Me to..... a friend sent it to me I know nothing, but he's so good That , now I'm smarter than I was yesterday!

Same here.

I also! (As the great German mathematician, Hilbert put it, one cannot say that one fully understands what one is doing, until one is able to explain it to the man in the street.)

Same here! Mind-blowing!

really me too

Thanks for your story m8. A vow to non disclosure is a powerful thing hey.

I was using paper tape in 1986/7 as an off line self storage backup for data on my university machine as we had limited disk storage quota (and I had to delete some as I was running out of quota) There were also punched cards available - the bits of card punched out to make the holes are about the right size for model railway roof tiles (I collected a bag full for my brother).

Yes, I could also 'sight read' punched paper tape which was used for the Source Code for either compiler or assembler language code input. Usually the punched paper tape was a 7 bit ASCII code that was used by Teletype machines. Each line in the tape represented an ASCII character and the entire alphabet was a binary sequence starting with 'A' as 41h in Hexidecimal. In the machine shop there was another paper tape code that used a 7 bit ANSI code that was used for CNC machines and sheet metal drill and/or metal punch machines to cut patterns into sheet metal for front/rear panels of electronic controls. I also designed a code converter machine that would take in an ANSI and punch out ASCII code or vice versa read ASCII and punch ANSI code into the paper tape. We also punched mylar tape with a aluminum foil backing so that the tape could be used over and over for reproducing punch or drill patterns in sheet metal panels.

@@cigmorfil4101 we used punch cards at first year engineering in university in 1979. by 4th year it was terminals with a vax system. the pc had just come out as well.

if your mom could do why then should be be digging into phones which do not belong to you

Fascinating history, thanks very much. cheers from cloudy Vienna, Scott

Hello, you historie is interesting, but, only one question, why the allied, USA, prohibited make a replica?, and, Colossus, maybe, you Mr. father explain how power?, power logic, programs?, maybe cards whit holes?, thanks for your answer, one greetings from LATAM friend

@@marcosmark3007 It was the UK authorities that wanted to keep Colossus secret. Many countries' diplomatic and intelligence services continued to use cryptography equipment such as the Lorenz, Enigma and Geheimschreiber until quite recently, believing them to be completely secure. The UK intelligence was able to read the messages using the Colossus. There were some weaknesses in the German cryptography machines that gave opportunities to crack the code, for example some of them would never encode a letter as that same letter. Also in some cases the machines were not being used to apply as many stages of scrambling as they were capable of. These weaknesses could have been fixed if the users of the equipment had realised that the messages were being successfully intercepted. This is why the real secret was the fact that the UK intelligence was successfully intercepting the messages. The intercepted information was always paraphrased and also given a plausible but false cover story about how it had been obtained before being passed to government officials, so that if any information leaked it would not be a word-for-word reproduction of the intercepted message and so it would not be obvious how it was obtained. It would only have needed one politician to boast "we are reading the enemy's secret messages" to bring the whole interception operation crashing down.

There are now books and television programmes that explain the principles on which the Colossus works. It does not use punched cards; the intercepted message in Morse code or teleprinter code is put on an endless loop of punched paper tape that can be run through the photocell-based reader at 5000 characters per second (the reader, which my father worked on the development of, could read 10000 characters per second but the tape was too liable to break if run as fast as this). The subsequent processing was all electronic. The machine has a memory of a few hundred bits, implemented by thyratron valves (called tubes in the USA) which have the characteristic that once signalled into an electrically conducting state they continue to conduct until the current is externally interrupted. This characteristic is obtained by filling the valve with mercury vapour. Normal valves/tubes have a vacuum inside them.

​@@cedriclynch thanks for answer me, nice to meet you Mr., and i thing what the historie remenber every time to people how your father, that change the hitler crazy war, insane hitler, the manking are only one, but, maybe, the historie is for living, and people, genially people, coming to the this earth to do the good, should born in this dates, your father is one of this people, genially, again one greeting, bye

Konrad Zuse.

Many credit Herr Zuse with the invention of the stored programme computer

Hear, hear !!!

Same. If Chris Shore (the speaker) ever sees these comments…yes, I found this infinitely fascinating. It’s amazing that so many computers were “born” in the 40’s while the world was busy trying to destroy itself.

@@wiseguy8828 Absolutely. But there is a terrible flipside to that fact, often in history our biggest leaps in technology come from military intervention, the Apollo program being a prime example where the rockets were repurposed ICBM missiles. The desperation of war brings out the best in us...we're a funny old animal aren't we.

Yes. Yes. Yes. A piece of UKposts gold that made the last hour fly by. I wonder how many who've watched this had relatives there but never got to know?

Watch it again. It’s as fascinating as it was the first time.

I was so happy to read your comments, I also am 80 yo and began my computer career in about 1963. I worked on a machine made by Remington Rand, a UNIVAC SS80. I was fascinated by the technology and this set me up for a wonderful career in computing and telecom. I was hired by an American corp and came to the USA in 1970, where is worked on a variety of machine from IBM 360, Honeywell 200, 400 and 800s. Then I worked for HO ON THE MARVELOUS HP3000. Then I changed to the networking world and actually knew Dr. Robert Metcalfe the developer of ETHERNET. Then I worked for CISCO Systems who have become the giant of networking, I ended up working for several Silicon Valley startups in the 1990s. I had a wonderful and exciting career, but knew comparatively little about Colossus and the people at Bletchley.

There is a very interesting TV series called Bletchley Park, I think it was on Acorn Tv or BBC. It is well worth watching.

did you meet the true creator of digital computers Konrad Zuse?

The comment section is a pool of wonderful people meeting and exchanging old memories. Please share more, I love reading all about the great time and culture that era produced.

Chris Shore would be greatly moved by your comments.

He related all the most important issues, by most of the geniuses, and not just Turing.

It is the second time I have chosen to listen to it

Nice story - touching history!

To tit

😅Uy😅

There is a terrible black drop : Churchill gave an order all the Colossos not in use for secret work were to be broken up into hand sized pieces preventing the dissemination of the technology for non-military use. The piece you held represents a terrible waste of potential.

The lecturer would be warmed by your comment.

fuck the government and the official secrets act. Everyone who worked at bletchly park should've revealed their secrets before they died. Anyone still alive should also reveal any official secrets before they die.

yeah. wow. my hat goes off to flowers. life can be a bitch.

Him and Turing, both bloody heroes!

@@owenshebbeare2999 I would put Turing first...

Flowers came from what is now East London, but at the time leafy Essex, and as far as I am aware was pretty much self taught/self funded as an engineer.

@@FGZKlunk And son of a Bricklayer. So no influence to take up Electro-Mechanical Engineering either. The fruits of his mind were beyond value, and even beyond the machine he created. Think of the commercial value he might have earned, and was due to him.

I find it fascinating that so many people were sworn to secrecy and kept it! Unfortunately the historical intrigue in the algorithm development was in all intents lost forever to remain a mystery; but it shows how intense the danger was for people living at that time, that they willingly destroyed every record of what the had accomplished. Makes me wonder if the back engineering of alien craft are kept so secret today because of the same commitment to security as they had done there on the past! The funny thing is the old adage of the victors write the history dies not apply when they destroy the information that had made them ... Victorious!

I feel like the fact he would have been an upper working class 'technician' rather than an academic made him even easier to sweep under the carpet

Don’t forget Konrad Zuse, predates

@@markwilliamson9199 Most would also cite the Babbage difference engine as prior art, though unlike Konrad Zuse's devices, no difference engine was completed in Babbage's own lifetime. I would at a minimum cite automata such as Jaquet-Droz's The Writer from the late 1700s which not only significantly surpasses the proven minimum bound of Turing completeness as Wolfram's 2,3 postulate (proven in 2007), but would be what 1980s personal computer enthusiasts would refer to as a "word processor". It seems plausible that even earlier examples of mechanical computers exist (e.g. the Antikythera mechanism estimated to have been dated between 87B.C.E. and approximately 200B.C.E.) though much of what is known about them is lost to time.

My next pc build will be named in honor of Tommy flowers

MY GOD! you're applauding your own damned slavery. electronics, computers, digitization and technology have proven to be a total DISASTER for humanity! it has created a species completely addicted to and dependent on a police-state owned and operated by corporate elite that cares NOTHING about you. technology DOESN'T exist for our benefit but for the benefit of our oppressors. here's a question for you - since when did gangster profiteers and their technocrat lapdogs get to unilaterally decide - DICTATE - the direction of our species and our planet. did you vote for this police-state? a society that tracks, data-bases and spies on your every move? that enslaves you to OVERPRICED, undependable and vulnerable technology that not only knows and catalogues everything about you but also controls EVERY aspect of your life? i didn't vote it. but here it is PREVENTING me from functioning in my OWN society and locking me out for no other reason than because i don't possess the right police-state products! I DON'T WANT TO LIVE IN YOUR DAMNED DISGUSTING POLICE-STATE DYSTOPIA! I'M NOT THAT DAMNED STUPID! but unfortunately, because 90% of humanity is that stupid, i must SUFFER for their stupidity! and i'm damned sick of it! what the hell's wrong with you idiots?

so cool....

I met Tony Sale too.

people who know the ENTIRE history of computing where Konrad Zuse is criminally absent. RAF Captn Eric "Winkle" Brown, "they were at least a decade ahead of us".

@@markiobook8639 Konrad Zuse the who helped and was supported by the Nazi party?

modern neo nazis in the comments.. erm i mean "american conservatives"

In a world a geniusly clever people at Bletchley and the incredible things they pulled off, in terms of an academic achievement I believe that Tutt’s was probably the the most astounding of them all.

Agreed excellent but.. there are many out there who are hidden like Robert Sephre and or Atlantean Gardens on YT. Peswiki is a good site for inventors. Quality is king!

The weather forecast that 5th of June would be very stormy came from a light house on the west coast of Ireland. and apparently the light house keeper got a call from Britain, asking what the weather would be like over the next few days and he confirmed that the 6th of June would be fine. I actually met the grandson of the light house keeper and he confirmed this to me.

It really goes to show that a medal for work in a war is just a bit of metal on a ribbon. It doesn't mean that you have done something greater than others who never got medals but did far greater things than the medal winners.

-

There are a great many thing we'll never know about tucked away behind mountains of "classified". It's amazing what they managed to do with pencil and paper, and then wires and vacuum tubes. ("valves") Enigma is a very impressive device, even today, and it's basically a ball of wires. ('tho there's a bit of math behind how they're connected... plaintext never equals cyphertext, etc.)

Very well said. One little known fact--The British only informed the Germans about Bletchley , and Colossus, in the late 1970's, when West Germany joined Nato.

@@MrDaiseymay West Germany Joined NATO in 1955. Nobody outside of the people who knew about it during the war and after had any idea about it until 1976/77 when some documents about it were released on the 30 year rule.

Frankly, I'd rather have a bank holiday to celebrate the formation of the EU, which was, and remains, specifically designed to avoid a repeat of these events. Let's start celebrating peaceful, positive, things, rather than 'two world cups and one world war', please.

Yes , a man of sheer brilliance and overlooked by so many.

@@mazdaman1286 "a man of sheer brilliance and overlooked by so many." He was overlooked because his name was a state secret, at least in associated with Bletchley. There wasn't even a mention of him at Bletchley 25 years ago. So not really overlooked so much as hidden. It's wonderful having fantastic presentations on how great all the work was, it's appalling how badly the people who did the work were treated. Turing hounded to death, Flowers hidden, never credited with one of the most important electronics designs ever. Others hounded in the US for their traffic analysis knowledge. Let's not spin this as 'our finest hour'. It wasn't. It was *their* finest hour, and a tragedy for them all, too.

@@ohgosh5892 That is a completely different thing to celebrating Tommy Flowers. However, I do agree with you that that is indeed why the EU was formed (and before it, the Pan Europa movement).

Frank Whittle's Dad was a mechanic of working class origin. Tommy Flowers' Dad was a bricklayer of working class origin. Both changed the world.

Computerphile is the channel for you

There was a movie made in the early 70's called colossus!

@@mikeanderson1604 'Colossus: The Forbin Project' It was 60/70's science fiction, based on the books from 1966. Personally, I'd rather see 'Colossus: The Flowers Project' as a historical piece on what it took to put this Colossus together, the story leading up to it's design, and construction.

@@GaryMCurran I remember the film "The Forbin Project" quite a chilling message. I suspect inspiration for Skynet in the Terminator films.

That's cheeky! Well said, that man!!

Colossus: The Forbin Project was awesome! Highly recommend

Couldn't allow the Russians to know how ahead-of-the-curve the allied code breakers were. Some were probably employed throughout the Cold War.

@@someperson8151 both the US and GB were riddled with Soviet spies. Because many people in government actually sympathized with the socialist cause. In other words, the Soviet spy game was light years ahead of ours. I am sure that if they want to rebuild a perfect working copy of colossus the plans can be found in the Kremlin archives.

@@someperson8151 They were.

@@irondiver2034 The Soviet spies were definitely not light years ahead. Think how it all ended.

@@georgewalden1017 their spies were crap, but their ability to subvert Americans was masterful. Think of the Aldrich Aimes case. It wasn’t Soviet field craft, just good ole fashion greed.

Bruce Morgan I agree with you! Compulsory for all school children. Yes!

Children should be compelled to watch everything adults think is great. That way, they should have finished watching by the time they are about 500 years old...

@@ohgosh5892 lol Most children would watch tv for the next 500 years if they could anyway! Sadly, they grow up...

@@Stelios.Posantzis Haha! There is that.

@@poetryflynn3712 "I think it's silly there's the need to dumb down things for children " The Daily Mail crowd have created a truly sentimental attitude to 'children'. As a 12/13 year old, I knew what an XOR was, what Boolean algebra was, and for that matter, what an 807 was, too, and an OC45 and a BC109... Most children are not like that.

I know about colossus for very long time I knew it was used in cracking marine enigma for few years already check computerphile video on subject (they have quite few maybe even two digit number)

@@WizardNumberNext Thanks for the Tip! Here is one for you Biometricupdate.com for an inside view of what is coming next and the companies who will make billions from these techs!

Funny, I was going to be a crypto guy who was asked to work on flight simulators instead. Career wise, the worst decision of my life, but on a personal and family level, the absolute best decision I ever made. My family, as it is now, sisters and their husbands and families, brother and his family, stepfather,, all exist because of that decision. Has nothing to do with this video, only your comment. LOL

Totally baffled what a “Manking” is or what it means to be “untited.” Plz splain.

The Wrens used the rooms containing the Collossi as clothes driers in wet weather..... ('Colossus', Jack Copeland, Oxford Press)

Worked on old IBM unit record equipment 45 years ago, those vacuum tubes do kick up some heat.

and back then americans actually understood the need for opposition to fascism. nowadays they literally throw antifascists in jail

We brits owe a great debt to the poles who did the initial work and got it to england before the war.

I thought it was the Polish Resistance, who smuggled parts - or even a complete machine - to England for stripdown and analysis. not Polish scientists. Dd I remember that wrongly?

@@somebodyelseful polish intelligence made progress on breaking enigma before germany invaded. I think there is a vid on the mark felton yt channel on the subject.

@@somebodyelseful they have created a replica of enigma: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Enigma_double Plus the first decrypting bomb machine was build before the war in Warsaw. Later the whole centre with many bomb machines was setup. A small Bletchley Park en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomba_(cryptography)

@@ReadyToDanceAcademy Met many very smart Polish people here in Canada and their vodka is way better than than most Russian varnish! And their food is tastier too!

Wish I could upvote that several times over!