At last - the secrets of Bletchley Park's powerful codebreaking computers. This is a history of Colossus, the world's first fully-functioning electronic digital computer. Colossus was used during the Second World War at the Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park, where it played an invaluable role cracking enemy codes. Until very recently, much about the Colossus machine was shrouded in secrecy, largely because the codes that were employed remained in use by the British security services until a short time ago. This book only became possible due to the declassification in the US of wartime documents. With an introductory essay on cryptography and the history of code-breaking by Simon Singh, this book reveals the workings of Colossus and the extraordinary staff at Bletchley Park through personal accounts by those who lived and worked with the computer. Among them is the testimony of Thomas Flowers, who was the architect of Colossus and whose personal account, written shortly before he died, is published here for the first time. Other essays consider the historical importance of this remarkable machine, and its impact on the generations of computing technology that followed.
By:
B. Jack Copeland
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 233mm,
Width: 155mm,
Spine: 37mm
Weight: 620g
ISBN: 9780199578146
ISBN 10: 0199578141
Pages: 480
Publication Date: 18 June 2010
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
1: Simon Singh: A Brief History of Cryptography from Caesar to Bletchley Park 2: Michael Smith: How It Began: Bletchley Park Goes to War 3: Jack Copeland: The German Tunny Machine 4: Stephen Budiansky: Colossus, Codebreaking, and the Digital Age 5: Jack Copeland: Machine Against Machine 6: Thomas H. Flowers: D-Day at Bletchley Park 7: Jack Copeland: Intercept! 8: Thomas H. Flowers: Colossus 9: Jack Copeland: Colossus and the Rise of the Modern Computer 10: Benjamin Wells: The PC-User's Guide to Colossus 11: Brian Randell: Of Men and Machines 12: Tony Sale: The Colossus Rebuild 13: Jack Copeland, with Catherine Caughey, Dorothy Du Boisson, Eleanor Ireland, Ken Myers, and Norman Thurlow: Mr Newman's Section 14: William Newman: Max Newman-Mathematician, Codebreaker and Computer Pioneer 15: Peter Hilton: Living with Fish: Breaking Tunny in the Newmanry and the Testery 16: Jack Good: From Hut 8 to the Newmanry 17: Donald Michie: Codebreaking and Colossus 18: Jerry Roberts: Major Tester's Section 19: Roy Jenkins: Setter and Breaker 20: Helen Currie: An ATS Girl in the Testery 21: Peter Edgerley: The Testery and the Breaking of Fish 22: Jack Copeland, with David Bolam, Harry Fensom, Gil Hayward, and Norman Thurlow: Dollis Hill at War 23: Gil Hayward: The British Tunny Machine 24: Harry Fensom: How Colossus was Built and Operated-One of Its Engineers Reveals Its Secrets 25: Frode Weierud: Bletchley Park's Sturgeon-The Fish That Laid No Eggs 26: Craig McKay: Geheimschreiber Traffic and Swedish Wartime Intelligence A1: Timeline: The Breaking of Tunny A2: Jack Copeland: The Teleprinter Alphabet A3: Jack Copeland: The Tunny Addition Square A4: Bill Tutte: My Work at Bletchley Park A5: Friedrich Bauer: The Tiltman Break A6: Jack Copeland: Turingery A7: Max Newman: Dc-Method A8: Friedrich Bauer: Newman's Theorem A9: Frank Carter: Rectangling A10: Jack Good, Donald Michie, and Geoffrey Timms: The Motor Wheels and Limitations A11: Jack Good and Donald Michie: Motorless Tunny A12: Friedrich Bauer: Origin of the Fish Cypher Machines
Reviews for Colossus: The secrets of Bletchley Park's code-breaking computers
compelling compilation * New Scientist * formidably detailed * Guardian * An engaging book that will be essential reading for historians of twentieth-century technology and warfare. * Nature * Review from previous edition Copeland and other contributors have rightly done Flowers and the Tunny code-breakers proud Copeland's book is a masterpiece. * George Dyson, author of Turing's Cathedral *
