Copeland Jack. Colossus. The Secrets of Bletchley Park's Code-Breaking Computers

Oxford University Press, 2006. — 480 p. — (Popular Science ) — ISBN 978-0192840554, 019284055X.The American ENIAC is customarily regarded as having been the starting point of electronic computation. This book rewrites the history of computer science, arguing that in reality Colossus - the giant computer built by the British secret service during World War II - predates ENIAC by two years.Colossus was built during the Second World War at the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park. Until very recently, much about the Colossus machine was shrouded in secrecy, largely because the code-breaking algorithms that were employed during World War II remained in use by the British security services until a short time ago. In addition, the United States has recently declassified a considerable volume of wartime documents relating to Colossus. Jack Copeland has brought together memoirs of veterans of Bletchley Park - the top-secret headquarters of Britain's secret service - and others who draw on the wealth of declassified information to illuminate the crucial role Colossus played during World War II. Included here are pieces by the former WRENS who actually worked the machine, the scientist who pioneered the use of vacuum tubes in data processing, and leading authorities on code-breaking and computer science.A must read for anyone curious about code-breaking or World War II espionage, Colossus offers a fascinating insider's account of the world first giant computer, the great grandfather of the massive computers used today by the CIA and the National Security Agency.List of Photographs
Notes on the Contributors
Introduction
Bletchley park and the attack on Tunny
A Brief History of Cryptography from Caesar to Bletchley Park
How It Began: Bletchley Park Goes to War
The German Tunny Machine
Colossus, Codebreaking, and the Digital Age
Machine against Machine
D-Day at Bletchley Park
Intercept!
Colossus
Colossus
Colossus and the Rise of the Modern Computer
The PC-User's Guide to Colossus
Of Men and Machines
The Colossus Rebuild
The Newmanry
Mr Newman's Section
Max Newman — Mathematician, Codebreaker, and Computer Pioneer
Living with Fish: Breaking Tunny in the Newmanry and the Testery
From Hut 8 to the Newmanry
Codebreaking and Colossus
The Testery
Major Tester's Section
Setter and Breaker
An ATS Girl in the Testery
The Testery and the Breaking of Fish
T.H. flowers' laboratory at Dollis hill
Dollis Hill at War
The British Tunny Machine
How Colossus was Built and Operated — One of its Engineers Reveals its Secrets
Sturgeon, the fish that got away.
Bletchley Park's Sturgeon —The Fish That Laid No Eggs
German Teleprinter Traffic and Swedish Wartime Intelligence
Technical appendices — to dig deeper
Timeline: The Breaking of Tunny
The Teleprinter Alphabet
The Tunny Addition Square
My Work at Bletchley Park
The Tiltman Break
Turingery
Δχ-Method
Newman's Theorem
Rectangling
The Motor-Wheels and Limitations
Motorless Tunny
Origins of the Fish Cypher Machines
Notes and References
Sources of Photographs
Index