Block H

The National Rail test train

If you are like me, you'll have found that some narratives follow you around through life. Often presenting themselves in different ways with new perspectives.

One such story, for me, is that of Bletchley Park, in many ways the birthplace of the modern computer.

When I wrote my first BASIC code on punchcards, aged 11, much of the story was still classified..

I was aware of the work of Alan Turing when I was at school, especially the concepts of the Turing Test and the Turing Machine.  I learned more about them at university, from the perspective of AI during what was known as the AI Winter.

The work at Bletchley Park also influenced many of my early years working in government IT security. One of my great achievements in that area was breaking the password encryption on a supposedly highly secure MOD and Police system in my lunchour. I should stress that I did so as part of my job and with official sanction. 

There are other connections that I won't bore you with, such as finding myself lecturing in Ada Lovelace's old home.

Zooming right up to date...

Last Tuesday I exhausted myself delivering an international seminar on AI. I find delivering these online events soul-destroying. So I was grateful that on the Wednesday I had a chance to head to a conference on AI where I wasn't speaking, at, you've guessed it, Bletchley Park.

One great thing about getting old is exploiting my Senior Railcard. That made peak-time First Class travel feasible, and I do like my scrambled eggs and salmon. But before that there was an even better delight, the sight and sound of a 37.

I was soaked by the time I got to the museum; a good reminder of how bleak wartime conditions were there.

It is a great museum, especially if you have worked in IT. There were a lot of people with very happy faces, including myself

I wrote my first program to represent 4d data on one of these to help out a Mech Eng flat mate

The Apple Lisa, the computer I used to analyse London's crime statistics

 The Lisa couldn't process the raw data, for that I needed an ICL Mainframe running VME

We replaced the Lisa with a Mac, that cost more than my annual salary.

If only ERNIE had selected my numbers...

I used to take my students to see the Met Office "Cray Twins"

I went to the UK launch of the Newton - three times. The food was better than the product

The Newton might have flopped, but I still miss my PSIONS

Right, that is Memory Lane done. Now for the really interesting stuff.

After the formal event was over we got to see the WW2 history. Not only to see it, but to see it working.

A replica Enigma machine. Getting to play with this was a personal highlight

The Replica Bombe, used to work out the Enigma rotor settings. Over 200 were eventually built

The Germans helped enormously by sending out regular "Weather Forecast" messages 

Seeing these rotate was mesmerising

Then there was Colosuss. TBH photos can't do justice to this replica. It is a beast

A typical listening station