Filed in archive Information About on July 28, 2010

The Colossus Computer

© Arenamontanus

Alan Mathison Turing is considered the father of modern computer science. He worked as a cryptographer, decoding codes in one of the British government's top-secret location at Bletchley Park. The first all-electronic calculating device, the Colossus computer was built to decipher German military codes during World War II. Thomas H Flowers, an electronic expert led the team of other scientists and mathematicians including Turing that designed and built the Colossus. The Colossus machines were special-purpose, program controlled electronic digital computers, the only known electronic programmable computers in existence in 1944. The first Colossus had 15,000 vacuum tubes and could read 5000 characters per second. The second Colossus was extensively redesigned and was able to read 25,000 characters per second.
The Colossus machines gave Britain the best code breaking machines of World War II and provided information that was crucial for the Allied victory. In 1945, inspired by his knowledge of Colossus, Turing designed an electronic stored digital computer, the Automatic Computing Engine (ACE).