Re: The Bombe Rebuild is now working

John


Very well done indeed - magnificent work! 

Many thanks to you for your leadership and to the entire bombe rebuild team
for their dedicated hard work. Thanks also, of course, to all the sponsors.

I'll try to get to BP to take a look in the near future.


Regards

Graham Ellsbury






> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bletchley Park discussion 
> [mailto:BLETCHLEYPARK-0lvw86wZMd/[email protected]] On Behalf Of John 
> Harper - Bombe Rebuild Project
> Sent: 19 July 2007 09:33
> To: BLETCHLEYPARK-0lvw86wZMd/[email protected]
> Subject: [BPARK] The Bombe Rebuild is now working
> 
> The Bombe Rebuild at Bletchley Park is now capable of 
> reliably repeating real jobs as originally carried out in W.W.II.
> 
> An 'official' 'Switch On' took place by His Royal Highness 
> the Duke of Kent the day before yesterday. The British 
> Computer Society has been a major sponsor of the Project as 
> has been the Bletchley Park Trust. Many local dignitaries 
> were in attendance plus many senior members of the BCS. Also 
> Bletchley Park management and Trustees were well represented.
> 
> His Royal Highness is patron of both the British Computer 
> Society and the Bletchley Park Trust so this was most appropriate.
> 
> Important to our team was that almost 50 of those who 
> contributed in some way or another were also invited.
> 
> In addition last Thursday was the first day of a conference 
> to mark the 50th anniversary of the BCS. This was held at BP 
> and our machine performed for the whole afternoon. Obviously 
> we were all a little anxious that the Bombe should not go 
> wrong during either of these events. We were all relieved 
> when it never even missed a beat. However there were a couple 
> of incidents but these were quickly traced to 'operator 
> error' and not visible to the visitors.
> 
> In addition we have our Checking Machine working and part of 
> an overall demonstration. We have also modified a BP owned 
> Typex machine to act as an Enigma machine in the same manner 
> as was done at BP for use in the Decode Room.
> 
> We are now in a much larger area at BP with many displays for 
> people to read.
> 
> We are going to 'catch our breath' for the next month or so 
> and then consider how we might put together more regular 
> demonstrations but meantime the displays and the machine just 
> there to see in its finished state are well worth a visit.
> 
> I am now in the process of updating our WEB site which is 
> almost 4 years out of date. I will let this forum know when 
> it is up and running.
> --
> John Harper
> Bombe Rebuild Project Manager