The Worlds First Computers
Colossus Computer
Colossus Computers
Colossus was one of the world's first electronic digital computers that was at all programmable. The Colossus computers were developed for British code breakers during World War II to help in the crypt-analysis of the Lorenz cipher. Without this the Allies would have been deprived of the very valuable military intelligence that was obtained from reading the vast quantity of encrypted high-level telegraphic messages between the German High Command and their army commands throughout occupied Europe. Colossus used thermionic valves (vacuum tubes) to perform Boolean operations and calculations.
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Colossus’ read 5000 characters a minute with excellent reliability. Colossus 1 and Colossus 2 which used 2,400 valves were ready for D-Day (6 June 1944 in the Second World War on which Allied forces invaded northern France by means of beach landings in Normandy.) A great deal of effort meant that both were running by June 1st 1944.
A Colossus computer (Mark 2) being operated by Dorothy Du Boisson in the left and Elsie Booker. The slanted control panel on the left was used to set the pin patterns of the Lorenz. The bedsteadpaper tape transport is on the right.