![]() It is fascinating how far we have come with technology and how far we are yet to go.Introduced in Uncanny X-Men #115 (by Chris Claremont and John Byrne) the Fall People were a tribe that lived in The Savage Land, where the X-Men had taken refuge. The basic principle of the stored computer is only a thread of a long thought-process pulled out of Turing’s mind, in 1936. This sets up a comparison with the modern-day computers which are “stored – program” computers. These machines are more famously called “program-controlled” computers. This entire process was a tiresome and hectic one, with the operators taking up almost three weeks to set up and debug a program. To make it function as per requirements, modifications to the machine was required that included wiring, switching and plugging meticulously by hand. This was not a possibility with the Colossus, because it was not able to store programs. Operating a computer today has become child’s play, requiring you to simply open the appropriate program. Life has become tenfold simpler than it used to be back in the olden days. The reconstructed version of colossus computer at The National Museum of Computing, Bletchley Park. An identical message would leave the British none the wiser. Since the first was corrupted due to atmospheric noise, the message was resent but with little deviations and abbreviations. Two messages with the same indicator were all that the British needed to incur a depth. As per this, whatever the first letter was, the receiver would set his first psi-wheel position corresponding to the instruction. The operation of Tunny had an important process which included the operator sending a message of an unenciphered group of twelve letters that informed the receiver the starting position of the twelve letters. German operators often used the same wheel settings for two different messages which were famously called ‘depths.’ The interception of this was what pushed the British to the breakthrough they achieved in 1941. It had a record of one thousand and six hundred thermionic valves. Eventually, persistence on Flowers’ part resulted in the birth of Mark 1 Colossus with advancements to the design. Several other Robinsons were ordered thereafter. Prior to the invention of the Colossus, these British code breakers came out with a similar but much less reliable teleprinter cipher machine. ![]() The Colossus computer was consequently built to perform a fundamental function in this process at electronic speed. Fish was a cipher machine, Lorenz SZ – 40/42, that the British called “Tunny.” In 1942, a lengthy technical battle later, the British code breakers finally succeeded in deciphering Tunny. The other is the less popular, codename Fish, that used electric teletypewriter technology to transmit messages between Hitler and his army high command in Berlin. The German military used meticulous electronic transmissions to send important messages during the War that were intercepted by the British through two methods. ![]() Colossus computer: The secret of Bletchley Park ![]() A stroke of luck and a group of absolute geniuses with a singular agenda was the formula that brought to life this critical invention. Its use was the cryptanalysis of the Lorenz Cipher. The Colossus Computer was one such invention of the time by British code breakers. It birthed a number of inventions that are useful even today, while some others have provided the starting point to another major invention. The time of the Second World War witnessed a lot of rapid technological advancements that were necessary for the War. This was the first-ever programmable computer that was made in the history of technology. We always, however, tend to forget the point of inception for all these geniuses, that is, the Colossus Computer. The origin of arguably one of the greatest modern inventions of man remains somewhat unknown to a major section of the world’s populace. The colossus computer being operated by two Wrens. ![]()
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