The National Museum Of Computing
The National Museum of Computing is a UK-based museum that is dedicated to collecting and restoring historic computer systems, and is home to the world's largest collection of working historic computers. The museum is located on Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire. It opened in 2007 in ''Block H'' – the first purpose-built computer centre in the world, having housed six of the ten Colossus computers that were in use at the end of World War II. As well as first generation computers including the original Harwell Dekatron computer – the world's oldest working digital computer – and Mainframe computers of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, the Museum houses an extensive collection of personal computers and a classroom full of BBC Micros. It is available for corporate, group, school, and individual visitors. Although located on the Bletchley Park 'campus', The National Museum of Computing is an entirely separate registered charity with its own admission fee. It receiv ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Museum Of Computing
The Museum of Computing in Swindon, England (formally The Museum of Computing @ Swindon) is dedicated to preserving and displaying examples of early computers. It was the first United Kingdom museum exclusively dedicated to the history of computing, and opened in February 2003. Aims The museum aims to preserve the history of computing, to be used as a valuable educational resource and as an information repository for historians, collectors and the media, and to illustrate this history in an entertaining way. Exhibits The museum includes working machines and interactive activities. The exhibitions have included the ''Pong to PlayStation'' exhibition. More than thirty computers were lent to Gordon Laing (journalist), Gordon Laing, a former editor of ''Personal Computer World'' magazine, in connection with the writing of his 2004 book ''Digital Retro''. Notable events The exhibition "''Calculators from the Abacus to the Microchip''", was launched by Sir Clive Sinclair in March 20 ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Duke Of Kent
Duke of Kent is a title that has been created several times in the peerages of Great Britain and the United Kingdom, most recently as a royal dukedom for the fourth son of King George V. Since 1942, the title has been held by Prince Edward (born 1935), a first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II. Earliest history A title associated with Kent first appears anciently with the Kingdom of Kent (or Cantware), one of the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms that later merged to form the Kingdom of England. The Kings of Cantware (or Kent) date back to about 449. After 825, when the Kingdom of Kent was taken over by Egbert, King of Wessex, Kent became a dependency of Wessex and was ruled by sub-kings, usually related to the Wessex rulers. The titular kingship became something like the heir-apparent's title, as Aethelwulf, Egbert's son, became King of Kent in 825. By 860, Kent lost its status as a kingdom, becoming absorbed into Wessex. Earls of Kent The first title of Kent was that of the E ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cryptanalysis Of The Lorenz Cipher
Cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher was the process that enabled the British to read high-level German army messages during World War II. The British Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park decrypted many communications between the ''Oberkommando der Wehrmacht'' (OKW, German High Command) in Berlin and their army commands throughout occupied Europe, some of which were signed "Adolf Hitler, Führer". These were intercepted non-Morse code, Morse radio transmissions that had been enciphered by the Lorenz cipher, Lorenz SZ teleprinter Rotor machine, rotor stream cipher attachments. Decrypts of this traffic became an important source of "Ultra (cryptography), Ultra" intelligence, which contributed significantly to Allied victory. For its high-level secret messages, the German armed services enciphered each Character (computing), character using various online ''Geheimschreiber'' (secret writer) stream cipher machines at both ends of a Electrical telegraph, telegraph ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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British Tabulating Machine Company
__NOTOC__ The British Tabulating Machine Company (BTM) was a firm which manufactured and sold Hollerith unit record equipment and other data-processing equipment. During World War II, BTM constructed some 200 "bombes", machines used at Bletchley Park to break the German Enigma machine ciphers. History The company was formed in 1902 as The Tabulator Limited, after Robert Porter obtained the rights to sell Herman Hollerith's patented machines from the US Tabulating Machine Company (later to become IBM). During 1907, the company was renamed the "British Tabulating Machine Company Limited". In 1920, the company moved from London to Letchworth, Hertfordshire; it was also at this point that it started manufacturing its own machines, rather than simply reselling Hollerith equipment. Annual revenues were £6K in 1915, £122K in 1925, and £170K in 1937. In 1916 there were 45 staff; this increased to 132 in 1922, 326 in 1929 and 1,225 in 1939. In return for the exclusive right to mark ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bombe
The bombe () was an Electromechanics, electro-mechanical device used by British cryptologists to help decipher German Enigma machine, Enigma-machine-encrypted secret messages during World War II. The United States Navy, US Navy and United States Army, US Army later produced their own machines to the same functional specification, albeit engineered differently both from each other and from Polish and British bombes. The British bombe was developed from a device known as the "Bomba (cryptography), bomba" (), which had been designed in Poland at the Biuro Szyfrów (Cipher Bureau) by cryptologist Marian Rejewski, who had been breaking German Enigma machine, Enigma messages for the previous seven years, using it and earlier machines. The initial design of the British bombe was produced in 1939 at the UK Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park by Alan Turing, with an important refinement devised in 1940 by Gordon Welchman. The engineering design and construction ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gordon Welchman
William Gordon Welchman OBE (15 June 1906 – 8 October 1985) was an English mathematician. During World War II, he worked at Britain's secret decryption centre at Bletchley Park, where he was one of the most important contributors. In 1948, after the war, he moved to the US and later worked on the design of military communications systems. Early life, education and career Gordon Welchman was born, the youngest of three children, at Fishponds in Bristol, to William Welchman (1866–1954) and Elizabeth Marshall Griffith. William was a Church of England priest who had been a missionary overseas before returning to England as a country vicar, eventually becoming archdeacon of Bristol. Elizabeth was the daughter of another priest, the Revd Edward Moule Griffith. Welchman was educated at Marlborough College and then studied mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1925 to 1928. In 1929, he became a Research Fellow in Mathematics at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He be ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Alan Turing
Alan Mathison Turing (; 23 June 1912 – 7 June 1954) was an English mathematician, computer scientist, logician, cryptanalyst, philosopher and theoretical biologist. He was highly influential in the development of theoretical computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of algorithm and computation with the Turing machine, which can be considered a model of a general-purpose computer. Turing is widely considered to be the father of theoretical computer science. Born in London, Turing was raised in southern England. He graduated from University of Cambridge, King's College, Cambridge, and in 1938, earned a doctorate degree from Princeton University. During World War II, Turing worked for the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, Britain's codebreaking centre that produced Ultra (cryptography), Ultra intelligence. He led Hut 8, the section responsible for German naval cryptanalysis. Turing devised techniques for speeding the breaking of Germ ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cryptanalysis Of The Enigma
Cryptanalysis of the Enigma ciphering system enabled the western Allies of World War II, Allies in World War II to read substantial amounts of Morse code, Morse-coded radio communications of the Axis powers that had been enciphered using Enigma machines. This yielded military intelligence which, along with that from other decrypted Axis radio and teleprinter transmissions, was given the codename ''Ultra (cryptography), Ultra''. The Enigma machines were a family of portable cipher machines with rotor machine, rotor scramblers. Good operating procedures, properly enforced, would have made the plugboard Enigma machine unbreakable to the Allies at that time. The German plugboard-equipped Enigma became the principal cryptography, crypto-system of the Third Reich, German Reich and later of other Axis powers. In December 1932 it was broken by mathematician Marian Rejewski at the Polish General Staff's Cipher Bureau (Poland), Cipher Bureau, using mathematical permutation group theory ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Enigma Machine
The Enigma machine is a cipher device developed and used in the early- to mid-20th century to protect commercial, diplomatic, and military communication. It was employed extensively by Nazi Germany during World War II, in all branches of the Wehrmacht, German military. The Enigma machine was considered so secure that it was used to encipher the most top-secret messages. The Enigma has an electromechanical Rotor machine, rotor mechanism that scrambles the 26 letters of the alphabet. In typical use, one person enters text on the Enigma's keyboard and another person writes down which of the 26 lights above the keyboard illuminated at each key press. If plaintext is entered, the illuminated letters are the ciphertext. Entering ciphertext transforms it back into readable plaintext. The rotor mechanism changes the electrical connections between the keys and the lights with each keypress. The security of the system depends on machine settings that were generally changed daily, based ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |