What was name of the computer that the british used in WW2 ?

mibmob

You must mean Enigma. Mar 17 02, 6:09 PM

Barrow boy

No!! Enigma was the code word for the German encrypting machine. Under Project Ultra the British developed a computer that could crack the Enigma codes, but I haven't yet found the name of the computer. Mar 17 02, 7:06 PM

monkeycouzin

The machine that was used to crack the Enigma and other codes was called Colussus. It was developed by the Post Office at Dollis Hill. ref: Station X by Michael Smith Mar 17 02, 8:22 PM

Jimmy

Previous answer is definitely correct - there was an obituary in the Daily Telegraph a couple of years ago about the GPO engineer who ensured that everything went OK. By the way this is where the word 'bug' came from in computing! Mar 17 02, 11:28 PM

Gnomon

Colossus. Probably not where 'bug' came from, since the word bug is not used in England for insects in general. Mar 18 02, 4:11 PM

root17

A young telephone engineer at the Post Office Research Station in London named Tommy Flowers designed the electronic computer named Colossus. Colossus used 1,500 valves (vacuum tubes) and an optical paper tape reader operating at a read speed of 5,000 characters a second (which was about 30 miles an hour). It began operating five months before D-Day. Although all 10 Colossus computers and all the technical drawings and diagrams for them were ordered (by Winston Churchill) to be destroyed at the end of the war to prevent them from falling into the hands of the Russians during the Cold War, only eight of the 10 Colossus machines were destroyed immediately at the end of the war. The remaining two were moved to British secret service headquarters, where they may have played a significant part in the codebreaking operations during the Cold War. In 1960, the order finally came to destroy the last two Colossus machines. One has been rebuilt from photographs, memories of the former staff, and scraps of schematics (kept illegally!) and is currently located at Bletchley Park. To learn more about this rebuild, search for 'Tony Sale' Colossus. Nov 13 02, 4:38 PM

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