Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Turing, bombs, and celebrations!

2012 is going to be Alan Turing Year!

''The Alan Turing Year, 2012, will be a celebration of the life and scientific influence of Alan Turing on the occasion of the centenary of his birth on June 23, 1912. Turing had an important influence on computing, computer science, artificial intelligence, developmental biology, and the mathematical theory of computability, and made important contributions to code-breaking during the second World War.'' [source]

There is also an interesting: CCS (computer conservation society) [source] that was:
"[...] founded in 1989. It is under the joint umbrella of the British Computer Society, the Science Museum in London, and the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester. Many of the society's meetings are held at the Science Museum. The CCS is interested in the history of computer hardware in general and the conservation and preservation of early British historical computers in particular."

The CCS is repairing and maintaining the Bombs:
"The bombe was an electromechanical device used by British cryptologists to help decrypt German Enigma-machine-encrypted signals during World War II. The US Navy and US Army produced machines to the same functional specification, but engineered differently.
...
The initial design of the bombe was produced in 1939 at the UK Government Code and Cypher School at Bletchley Park by Alan Turing, with an important refinement devised by Gordon Welchman.
"
[source, and a simulator]

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