Bletchley: The National Museum of Computing

After a packed weekend, we took no rest starting off this week. We jumped right in to the National Museum of Computing in Bletchley. This was the site of the codebreakers during WWII--where of the 10,000 people working to crack codes, 8,000 of them were women! Go female power! Bletchley is about an hour out of London and it was chosen for the codebreaking spot because it wouldn't be suspected and bombed (since it wasn't in London direct), but it was still easily accessible.

The Enigma Machine

In the war, England used the Enigma Machine to send and decode secret messages about battles and strategies. There were 5,000 Engima Machines spread around the world (today they're worth about $240,000). Germany decided that this machine was too slow and began using the Lorenz SZ42--there were only FOUR of these in the world. This machine is virtually unbreakable, which was a strength as well as a downfall.

Britain came up with a machine to interpret the Lorenz. It was called the Testery.

The Colossal. There were 10 in the world--number 9 was at Bletchley Park. They were all destroyed after the war, so this is a rebuild.  The Colossal can crack any message in 6 hours. The question up for debate then is: is it a computer? Considering you can put information into it, do something with it, change it in some way, and get it out again--yes. It is considered the first electronic computer.

A bunch of old floppy disks--the one on the right is 18 inches across. Incredible!

EDSAC

The above picture is EDSAC ( Electronic Display Storage Automatic Calculator). This too is a replica, a rebuild. It was the world's first practical stored program electronic computer. It was the first computer to read in symbolic programs rather than binary code. It could conduct 650 calculations per second.

Harwell Dekatron Computer

Renamed WITCH

This computer is from 1950. There were 15 computers in the world before this one--this computer is the oldest original working computer in the world--it is not a rebuild.  And yet, our smart phones are about 21 billion times faster than it.

And here is the Visitor's Log, which I found highly amusing. People from literally around the world have been there!

Some weekend highlights!!! This was my Harry Potter weekend--I went to the Warner Bros. Studio Tour and then saw the Cursed Child!

Butterbeer!

The door to Hogwarts!

Harry's letters to Hogwarts

My final opinion is: dumb, but a very good theatrical production

It's hard to believe I only have two weeks left here. On Thursday I leave for my mini break to Berlin, and I'm super excited. Many adventures behind, but many adventures ahead as well. :D Thanks for reading along!