Bletchley Park
Colossus
At the heart of the code-breaking effort was an incredible piece of engineering, the world's first programmable computing device: Colossus.
Related programme
The BBC/OU series Digital Planet looks at the story of Bletchley Park, known for code-breaking during the Second World War, and playing a significant role in the history of computing
If you've never heard of Bletchley Park before, or its wartime history, that may be because the work carried out at there was most secret, and for a long time no-one who worked there was allowed to say anything about it (and to this day, many still don't). For throughout the Second World War, Bletchley Park was home to the Allies' code-breaking effort.
Alan Turing, famed for his role in developing the idea of universal computation, was based there; and as we learn in one of the featured interviews with engineer Tony Sale, many of the practical lessons that needed to be learned in order to build the first computers were first learned building computational engines like the Colossus.
This video, from CBS, explains more about Bletchley Park.
Content last updated: 26/05/2009
