On the afternoon of Friday, June 21, the EIL students along with Profs.
Berry and Aaron visited Bletchley Park (north
of
London). Bletchley Park (BP) 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, 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. Our National Museum of Computing (NMC) guide
for the afternoon, Robert Dowell, did a fantastic job explaining both the
history and design of all the early cypher and computing machines. Before visiting Hut 8 and the Turing archives in BP, the students toured the Bletchley Park Mansion and then posed for a few group photos.
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