Product Description

In 1940, almost a year after the outbreak of the Second World War, Allied radio operators at an interception station in South London began picking up messages in a strange new code. Using science, maths, innovation and improvisation Bletchley Park codebreakers worked furiously to invent a machine to decipher what turned out to be the secrets of Nazi high command. It was called Colossus. What these codebreakers didn't realize was that they had fashioned the world's first true computer. When the war ended, this incredible invention was dismantled and hidden away for almost 50 years. Paul Gannon has pieced together the tremendous story of what is now recognized as the greatest secret of Bletchley Park.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #20230 in Books
• Published on: 2007-01-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 588 pages

Review
"* 'Paul Gannon has revealed a previously untold story... Colossus tells of the heroic efforts of the inventors and mathematicians who received no recognition for decades... but Gannon sets the record straight.' Simon Singh, The Times * 'Masterly in its breadth and sweep... His account of wartime interception and encryption is deeply researched... I commend the book to both the professional and the general reader.' Spectator"

Guardian
read Gannon to feel the collective power of human minds harnessed to the cause of defending our freedom

Times
Colossus tells of the heroic efforts of the inventors and mathematicians [who] received no recognition for decades

Customer Reviews

colossal achievment
Having waited so long to hear more of the latest 'secrets' from Bletchley Park one might ask what else could possibly not have already been put into print. This book concentrates on Colossus, exposing a 30 year old smoke screen using the Enigma story to deflect attention away from another of their successes, protecting modern secrets of GCHQ. The book is well-written, contains references to supporting texts and tells a story which will be hard to follow. The book contains an accurate technical picture of the colossal achievments, perhaps close to the limits necesssary to still make the 60 year old machine a national secret.

Colossus - a great read!
Couldn't put it down. You are lectured by some of the worlds greatest scientists, who undoubtably save the western world from the Nazis; it is written with humour and in excellent style. What fortune that the release of this classified information was just in time (but only just) to allow contributions from those who really 'won the war'. The repetition of how Colossus worked by its many contributors allows non-techies to really understand what it did, and how the first computer was British not American! Da Vinci code - eat your heart out!

The best "BP" book yet
Perhaps it is easier for a telecommunications engineer turned computer software engineer to read but I found the book to be compelling. The book is not only technically impressive, it rings true in the portrayal of the characters and their relationships. I think only the Post Office Engineering Department, later the P.O. Telecomms Business could have produced Tom Flowers. I worked with many like him, engineers with the intuitive flair necessary to create complex systems who entered the business at the very bottom and rose through it by merit.