, Alan Turing is credited with the design of the ACE,
which was built and run before
he died.
Jon
11:49 a.m.
On 2015-02-10 18:42, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 02/10/2015 09:23 AM, Jon Elson wrote:
And once more noone mentions Konrad Zuse, which in my mind beat them all
(well, Babbage excepted). :-)
Johnny
misconceptions and misinformation out there.
OK, my only comment to that is the stuff that says "Turing was THE
father of the computer, period, full stop."
Note the singular.
What about Charles Babbage and (Augusta) Ada Byron? How can you leave
them out?
How about John Antansaoff? From Wikip, to refresh your memory:
"John Vincent Atanasoff (October 4, 1903 ? June 15, 1995) was an
American physicist and inventor, best known for inventing the first
electronic digital computer."
12:05 p.m.
So what's special about "electronic" computers?
Isn't this just a mere technological refinement? Logic gates can be
electrical, electronic, pneumatic, hydraulic and photonic--and probably
a few technologies that I haven't thought of.
In the game of firsts, where does Torres y Quevedo's "El Ajedrecista"
fit in? It would seem to have memory and perform actions based on inputs.
--Chuck
8:12 p.m.
On 02/10/2015 01:49 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
And once more noone mentions Konrad Zuse, which in my mind
beat them all (well, Babbage excepted). :-)
Johnny
But, Zuse was another consigned to the dark history, hardly
ANYBODY knew
about what he had done, although it turns out it was QUITE
considerable!
Jon
11 Feb
11 Feb
12:48 a.m.
On 2015-02-11 05:12, Jon Elson wrote:
On 02/10/2015 01:49 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote:
That's the problem of being on the loosing side in a war. :-)
Johnny
And once more noone mentions Konrad Zuse, which in my mind beat them
all (well, Babbage excepted). :-)
Johnny
But, Zuse was another consigned to the dark history, hardly ANYBODY knew
about what he had done, although it turns out it was QUITE considerable!
10 Feb
10 Feb
7:52 p.m.
On 02/10/2015 11:42 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 02/10/2015 09:23 AM, Jon Elson wrote:
Atanasoff and Berry did a GREAT job, but it wasn't actually
a "computer" by
the Turing definition. It took instructions from cards and
executed them as
they were read on the card reader. I think it may have had
some ability
to suppress instructions on some condition, but couldn't
actually do a branch.
Then, after completing the calculation the built it for, the
university junked it and
all that was left were some drawings in a few binders. They
published NOTHING
about the machine itself, and it was largely unknown for
DECADES!
They probably could have advanced some areas of computing if
they had
published the technical details of their machine. It was
pretty obvious that
if they had actually needed a stored program computer with
branching
ability, they were sharp enough they could have built such a
machine, but they
just didn't need it for the class of equations they were
solving.
So, as far as I'm concerned, Atanasoff and Berry are a VERY
interesting footnote
in early computing, but didn't actually contribute directly
to the development
of computers. Atanasoff sure upset some people when he
testified in
the Honeywell vs. Sperry Rand suit.
Now, my freshman adviser at Washington University was
William Papian,
the grad student who worked with Jay Forrester on coincident
current
core memory! Wow, talk about something that REALLY affected the
development of computers!
Jon
misconceptions and misinformation out there.
OK, my only comment to that is the stuff that says
"Turing was THE
father of the computer, period, full stop."
Note the singular.
What about Charles Babbage and (Augusta) Ada Byron? How
can you leave
them out?
How about John Antansaoff? From Wikip, to refresh your
memory:
8:22 p.m.
On 02/10/2015 07:52 PM, Jon Elson wrote:
Now, my freshman adviser at Washington University was
William Papian,
the grad student who worked with Jay Forrester on coincident current
core memory! Wow, talk about something that REALLY affected the
development of computers!
Any more so, than, say, William Gardner Pfann?
The point is that I believe that inventions have their "time", wherein a
bunch of seemingly unrelated discoveries come to incubate a great leap
forward in knowledge.
Which is why Galileo didn't invent television or stored-program computers.
--Chuck
9:56 p.m.
On 02/10/2015 10:22 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 02/10/2015 07:52 PM, Jon Elson wrote:
Well, I think his inventions came
just a bit later, and sure
made their mark on
ALL areas of electronics, not just computers.
Now, my freshman adviser at Washington University
was
William Papian,
the grad student who worked with Jay Forrester on
coincident current
core memory! Wow, talk about something that REALLY
affected the
development of computers!
Any more so, than, say, William Gardner Pfann?
The point is that I believe that inventions have their
"time", wherein a bunch of seemingly unrelated discoveries
come to incubate a great leap forward in knowledge.
Oh, absolutely! There was a lot of work on using ferrite
rings as storage
and logic elements at that time, but Forrester and Papian really
extended what had been done before, and the coincident current
scheme was really ELEGANT and made large arrays of fast memory
practical. The bigger you built the array, the more memory
you got
with small increments in the number of drivers.
But, yes, if they hadn't invented it, somebody else would
have had the
same idea within a relatively short time, I'll bet.
Jon
10:38 p.m.
On 02/10/2015 09:56 PM, Jon Elson wrote:
Oh, absolutely! There was a lot of work on using
ferrite rings as storage
and logic elements at that time, but Forrester and Papian really
extended what had been done before, and the coincident current
scheme was really ELEGANT and made large arrays of fast memory
practical. The bigger you built the array, the more memory you got
with small increments in the number of drivers.
Didn't coincident-current relays come before that (as used, for example,
in telephone switching equipment)? So the basic idea was there.
I've always been fascinated by magnetic core logic; both using "hard"
magnetics (e.g. Univac SS) and "soft" (e.g. Parametrons). I wonder if
magnetic core for memory hadn't been developed, would we have developed
electrostatic or some other technology to the same density?
Would we have developed ultra-fast recirculating memory?
--Chuck
11:24 p.m.
Would we have developed ultra-fast recirculating
memory?
Now there's an idea (has it been tried?); the
equivalent of an acoustic delay line memory using
fiber optics...
m
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com>
To: <General at classiccmp.org>;
"Discussion at classiccmp.org:On-Topic and Off-Topic
Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2015 1:38 AM
Subject: Re: imitation game movie
> On 02/10/2015 09:56 PM, Jon Elson wrote:
>
>> Oh, absolutely! There was a lot of work on
>> using ferrite rings as storage
>> and logic elements at that time, but Forrester
>> and Papian really
>> extended what had been done before, and the
>> coincident current
>> scheme was really ELEGANT and made large arrays
>> of fast memory
>> practical. The bigger you built the array, the
>> more memory you got
>> with small increments in the number of drivers.
>
> Didn't coincident-current relays come before
> that (as used, for example, in telephone
> switching equipment)? So the basic idea was
> there.
>
> I've always been fascinated by magnetic core
> logic; both using "hard" magnetics (e.g. Univac
> SS) and "soft" (e.g. Parametrons). I wonder if
> magnetic core for memory hadn't been developed,
> would we have developed electrostatic or some
> other technology to the same density?
>
Would we have developed ultra-fast recirculating
memory?
>
> --Chuck
>
>
11 Feb
11 Feb
7:11 a.m.
Delay Lines have been used as storage in a number of UK designed computers..
Whilst not "Ultra Fast" the Ferranti Pegasus used delay lines as main store.
There is a (not very good) picture of the board here:-
http://www.ourcomputerheritage.org/F3%20Pegasus%20nickel%20delay%20line.htm
If I remember properly the Pegasus ran at 333Khz and was clocked off the drum, to ensure
everything synced with the drum. Being a serial machine this was ideal storage...
The ESDAC at Cambridge used mercury delay lines which were faster but reputedly less
reliable......
... more recently (but still a long time ago in Computing) Manchester Universities MU5
used a plated wire store system, which was "fast"
http://www.cs.manchester.ac.uk/about-us/history/mu5/
and scroll down to "Instruction Accessing". I remember been shown this towards
the end of MU5's life...
.. so we did develop fast, if not "ultra fast" re-circulating memory....
.. its just it was more expensive than core and more expensive that DRAM...
Dave Wade
G4UGM
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk [mailto:cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Mike Stein
Sent: 11 February 2015 07:24
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: imitation game movie
Would we have developed ultra-fast recirculating
memory?
Now there's an idea (has it been tried?); the equivalent of an acoustic delay
line memory using fiber optics...
m
----- Original Message -----
From: "Chuck Guzis" <cclist at sydex.com>
To: <General at classiccmp.org>;
"Discussion at classiccmp.org:On-Topic and Off-Topic
Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, February 11, 2015 1:38 AM
Subject: Re: imitation game movie
> On 02/10/2015 09:56 PM, Jon Elson wrote:
>
>> Oh, absolutely! There was a lot of work on
>> using ferrite rings as storage
>> and logic elements at that time, but Forrester
>> and Papian really
>> extended what had been done before, and the
>> coincident current
>> scheme was really ELEGANT and made large arrays
>> of fast memory
>> practical. The bigger you built the array, the
>> more memory you got
>> with small increments in the number of drivers.
>
> Didn't coincident-current relays come before
> that (as used, for example, in telephone
> switching equipment)? So the basic idea was
> there.
>
> I've always been fascinated by magnetic core
> logic; both using "hard" magnetics (e.g. Univac
> SS) and "soft" (e.g. Parametrons). I wonder if
> magnetic core for memory hadn't been developed,
> would we have developed electrostatic or some
> other technology to the same density?
>
> Would we have developed ultra-fast recirculating
> memory?
>
> --Chuck
>
>
10:54 a.m.
On 02/11/2015 01:24 AM, Mike Stein wrote:
Way back in the dark days (1976 or so) I cloned a Beehive
CRT terminal.
It used silicon bucket brigade memory (CCD). they had a 9V
two-phase
clock, and just a bunch of charge storage spots and the clock
pulses peristaltically shifted the charge packets down the line.
This was VERY much like earlier terminal designs that used
wiresonic
delay lines.
Jon
Would we have
developed ultra-fast recirculating memory?
Now there's an idea (has it been tried?); the equivalent
of an acoustic delay line memory using fiber optics...
11:22 a.m.
On 02/11/2015 10:54 AM, Jon Elson wrote:
Way back in the dark days (1976 or so) I cloned a
Beehive CRT terminal.
It used silicon bucket brigade memory (CCD). they had a 9V two-phase
clock, and just a bunch of charge storage spots and the clock
pulses peristaltically shifted the charge packets down the line.
This was VERY much like earlier terminal designs that used wiresonic
delay lines.
That was the Super Bee, right? 8008 CPU, but I thought the memory was
MOS shift-register, not bucket-brigade (which I mostly associate with
analog applications, such as reverb effects).
I had one of those Beehives. Nice big heavy terminal with offline
page-edit capabilities.
--Chuck
5:47 p.m.
On 02/11/2015 01:22 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
That was the Super Bee, right? 8008 CPU, but I
thought
the memory was MOS shift-register, not bucket-brigade
(which I mostly associate with analog applications, such
as reverb effects).
No, this predated the super bee. No CPU at all, just about
75 TTL ICs, the clock
drivers and the bucket brigade chips. And, yes, some
versions of them were
capable of analog signals, and used to make reverbs.
Jon
8:50 p.m.
On 02/11/2015 05:47 PM, Jon Elson wrote:
On 02/11/2015 01:22 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Hmm, not familiar with that terminal. Was it like the IBM terminals
(2250 IIRC?) that used delay lines for video memory (i.e. the delay line
didn't drive a ROM character generator, but rather held the generated
characters)?
--Chuck
That was the Super Bee, right? 8008 CPU, but I
thought the memory was
MOS shift-register, not bucket-brigade (which I mostly associate with
analog applications, such as reverb effects).
No, this predated the super bee. No
CPU at all, just about 75 TTL ICs,
the clock
drivers and the bucket brigade chips. And, yes, some versions of them were
capable of analog signals, and used to make reverbs.
9:01 p.m.
Those would have been the IBM 2260 terminals, but they were beyond
dumb - they were retarded. Each 2260 was more or less just a video
monitor and a keyboard encoder. The brains were all in the 2848
control unit, which had mercury delay lines to service a number of
2260s (maybe up to 16 I think?).
The bad news is that if you ever find a 2260, it will just be another
chrome doughnut in your collection, being useless without a 2848,
which likely just do not exist anymore.
--
Will
On Wed, Feb 11, 2015 at 11:50 PM, Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 02/11/2015 05:47 PM, Jon Elson wrote:
On 02/11/2015 01:22 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Hmm, not familiar with that terminal. Was it like the IBM terminals (2250
IIRC?) that used delay lines for video memory (i.e. the delay line didn't
drive a ROM character generator, but rather held the generated characters)?
--Chuck
That was the Super Bee, right? 8008 CPU, but I thought the memory was
MOS shift-register, not bucket-brigade (which I mostly associate with
analog applications, such as reverb effects).
No, this predated the super bee. No CPU at all, just about 75 TTL ICs,
the clock
drivers and the bucket brigade chips. And, yes, some versions of them
were
capable of analog signals, and used to make reverbs.
9:37 p.m.
On 02/11/2015 10:50 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 02/11/2015 05:47 PM, Jon Elson wrote:
No, the 2250 had all the "smarts" in the computer room, and
sent video down a wire to the
terminal. The terminal had a cheap Zenith TV set in the
housing, the tuner was still there,
as it was needed to complete the line-voltage heater string
which had to add up to 120
V.
The original Beehive was a classic dumb serial terminal. I
think it had no screen addressing, just
scrolled text with line feed, CR and tab. The ASCII
character codes were held in the
serial memory, and the char gen ROM was fast enough to
convert on the fly, I think.
I should still have the drawings around here somewhere.
Jon
On 02/11/2015 01:22 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Hmm, not familiar with that terminal. Was it like the IBM
terminals (2250 IIRC?) that used delay lines for video
memory (i.e. the delay line didn't drive a ROM character
generator, but rather held the generated characters)?
That was the Super Bee, right? 8008 CPU, but I
thought
the memory was
MOS shift-register, not bucket-brigade (which I mostly
associate with
analog applications, such as reverb effects).
No, this predated the super bee. No
CPU at all, just
about 75 TTL ICs,
the clock
drivers and the bucket brigade chips. And, yes, some
versions of them were
capable of analog signals, and used to make reverbs.
10:51 a.m.
On 02/11/2015 12:38 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 02/10/2015 09:56 PM, Jon Elson wrote:
I'm sure not aware of that. #2 ESS uses ferreed switching
elements, but it was WAY after
core memory was developed. The original core design was
done somewhere around
1948 - 1950, I can't find an exact reference. I'm unaware
of any similar, entirely
electrical/magnetic latching scheme used in telephony that
predates that. Western
Electric crossbar was quite mechanical although it did use a
matrix scheme to
select crossbar contacts to opened or closed.
Oh, absolutely! There was a lot of work on using
ferrite
rings as storage
and logic elements at that time, but Forrester and Papian
really
extended what had been done before, and the coincident
current
scheme was really ELEGANT and made large arrays of fast
memory
practical. The bigger you built the array, the more
memory you got
with small increments in the number of drivers.
Didn't coincident-current relays come before that (as
used, for example, in telephone switching equipment)? So
the basic idea was there.
I've always been fascinated by magnetic core
logic; both
using "hard" magnetics (e.g. Univac SS) and "soft" (e.g.
Parametrons). I wonder if magnetic core for memory hadn't
been developed, would we have developed electrostatic or
some other technology to the same density?
Would we have developed ultra-fast recirculating memory?
I'm sure memory technology could have gone a number of
different ways. i don't
think classic core memory could NOT have been developed, it
is too marvelous
for people to have missed the concept for much longer.
There were some other schemes, twistor and plated wire
memory, and biax memory.
Some of these were non-volatile, which was an advantage to
the military. But,
one of those technologies could have become dominant, instead.
I never understood why bubble memory didn't continue to
progress. Vertical
Bloch line memory might have eventually developed to the
capacity of
modern flash memories, and probably not had the wear-out
problem.
They never would have reached the read performance of flash,
but might
have kept up with the write performance.
Hmmm, flash memory IS really electrostatic. And, a lot
better than anything
like Williams tubes. I guess old-style DRAM was basically a
silicon implementation
of a Williams tube!
Jon
11:20 a.m.
On 02/11/2015 10:51 AM, Jon Elson wrote:
I never understood why bubble memory didn't
continue to progress. Vertical
Bloch line memory might have eventually developed to the capacity of
modern flash memories, and probably not had the wear-out problem.
They never would have reached the read performance of flash, but might
have kept up with the write performance.
Bulky, power-hungry and expensive, mostly--and slow random-access, as it
was recirculating.
On the other hand, the only thing that seems to be holding MRAM and FRAM
back is density. TI is aggressively marketing MSP430 MCUs with embedded
FRAM.
--Chuck
5:41 p.m.
On 02/11/2015 01:20 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 02/11/2015 10:51 AM, Jon Elson wrote:
Well, the original ones were as you say, but there was a lot
of work going on to make
massive improvements. Yes, you sure would not want to use
them as main CPU
memory. But, as a solid state disk replacement, as flash
memory sticks are used
today, they might have significant advantages.
I never understood why bubble memory didn't
continue to
progress. Vertical
Bloch line memory might have eventually developed to the
capacity of
modern flash memories, and probably not had the wear-out
problem.
They never would have reached the read performance of
flash, but might
have kept up with the write performance.
Bulky, power-hungry and expensive, mostly--and slow
random-access, as it was recirculating.
On the other hand, the only thing that seems to be
holding
MRAM and FRAM back is density. TI is aggressively
marketing MSP430 MCUs with embedded FRAM.
Yes, the FRAM looks very interesting, they are just starting
about 20 years behind
other technologies. But, they may catch up.
Jon
9:05 p.m.
On 02/11/2015 05:41 PM, Jon Elson wrote:
On 02/11/2015 01:20 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
I don't think so--density was a problem with bubble memories as with
FRAM. I suspect that the geometry needed to hold a charge can simply be
smaller and easier to fabricate.
Of course, magnetic recirculating memory is still with us (as disks),
but I think the sunset is not too far off.
--Chuck
On 02/11/2015 10:51 AM, Jon Elson wrote:
Well, the original ones were as you say, but there was a lot of work
going on to make
massive improvements. Yes, you sure would not want to use them as main CPU
memory. But, as a solid state disk replacement, as flash memory sticks
are used
today, they might have significant advantages.
I never understood why bubble memory didn't
continue to progress.
Vertical
Bloch line memory might have eventually developed to the capacity of
modern flash memories, and probably not had the wear-out problem.
They never would have reached the read performance of flash, but might
have kept up with the write performance.
Bulky, power-hungry and expensive, mostly--and slow random-access, as
it was recirculating.
On the other hand, the only thing that seems to
be holding MRAM and
FRAM back is density. TI is aggressively marketing MSP430 MCUs with
embedded FRAM.
Yes, the FRAM looks very interesting, they are just starting about 20
years behind
other technologies. But, they may catch up.
9:44 p.m.
On 02/11/2015 11:05 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 02/11/2015 05:41 PM, Jon Elson wrote:
Look up vertical Bloch line memories. I think he was at
IBM, and did some amazing
stuff in the area of planar magnetic memory technology.
They were just touching
the surface of what could probably be done in making them
smaller, and applying
IC fabrication techniques to the magnetic memories. I think
the magnetic drive
lines could also be integrated onto the chip, reducing the
inductance and power
required. Anyway, Bloch had developed some stuff that could
have advanced
WAY beyond the original bubble memories.
Jon
Well, the original ones were as you say, but
there was a
lot of work
going on to make
massive improvements.
I don't think so--density was a problem with bubble
memories as with FRAM. I suspect that the geometry needed
to hold a charge can simply be smaller and easier to
fabricate.
11 a.m.
On 02/10/2015 11:23 AM, Jon Elson wrote:
OK, my only comment to that is the stuff that says
"Turing
was THE father of the computer, period, full stop."
Note the singular.
OK, I'd like to clarify my position on this, after a little
contemplation.
I was objecting to Turing as THE father of the "computer".
If somebody wants to state Turing was the father of
"computer science",
I'd have a hard time arguing with that one!
Jon
10 Feb
10 Feb
7:29 a.m.
On 10/02/2015 05:21, Jon Elson wrote:
There certainly were some real howlers in there, like
the bit where Turing
single handedly decides what info they would share with the British
government, so as not to alert the Nazis that the Enigma code was
broken!
I've not seen it but there's been a lot of criticism about historical
(in)accuracy.
Also, there is only one instance of the Bombe, while
it is pretty well
known they had a set of 350 of them at Ft. Meade running 24 hours
a day. And those were the NCR Bombes, running at 1800 RPM, insted
of the one in the movie going clunk-clunk-clunk. Some other papers
seem to indicate there were another 350 Bombes at Bletchley.
I'm not an expert, but I think you're a bit wide of the mark in places.
You're evidently referring to the US Navy bombes. Although the
original contract was apparently for 350, only 121 were ever built,
including prototypes, and they were used at the US Navy Communications
Annex in Washington, not Ft Meade. The US Army also had a small number
of bombes built closer to a British design. And the reproduction at
Bletchley doesn't run at the full speed of the later British ones,
although it's true the US Navy Bombe was a good deal faster (850rpm or
1725rpm vs 120rpm; various sources suggest between 5 and 10 times faster
in practice).
Bletchley itself had only a small number of bombes. Most of the 224
built in Britain were housed at outstations.
Because I've not seen the film, I don't know what the
"clunk-clunk-clunk" you refer to is, but I've seen and heard the bombe
running and I would bet it's the sound of the middle wheels advancing,
roughly once a second on the replica, but faster on most of the British
bombes.
It only makes sense for there to be a big array of NCR
Bombes, not
the slow British-built ones, but
with all the ships being sunk, how could they be sure such a shipment
could make it across the Atlantic?
They didn't. No bombes were ever shipped across the Atlantic. Only
design drawings and information were, in the care of officers from the
US Army and Navy in 1941, and later two USN and some senior Bletchley
staff in 1942. The US Navy bombe was an adaptation of the British
design from the latter exchange, and went into service in 1943. Britain
had been using their bombes for several years by then, of course.
Bletchley apparently did use USN bombes, but not directly. They did it
by sending cribs and getting the stops and settings back over encrypted
cable, to be used for decryption of 4-rotor Naval Enigma messages at
Bletchley Park.
Also, they have Turing building the Bombe with his own
hands. Various
descriptions have hundreds of people at Bletchley wiring the rotors and
doing much of the other work. The Bombe parts must have been made
in machine shops across England.
All made by the British Tabulating Machine Company (BTM), though they
subcontracted some parts.
--
Pete
--
Pete
Pete Turnbull
9:37 a.m.
On 02/10/2015 09:29 AM, Pete Turnbull wrote:
Yes, this is as I suspected, due to the difficulty of
sending anything across the Atlantic, and the
EXTREME sensitivity of the project. They actually did a LOT
better at keeping this one
secret than they did with the Manhattan project.
Jon
I'm not an expert, but I think you're a bit wide of the
mark in places. You're evidently referring to the US Navy
bombes. Although the original contract was apparently for
350, only 121 were ever built, including prototypes, and
they were used at the US Navy Communications Annex in
Washington, not Ft Meade. The US Army also had a small
number of bombes built closer to a British design. And
the reproduction at Bletchley doesn't run at the full
speed of the later British ones, although it's true the US
Navy Bombe was a good deal faster (850rpm or 1725rpm vs
120rpm; various sources suggest between 5 and 10 times
faster in practice).
There is a 7-part article about the building of the NCR
Bombes that I read. It was written largely
by Joe Desch's daughter. He was the main designer and
project leader of the NCR Bombe.
It is an interesting story, but I have failed to find the
link again in a quick look. Possibly the 350 number
was the number originally ordered, and she found this number
in documents, but didn't
know that the production was cut short as the machines were
so successful.
Bletchley itself had only a small number of bombes. Most
of the 224 built in Britain were housed at outstations.
Because I've not seen the film, I don't know what the
"clunk-clunk-clunk" you refer to is, but I've seen and
heard the bombe running and I would bet it's the sound of
the middle wheels advancing, roughly once a second on the
replica, but faster on most of the British bombes.
Yes, exactly.
It only makes sense for there to be a big array
of NCR
Bombes, not
the slow British-built ones, but
with all the ships being sunk, how could they be sure
such a shipment
could make it across the Atlantic?
They didn't. No bombes were ever shipped across the
Atlantic. Only design drawings and information were, in
the care of officers from the US Army and Navy in 1941,
and later two USN and some senior Bletchley staff in
1942. The US Navy bombe was an adaptation of the British
design from the latter exchange, and went into service in
1943. Britain had been using their bombes for several
years by then, of course.
Bletchley apparently did use USN bombes, but not
directly. They did it by sending cribs and getting the
stops and settings back over encrypted cable, to be used
for decryption of 4-rotor Naval Enigma messages at
Bletchley Park.
10:20 a.m.
On 10/02/2015 17:37, Jon Elson wrote:
On 02/10/2015 09:29 AM, Pete Turnbull wrote: There is
a 7-part
article about the building of the NCR Bombes that I read. It was
written largely by Joe Desch's daughter. He was the main designer
and project leader of the NCR Bombe. It is an interesting story, but
I have failed to find the link again in a quick look. Possibly the
350 number was the number originally ordered, and she found this
number in documents, but didn't know that the production was cut
short as the machines were so successful.
It's well documented. Production initially stopped at 96, but then the
British asked the US to make 50 more specifically to work on the Naval
Enigma, but by the time 25 more were built and in service, there was no
need for more.
--
Pete
5:55 p.m.
I do not know much at all about the intricacies of British military
contracting, but for the US stuff...
It's well documented. Production initially
stopped at 96, but then the
British asked the US to make 50 more specifically to work on the Naval
Enigma, but by the time 25 more were built and in service, there was no
need for more.
NEVER trust government contract or production documentation 100
percent. Maybe not even 50 percent. And I mean the primary source
documentation!
I do not mean some sort of conspiracy cover up nonsense (although with
sensitive stuff like crypto, one has to wonder), but just the super
chaotic nature of the era.
During the war, contracts were very often hastily written, sometimes
after the production started, were often extremely vague. Contracts
were routinely breached (but in a good way, but sometimes not) when
some general screamed for more gizmos made yesterday. Contracts were
also routinely extended and supplemented, so historians have to be
careful if they have the entire history of a contract, or just a
piece. They also need to know all the intricacies of the system,
knowing the difference of a contract and an order, and how the
accounting and serializing works, and then realizing that production
was often faster than the paper trail it made. Lots of things that are
not supposed to exist because of a cancelled project or contract did
see the light of day, and likewise, lots of things that supposedly
were made simply vanished. And then there are plain old typos. Many
more than you might expect!
I am not trying to beat you up or anything, just issuing a warning. I
have been a World War 2 era military radio and radar collector for
some 25 or so years (and now getting out of it - trade old radar stuff
for old computers? Ha!), and have seen just how fucked up it really
was. Never trust the numbers!
--
Will
11:04 a.m.
On 10/02/15 05:21, Jon Elson wrote:
Forgive me if I missed earlier discussion, but has
anybody seen the
Imitation Game movie, ostensibly about Alan Turing?
I did see it, and I think I
know a reasonable amount about the goings-on
at BP. It was the second museum I visited after moving to England in '94
(the first was the Science Museum!)
I thought it did a reasonable job of depicting what was done, but it may
have maintained the impression that he/they broke the code and then
sat back, rather than showing that they developed a system for doing
it every day, for every net, and that it required an on-going effort by
many others to keep the messages flowing.
There certainly were some real howlers in there, like the bit where
Turing
single handedly decides what info they would share with the British
government, so as not to alert the Nazis that the Enigma code was
broken!
He would have known of this problem of course, but this is just a way of
conveying it to the audience without introducing a whole new set of
characters. Denniston (the BP commander) probably got a bad rap, he
was a good administrator and I think he sought Turing out rather than
having him turn up randomly.
Also, there is only one instance of the Bombe, while it is pretty well
known they had a set of 350 of them at Ft. Meade running 24 hours
a day. <snip>
The whole industrial nature of the enterprise is something I
didn't realise
initially and doesn't really come across in the movie (Wikipedia says
9000 people peak at BP.) As has been said there were outstations with
the bombes - I expect the few at BP were for developing, experimenting
or verifying. I am surprised that BP itself wasn't more distributed, but
maybe it was and we don't really hear about it. Or maybe splitting key
people across shifts meant that even razing the site would only have
eliminated 1/3 of them.
Also, they have Turing building the Bombe with his own hands. Various
descriptions have hundreds of people at Bletchley wiring the rotors and
doing much of the other work. The Bombe parts must have been made
in machine shops across England.
I think he was reasonably "hands-on" but
yes, it was a mass-production
exercise once the concept was proven. Turing and co moved on to other
things such as improving the methods.
At the end of the movie, they sort of imply by a confusing flashback that
Turing tells the whole story of the code cracking work at Bletchley to
the police officer. It is well documented that he never revealed
anything
to anybody about what he did there.
I think that has to go down as a film device.
Without that you would have
needed narration or subtitles to explain what was going on. Maybe they
could have had something pop up at the end exonerating him from this.
Any comments?
Jon
If you're going to condense 5 years of military, academic and engineering
development into a movie then things are going to suffer. I think they did
a reasonably good job.
Lawrence
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