Chris_Malcolm
Dr Mark Baldwin's 4-rotor Enigma
This is one of the few working models of this famous machine in captivity. It belongs to Enigma expert Dr Mark Baldwin, who demonstrated it after his talk on 2008/03/12 at Napier University, Edinburgh.
It was the addition of the fourth rotor to the original 3-rotor Enigma which mutliplied the coding possibilities to such an extent that Alan Turing's electromechanical "bombs" were no longer up to the job of exploring encryption possibilities in order to decode the coded U-boat communications. The famous pioneering Colossus computer was required.
Unfortunately because of the role Colossus played in the war and military cryptography considerations of national security kept the details of this very important milestone in the history of computing a secret for thirty years, and the hobbling of Alan Turing's post-war computing career and his general harassment by the security services led to his suicide.
It was a great privilege for me, having spent over forty years working with computers, to be so close to such a historic machine. This was the best photograph I could snatch in limited time of this machine in a hurry in very crowded conditions. Although the popup autoflash seriously overexposed it (must remember to turn that down!), it's better than my previous one, taken through glass at an exhibition, although that one does also show the rotors and the front plugboard.
Original DSC05332
Dr Mark Baldwin's 4-rotor Enigma
This is one of the few working models of this famous machine in captivity. It belongs to Enigma expert Dr Mark Baldwin, who demonstrated it after his talk on 2008/03/12 at Napier University, Edinburgh.
It was the addition of the fourth rotor to the original 3-rotor Enigma which mutliplied the coding possibilities to such an extent that Alan Turing's electromechanical "bombs" were no longer up to the job of exploring encryption possibilities in order to decode the coded U-boat communications. The famous pioneering Colossus computer was required.
Unfortunately because of the role Colossus played in the war and military cryptography considerations of national security kept the details of this very important milestone in the history of computing a secret for thirty years, and the hobbling of Alan Turing's post-war computing career and his general harassment by the security services led to his suicide.
It was a great privilege for me, having spent over forty years working with computers, to be so close to such a historic machine. This was the best photograph I could snatch in limited time of this machine in a hurry in very crowded conditions. Although the popup autoflash seriously overexposed it (must remember to turn that down!), it's better than my previous one, taken through glass at an exhibition, although that one does also show the rotors and the front plugboard.
Original DSC05332