Chris_Malcolm
Enigma machine with rotors
Not the best of photos, an opportunistic shot at an unexpectedly privileged moment of being close to such a machine. It was being exhibited in the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh, and I happened to be passing (2005/08/15).
This was the machine which led Alan Turing and the other computing and encryption pioneers at Bletchley Park during WWII to develop the Colossus series of decryption computers. Had the British Govt not made all of that work a secret for diplomatic profit, and persecuted Alan Turing to his death because they didn't like him knowing all he did about that secret work and were determined to shut him out of learning any more, and instead had pursued the enlightened information sharing policies so ably pursued by von Neumann in the USA, the history of British computing might have been very different.
Von Neumann realised the damage that would be done to computing development if any commercial company was allowed to get its greedy selfish hands on patents and copyrights, so he very assiduously made everything as public as possible in order to encourage the contributions of all the best minds everywhere. The remarkable results are now part of the remarkable history of computers.
Alas, like most of the lessons of history, it was soon forgotten...
(A recent better photograph of what looks like the same machine can be found here.)
Enigma machine with rotors
Not the best of photos, an opportunistic shot at an unexpectedly privileged moment of being close to such a machine. It was being exhibited in the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh, and I happened to be passing (2005/08/15).
This was the machine which led Alan Turing and the other computing and encryption pioneers at Bletchley Park during WWII to develop the Colossus series of decryption computers. Had the British Govt not made all of that work a secret for diplomatic profit, and persecuted Alan Turing to his death because they didn't like him knowing all he did about that secret work and were determined to shut him out of learning any more, and instead had pursued the enlightened information sharing policies so ably pursued by von Neumann in the USA, the history of British computing might have been very different.
Von Neumann realised the damage that would be done to computing development if any commercial company was allowed to get its greedy selfish hands on patents and copyrights, so he very assiduously made everything as public as possible in order to encourage the contributions of all the best minds everywhere. The remarkable results are now part of the remarkable history of computers.
Alas, like most of the lessons of history, it was soon forgotten...
(A recent better photograph of what looks like the same machine can be found here.)