Blog Closing Down

Hi,

I'm closing this blog and this will be the last post. I started it with the first post on April 5th 2010 to support the writing of my book, The Universal Machine, on the history of computing. Over the years it's by and large kept to that topic. It's had 585,622 page views over the decade or so which sounds quite respectable. The blog will remain in place as a record, but I will not be adding new posts as I'm retiring at New Years. Thanks for your support.

Ian Watson

Enigma machine found in Baltic to be restored

 

Divers who found a WWII Enigma coding machine in the Baltic will have their find restored in a German museum, the process will take about a year. The enigma machine is a German Naval Enigma with three coding rotors, not the more complex four-rotor machine used by the U-boat service. The Enigma machines were used throughout WWII but had been cracked by Alan Turing's team working at Bletchley Park in England. As a consequence, the British could read all the German navy's communications from 1941.