Enigma - 20 August 2017

Enigma - 20 August 2017

Description :

An opportunity to meet the collector John Alexander with three items from his collection of cipher related machines.

Come to the Centre from 11.00am and see close up:

A German 1931 3-rotor Enigma, one of the first of the models with the front plugboard,

A US-made 1940'ish M209 'converter' - a compact cipher machine,

A  c1959, Italian Ottica Meccanico Italiano (OMI) - a post-war 'Enigma'. 

The story of the Enigma machine has become one of the most well-known in tales in the history of computing and cryptography.  The device was used to encode sensitive messages, most notably by Nazi Germany in the Second World War.  Over many years and beginning well before the war, the efforts of Polish and British cryptanalysts, most famously Alan Turing, led to the code being decisively broken.  This boosted the Allied war effort immensely.  

More importantly to our story, the lessons taken from breaking Enigma - computation, data analysis, and the construction of codebreaking machines - led directly to the development of the earliest digital electronic computers.

John Alexander will be showing visitors the Enigma and explaining how the machine works, as well as telling us about his adventures as a cipher machine collector!

This event is included in general admission and is available to all visitors to the Centre on 20th August 2017.

 

This event is part of our brand new summer festival, SUMR - The Summer of Computer Love. We're running over 30 special events during the 2017 summer holidays, and we'd love you see you there. Find out what its all about over at  www.sumr.co.uk

This event is part of SUMR 2017

 

 

Remember - All proceeds go to support our Computing Museum!

 
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