Bletchley Park

On a somewhat chilly Friday, July 1, the EIL students along with Profs. Berry and Aaron and Rohima Ahmed  from IES visited Bletchley Park (north of London). Bletchley Park is where Alan Turing and his colleagues in Hut 8 broke the (naval) Enigma code during World War II. The students witnessed demonstrations of working Enigma, Bombe, Tunny, Harwell Dekatron, and Colossus machines. The Colossus was the world's first electric digital computer that was programmable. The Colossus computers were developed to help in the cryptanalysis of the Hitler's Lorenz cipher.  Nicknamed WITCH for Wolverhampton Instrument for Teaching Computing from Harwell, the Harwell Dekatron at the National Museum of Computing (NMC) is considered the oldest electronic computer that is still operational. Our NMC guide for the morning, Robert Dowell, did a fantastic job explaining both the history and design of all the early cypher and computing machines.  The students utilized part of their lunch break to burn off some energy on the jungle gym equipment and with a game of ultimate frisbee near the Bletchley Park Mansion.