Thin coloured wires interconnecting parts of a Colossus machine, Bletchley Park. Rebuilt by Tony Sale between 1993 and 2007


The rebuilt Colossus Mark 2 machine - the world's first electronic, digital, programmable computer - at The National Museum of Computing, Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, England - the wartime home of British codebreaking. This machine was rebuit between between 1993 and 2007 by Anthony Edgar Sale (Tony Sale) born 30 January 1931 – died 28 August 2011. The rebuild was made from eight black and white photographs and 10 fragments of circuit diagram with spare telecoms parts and valves. Colossus was one of a number of these machines operating secretly at Bletchley Park during World War Two. Their job was to decipher teleprinter messages which had been encrypted using the German Lorenz SZ40/42 machine.


Size: 3600px × 2400px
Photo credit: © David Stock / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: -day, allies, bletchley, cables, cipher, codebreaker, colossus, command, computer, computing, decoded, efforts, encrypted, encryption, german, high, lorenz, museum, national, park, rebuild, sale, tony, valves, war, wires, world