Domain: retrobeep.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to retrobeep.com.
Comments · 7
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If not portable,.....
Would you accept 'luggable'? -
Re:A tragedy
It was destroyed so other countries would never find out we could break their ciphers.
Actually, it was a bit more subtle than this. For a long time after the second world war the Allies were sitting very firmly on the knowledge that they'd broken the German code systems, and made no serious attempt to prevent the German engineers from going off to work for other countries. In consequence ... up until the 1960s or 1970s Britain and America had easy access to tools that could break almost any diplomatic or military cipher in use around the world. Meanwhile, these German engineers and ex-military were going around the world touting this system "which had remained secure through WW2". Yeah, right. And many people believed them.
Of course, since the original work that actually broke the Enigma code system was done in Poland, the Russians had found out that Enigma was broken. So they sold it to their client states, for exactly the same reasons.
Oh, you'd forgotten that the breaking of the Enigma system was done in pre-War Poland? That's OK - the people at Bletchley Park haven't forgotten.
Interesting links :
http://www.codesandciphers.org.uk/ is a site by some of the people who worked at Bletchley Park.
http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/ is the official Bl.Pk. website. Shame they still haven't got any photos of the approach roads - it's a bit of a pig to find, even if you can navigate your way around Milton Keynes. I think they're trying to encourage visitors by train.
http://www.retrobeep.com/ is a link into the computer museum at Bl.Pk. -
Re:What it all means
My PERQ Workstation came with PNX (an ICL UNIX derivative) from 1981.
PERQ image
PERQ info
This had a command "winit" to start the *windowing system*. Whilst not X, it's a similar concept, and referes to the 'areas you can resize/move/minimise/cover" as windows.
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The real retro
If you wanted to be retro geeky, use the BNC connector for 10Base-2 (ThinNet).
Actually, if I wanted to be retro geeky, I'd use a picture of something that screams "retro" and "geek" to millions of people - not just a minority that recognize the ends of certain cables. Something like a Commodore PET, or an Intertec Superbrain, maybe with an acoustic coupler modem. Or perhaps a close-up of 80-column text on one of those Apple green phosphor monitors.
Even if I were a geek of the new generation (i.e. someone that grew up when IBM PC-compatibles were already the standard), the images would still work, as the principle of geek never changes. -
Bletchley Park
Three years ago when the IETF met in London (UK), the crypto geeks took a little excursion north on a train to Bletchley Park. It was good fun to visit, particularly in that company. There is also a small computer museum there, too.
For those of you who are in/around Europe, I recommend it.
-Erik
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Another copy at "RetroBeep" at Bletchley Park?
RetroBeep, a retrocomputing museum at Bletchley Park (near Milton Keynes, close to London) has the VL-reader and a BBC micro. The proprietor (John Sinclair, whose son is also active at the site) discussed the Domesday project when I was there in May 2003. I'm not sure if there's a copy of it there, but they did have the hardware, and were trying to connect one device to the other.
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bletchley park and first computer
really it all started with a liitle game called guess what the germans are saying
fly over find out what the weather is then PROGRAM your computer to crack the code
now thats a computer
http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/
bad website but donate there
picture
http://www.retrobeep.com
have fun but really dont forget where it all came from
regards
john jones