Extra - E40 - Codebreakers’ Legacy – Jack Copeland

September 2014

Professor Jack Copeland talks about ‘one of his greatest heroes’ Tommy Flowers, from his early life & career leading to working with the Bletchley Park Codebreakers.

Jack explains the task faced when in mid-1942 the German High Command started to use a new encryption device, the Lorenz SZ40/42. The attack on Tunny, as it was dubbed by GC&CS, would involve some of the greatest codebreakers we had, Alan Turing, Bill Tutte & Max Newman.

It would culminate in Tommy’s greatest achievement, the invention of Colossus, the world's first programmable electronic digital computer.

The world would never be the same again.

This talk was recorded at last year’s sell-out day of talks, Codebreakers’ Legacy. If you would like to attend a similar event in the Bletchley Park Presents series, then please go to
http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/ & look in the What’s On section.

A rebuild of Colossus can be seen at The National Museum of Computing, a separate site on the grounds of Bletchley Park.

Picture: ©shaunarmstrong/mubsta.com

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