The computer that helped win World War II

	The computer that helped win World War II(spectrum.ieee.org)
	203 points by baruchel 5 days ago \| 78 comments
	tl;dr: In 1941, British codebreakers intercepted a new German encrypted teletype system ("Tunny," made by Lorenz) that was more advanced than Enigma. After Bill Tutte deduced the machine's workings and devised a statistical decryption method, engineer Tommy Flowers built Colossus—the world's first large-scale programmable electronic digital computer, using ~2,000 vacuum tubes—to automate the process. Ten Colossi ran at Bletchley Park by war's end, decrypting high-level German communications and likely shortening the war by months. Colossus is now being recognized as an IEEE Milestone.
	HN Discussion: ↑Recommends visiting Bletchley Park and the National Museum of Computing to see Colossus firsthand •Shares historical context about Colossus being destroyed post-war and later rebuilt from memory ↓Article ignores crucial Polish mathematicians' contributions to codebreaking ↓Colossus was a special-purpose calculator, not a true general-purpose computer •Clarifies that Colossus and the Bombe attacked different ciphers, explaining architectural differences