An exhibition showcasing the Tunny machine, which was used to break German codes in World War II, opened at the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park on Thursday.
This picture from the new Tunny Gallery shows, from left, rebuilt AR 88 shortwave radio receivers used to intercept encoded German messages; the Tunny machine, which produced the final decrypts of enciphered communications of the German High Command; and the 'Heath Robinson' machine, a prototype of the Colossus that supplied Lorenz wheel settings as part of the decryption process.
The Tunny machine took a team of three people three years to rebuild. At the end of the war, Tunny machines were broken up and the components recycled, while the original circuit diagrams were destroyed or hidden. The team had to piece together plans for the machine from odd pieces of circuit diagram that had been squirreled away by engineers, as well as from the recollections of some of the original builders, according to John Whetter, one of the team leaders for the Tunny rebuild project.
"We are leaving [the Tunny machine] as a legacy and a tribute to those legends at Dollis Hill [Post Office Research Station] and Bletchley Park who never got the recognition they deserved," Whetter told ZDNet UK on Wednesday.
Photo credit: Bletchley Park
See more photos of Bletchley Park on ZDNet UK.
Talkback
Anybody heard of Harry Beckhough!
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As a memberf the 'Bletchley District Gazette' during the 1960's, and living behind the 'Manor House' I enquired of my then Editor [ Carl Moser ] what went on in that area during the WWII.
and he said in all sincerity, 'You will be an old man before details are exposed'...and how right he was.!! But I had talked to someone who had worked in the Postal communications, and he said then, that without the engineering procedures in operation at that time, the Academics, could not have succeeded....Alan Turing....God rest your Soul.
went to 'Bletchley Parl a few years ago, fantastic place - i feel a return is in order :)
Great pics , better than the ones I took. I agree with Will above , I had a lovely visit to Bletchley when I was on holiday in England and look forward to going back some day. It brought some dusty old history to life for me.