Colossus at 70
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- čas přidán 18. 03. 2014
- On 5 February 2014, TNMOC celebrated the 70th anniversary of Colossus, the world's first electronic computer. In 1944, Colossus Mk I made its first attack on a German Lorenz-enciphered message at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, UK. In 2014, Colossus veterans, their relatives and guests watched a re-enactment of the breaking of Lorenz from intercept to decrypt.
- Věda a technologie
We owe all the people in this video a huge debit of gratitude for all the hard work they put into decoding all the Nazis Lorenz-coded messages, WW II would not have been won by the Allies without this machine and the people who designed and operated it.
I like how he is holding a tablet while standing in front of it! It's like seeing young children standing by his great great great great great grandfather!
I have read online that at the end of WW2 Tommy was personally awarded £1000 by the UK government for his pioneering work on "COLOSSUS". This amount of money sadly did not cover the amount of money that he had already personally invested in the machine's construction, but inspite of that fact he was such a good & decent man that he divided the money up amongst the team who had helped him. In the end, he was left with around £350. This was a decent amount of money for 1945 but not a huge amount for the man credited with inventing the electronic programmable computer, and the saving of countless thousands of lives.
It's hard to believe that Tommy would later apply for a loan from the Bank of England to build a privately funded version of "Colossus". His loan application was turned down as the bank refused to believe that his machine would work. Because of the official secrets act Tommy was unable to inform them that he had already overseen the construction of 10 such machines during WW2.
He was not allowed to speak about his work for decades after the war, and had to look on silently when the US announced that it had built the world's first electronic programmable computer in 1947... 3 years after Tommy had "COLOSSUS" up and running .
A fantastic homage to Mr Flowers and his team who designed and constructed these machines. Not enough is portrayed of this man's genius, the truth being that because he was not a upper middle class persecuted homosexual his legacy has not been seized upon by the "identity" crazed mainstream media of today. That is NOT a slight on Alan Turing, simply one against the majority of the current political & social establishment.
It's so great that the stories of Tommy Flowers, and so many others have been shared with so many. The technology we today take for granted was born during an era of war and hostilities. It was sad that this was shrouded in secrecy for so long. It was truly ground breaking and the efforts of so many men and women were heroic, while their numbers were legion, they each brought their unique skills and talents to bear in breaking these codes. This is truly an awesome tribute to all of these people and their work! Thank you for sharing this video gem for all to learn and enjoy!
How could anyone put a thumbs down? Colossus was one of the most miraculous intellectual breakthroughs in modern history. The absolute genius and ingenuity are unparalleled. Unfortunately, those involved with the project have never been given their proper dues. I can only thank them for all they did to alter the course of human history!
Probably thumbs down to the short sighted destruction of it.
The destruction of Colossus led Britain to losing an easy lead to the computer industry.
Much like the current govmt allowing the sale of ARM Ltd to Japan's SoftBank in 2016 instead of promoting native British investment into it.
Our govmt just can't seem to help blowing out the countries kneecaps.
A tribute to the secrecy maintained by all those involved with the phenomenal code breaking achieved at Bletchley Park is that the difficulty in telling there story is nearly as difficult as the work they did. No plans, no records, and no one telling their amazing stories. It is great that at least some of this information has been obtained from those heroic participants before we lose all of them.
Very interesting video, my Dad was actually recruited by Tommy Flowers to work at Dollis Hill towards the end of the War. He worked there for many years in the Switching group right up until the move of the research facility to Martlesham. In retirement Dad chaired the Ex-Dollis Hill retired people's asscociation for about 20 years and shortly before Tommy's death there was a Dollis Hill reunion held at Bletchley Park. Dad picked Tommy up to take him there and on the way Tommy said to him "I never did tell you why I recruited you did I?, well I thought you'd make a good code breaker!" he had kept this to himself for over 50 years. The War ended and Dad never did work on code breaking but I know he was never happier than his time spent at Dollis Hill.
"I never did .....
What?
Astonishing that you are not yet familiar with the concept of hyperlinks. Try clicking "Read more" in blue above.
It must have been very hard for some people to keep quiet about Colossus when the U.S.A. unveiled the ENIAC. Thanks to the people at TNMOC for helping preserving (and re-creating) very important parts of history.
People will not hear truth!
This is so much more detailed than I expected. What an operation! What coordination between the various elements from intercept to gaining the intelligence needed. I know the RCN had a Y station near Moncton New Brunswick, Canada. How many more Y stations in Atlantic Canada I do not know? The significance of the port of Halifax NS in the Battle of The Atlantic is well documented but the role of the Port of Sydney NS, the slower convoys, is not well documented and not studied in our schools. Much research needs to be done on this part of the war. World War 2 history in not taught in Canadian schools. With the WW2 vets now departing this world this needs to change drastically!
I remember a movie called "Colossus - The Forbin Project" a VERY interesting movie about how we give supercomputers, the power to control our military weapons. Scary Ideas
Not black &white it's from 1970 search CZcams for the Blu-ray trailer :) peace
@@philr9407 I stand corrected. Fixed it
@@rty1955 ;)
@@rty1955 Here's the trailer czcams.com/video/kyOEwiQhzMI/video.html I should have linked it for you originally . My best to you :)
So many important names have been neglected over the years. Gordon Welchman being the most obvious. It really was a coming together of great minds. ALL playing their part, like pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle, creating one unique result.
Humans fall into a foulness when lumped together due to iniquity. Lowest common denominator, sex. Some names have fallen by the wayside.
Amazingly skilled and extremely talented. That is my reaction to the staff at the UK Post Office who built Colossus and the code breakers at Bletchley Park. A suggestion for the Museum: I spent my career in the computer industry, but I did not understand Phil Hayes portion of the reenactment. I am not suggesting that Phil’s portion be “dumbed down “, rather do what I asked my teams to do- explain it so that my mother could understand it.
rest in piece Jerry Roberts.
Most of the valves were triodes which has an anode, cathode and grid. they were connected in pairs to form a flip/flop which by applying a voltage on the grid determines the voltage on each anode and therefore producing a 1 or 0.
Colossus: The Forbin Project. After spending a long day at the Pub, it slowly became Belchy Park.
Interesting to see that the presenter is using an Apple iPad to review his notes for his speech. What an amazing 71 years in computing it has been.
Do you know the real story behind the Apple Logo on that iPad has to do with the manner in which Alan Turing took his own life after the British Government tortured him with chemical castration which left his mind foggy. The Poisoned Apple found beside Alan Turing bed had just one bite taken out of it. Steve Jobs wanted to pay homage to Alan Turing, but of course later a cover story was made up to keep the good Christians happy on the School Boards where Apple got it's first successes selling the Apple 2. Alan Turing had the ideas for modern computing such as RISC over CISC ( ARM won that war for our handheld devices) and other architecture ideas, but without such talented engineers like Tommy Flowers much of these ideas might not have ever been realized.
A very fitting tribute to great, brave, and determined people against a terrible enemy. We owe them so much. As an American, I hope that all the world can appreciate that Britain braved one of the most difficult times in their history. What brave pilots that never returned during the air war. The Brits sacrificed even after war to rebuild their economy and their resources. Yes, the U.S. came to help, but the Brits themselves stood firm even when alone in the fight. Great presentation and so glad these machines were saved for the future.
....it appears you didn't know of the (from Sept 1939 until Pearl Harbour, followed by Hitlers declaration of war against the US) war contribution of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Rhodesia, South Africa, India, etc etc etc....and by the way, what about the 3,578 Americans who crossed the Canadian border from Sept 1939 onwards....and then served in the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) .....oh yes, then there's the Royal Canadian NAVY providing convoy escorts in the Battle of the Atlantic from January 1940 til the war's end in 1945....and then there's the RCAF, the RAAF, Polish free forces, etc etc contribution (in blood) in the Battle of Britain.....Britain was NEVER alone.....Canada took in British children, provided quite a number of Prisoner of War camps to confine German and Italian POWs, built hundreds and hundreds of bombers, fighters, etc etc.....and repaired several hundred damaged British ships, naval or merchant marine......Or has your memory/education been clouded by Hollywood war movies...?
@@scottfuller5194 Yes, but those other countries you mention were all current or former British colonies and to varying degrees under the British crown.
Truly stupendous, after all these years. And the equipment still looks so futuristic, even now.
I don't know if it looks futuristic, but it looks very cool!
Amazing stuff. During the war, Churchill wrote an open cheque. They got what they wanted regardless of cost. The secrecy that was achieved was purely becuase it was non commercial. No private company was involved. No tender like in the USA, so no leaks. I heard that by the end of the war, 12 colossus 2's were made at a cost of 100,000 pounds each in 1940s money. That works out at over $2b. Churchill did not bat an eyelid. He knew that the war would have been shortened, as it turned out by two years.
So well done. Bravo.
Wonderful stuff. Many thanks.
Such a lovely tribute
Thank you for share!
From my knowledge of human behaviour no one could keep a secret for long !!
Without the invention of this machine, we wouldn't eventually see the invention of the ARPANET which eventually became the Internet, the very same Internet you're using to be able to watch this youtube video.
A photograph of Bill Tutte is shown twice at times when the narrator is talking about John Tiltman.
I am sure that a lot of schools would be interested in visiting the museum.
It was an impressive achievement, but the Atanasoff-Berry Computer was the first electronic computer. Colossus was independently conceived, though, which Eniac was not.
could u imagine what if they had ics or transistor -transitor logic . but what they did was wondrful. the machine is my macs gr gr gr gr gr gr great grandfather .
Its gret to wacth the best of luck
The true celebration needs to finally and properly recognize Bill Tutte and Tommy Flowers, Tutte for breaking the Lorenz 12 rotor cipher machine and Tommy Flowers for then conceiving, designing, building and putting into operation the world's first electronic, digital, memory based computer to speed up accessing the daily Lorenz keys......(Turing had NOTHING to do with those incredible accomplishments......)...!
and Turing was only a follow on from Polish engineers who had built a Bomba machine well before Turing develop a more concise and better functioning unit. Regrettably there were very few suitable vaccum tubes available that could make "flip-flops" essentail for digital arithmetic in earl 40s, actually I think the germans had better "rohren" tube technology when examining the small black tubes found in early German radios used in aircrat in WW2.
It would be great to get some picture of the machines for reading the tape and converting that into the punched tape. What do the operators see exactly? How do they translate the tape?
Exactly my point no director employed to point the crew into the correct shot angle, or use it later in an edit as a shot cut away judging by the smirks on their faces and their bad use of radio mikes , feedback teetering on the brink of howl-around and wobbly camera shots they couldnt give a damn. This should never have been shot with an audience I wonder if they ever did a proper film of this.
HUH? it was all punch tape with an optical read on Colossus. The girls typed the cypher text from slip tape directly on punch paper tape @ 27:03 These operator read the slip tapes and typed in what they saw. Slip tapes were a crude printout of the audio sound. Sort of the 1's and 0's of the sounds of the decoded sound. Did u miss seeing that?
It has always amused me to learn---that it wasn't till the late 70's, before we told the German's all about this. By the way, the Blond Wren girl looks like Romola Garai's sister.
The British told the Germans convicted of war crimes about how they did it right before they were hanged. Thus keeping the secret until it was declassified in the 1990s. Enigima was declassified in 1975, but that was NOT the main secret.
As an American, I vote to use the term valves instead of vacuum tubes. It makes sense, that is what the thing does, control the amount and type of current, like a water valve! Sorry to be a traitor.
As am American I have wondered where the name Vacuum Tubes came from ?? I agree with you Valve does more accurately describe what they do as they are simply Electronic valves.
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@@egcroan Thomas Edison accidentally invented vacuum tubes (valves) while working on the light bulb.
@@dfirth224 Did Edison actually do that or is it another idea he stole from one of his employees like he did from Tesla??
Elmer Croan GET STUFFED- YOU TURKEY!!!
It should have been pointed out that these "valves" the narrator talks about are what Americans and the rest of the world call "vacuum tubes".
Don't be so petty--is that the uppermost thought in your mind, having seen this incredible re-enactment and story. This is a BRITISH STORY, TOLD IN ENGLISH!
+galaxiexl500 What do Americans know about the rest of the world LOL!
_This is the voice of world control._
hahah i loved that movie
5:00
Think there is a secret Quantum Computer being used by some spy agency to say cause flash crashes on Wall Street to obtain funding for black operations or maybe to log on to a Galactic internet. I ran across this old digital computer patent 3190554 where it ran on compressed air instead of electricity. Was such a computer ever built and used for anything? Do you think that one could be built today using 3D printing? Thanks for the post!
+ufoengines There was a computer built that worked on a liquid (I think it was water, not sure) and used to demonstrate some economic principles. There are videos on CZcams showing it. (Search for Phillips MONIAC). I never heard of any built using air.
Yes the mighty Moniac! Been a big fan since I learned of it. Lots of You Tubes on it. They use to connect several together each representing a different countries economy, Germany, England, France etc. and let them fight it out. Dig this old digital computer patent 3190554 that use air to compute. Be a snap to make one now with 3D printing. Bet if Babbage had gone this way he could have had the pipe organ folks build his Difference Engine for him and Lady Ada would have invented COBOL. Now I want to see a You Tube on Collision Based Computing demonstrated with Brush Bots! BooYa, Patent 672256 !
In 1944, the annual output of the US was a staggering 96,318 aircraft
The US built 140,000 GMC 6x6 trucks in 1944. Half a million throughout the war.
Slow , sound
interest in this kind of gadgetry will wane as the years go on. In 200 years time it'll probably be all gone. So thankful of political correctness today too as we'll never see situations where women only will operate machines. They'll not only be men but also LGBTTQQIAAP (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, questioning, intersex, asexual, ally, pansexual) all carrying out important roles within society.
Another example of a supremely interesting event ruined by people who don't understand how to work a sound system! ("Oh I have a microphone you can borrow, I used it for my sisters wedding and you could hear most of what the vicar said") Why the howl round? That room is quite tiny and I am sure even those at the back could hear quite clearly so why have P.A. and why not turn it down? Obviously an amateur operator.. There were professional video equipment so why use a cheap radio microphone system that worked on the broadcast waveband? Really annoying. Anyway why use a radio mic when there is obviously going to be electrical interference? What's wrong with a wire? I was screaming at the telly trying to hear what was being said.
How ungracious. You miss the whole point. Its a demonstration of the earliest technology being supplemented by the human brain. Who cares if the mic is not state of the art. None of what you see there was funded by the UK government. Its all from public fundraising and volunteers.
What the yanks did with this technology is still classified.
Rightly so.
Send rubbish, thousands of conflicting messages with the code of the hour.
Good luck.
why did you use such an appalling unprofessional media crew on such an important subject? I've an original AR88 from knockholt and one new in box from '44 unopened until 2007 mint condition not a blemish.
Its gret to wacth the best of luck