Talk:Colossus computer/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

At all programmable

As written I have no idea what "at all programmable" means. It just sounds like poor grammar. Can't you think of a way to phrase it where it has some meaning to someone who is not involved with the debate over fully-programmable or semi-programmable. Can't you just say "programmable". --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 15:38, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Thanks! --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk) 17:18, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

It's been corrected to just say "programmable", but that's in conflict with the article. Per the section "Influence and fate":

"Colossus was the first combining digital, (partially) programmable, and electronic. The first fully programmable digital electronic computer was the ENIAC which was completed in 1946." (My emphasis)

The lede no longer attempts to qualify "programmable", effectively taking the claim away from ENIAC. Some sources say not even ENIAC was fully programmable, but it was a general purpose computer, rather than a code-braking computer.

I propose stating "partially programmable" in the lede to be (currently) consistent. --A D Monroe III (talk) 17:32, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

To repeat what I put in the edit comment, the lede sentence does not have to include every qualifier necessary to provide an exact definition. That is what the rest of the lede and the rest of the article are for. Colossus is widely recognized as the first programmable electronic computer. That it was not as fully programmable as later machines does not change that. The later discussion in the article does not conflict with the lede, it gives more detail. If the lede said "fully programmable", then I would concur with your objection, but it does not. Jeh (talk) 18:27, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Also: There is no conflict with Eniac because the lede here does not claim "general-purpose". Jeh (talk) 18:28, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

The article at this time does not really explain what "partially programmable" means re. Colossus, or in general for that matter. There is some discussion of Turing-completeness, but it doesn't say why it isn't Turing-complete or give a clue to the general reader as to what that means. I think that before this confusing term is put back into the lede, the article should be expanded to address this issue. Jeh (talk) 18:35, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

• The problem for me was "at all programmable" I couldn't figure out if I should parse it as "at-all programmable" "at all-programmable".

Where's the Program?

Wow, we love the Colossus, I know, but describing it as a programmable computer is really not accurate. It is not consistent with modern usage, or WikiP's definition of a computer, or the definition of programming. It cannot be programmed to follow a series of instructions to implement an algorithm. Whether it should be called programmable has been called into question quite a number of times over the past decade in this section of notes.

I understand that the Colossus fans want it to seem as important as possible. It was a remarkable achievement, it was groundbreaking technology, and it helped win a World War. But it did not run a program and should not be called programmable. (I also question whether it should be called a computer, but I fear that ship has sailed. )

Having a few different modes of operation does not make it a programmable computer. It would need to be able to run programs. But so many people have called Colossus just that. Is it hopeless to make WikiP agree with itself? Zebbie (talk) 20:13, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Comment - to my mind it was a special purpose computer - ie. it could do a set of specific calculations - which of those was programmable - in the way a washing machine is programmable. What was the world first programmable computer?

In the red corner the Colossus, backed by computer weekly - also mentions the semi-programmable ambiguity.

In the blue corner the Z3_(computer), backed by Computing History (says Colossus is special purpose), about.com

in the green corner Z1_(computer), backed by Computer hope

Jonpatterns (talk) 21:02, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

This may clarify ENIAC#Comparison_with_other_early_computers. Which parts of the description are combined should be clarified - because the more clauses added the greater the potential to be 'first' increases. Variables include electro-mechanic/ electronic, general or specific purpose, programmable or not, Turing complete or not etc. Jonpatterns (talk) 21:16, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

Sorry but no one considers the Zuse machines, at least not those that were actually built, as programmable and electronic. They were based on relay logic.

I don't think anybody has claimed that Colossus was a general-purpose computer.

ENIAC is still considered the first (fully?) programmable, electronic, general purpose computer.

Storing programs in memory came later.

Maybe we need a nice table of all of these early computers, with columns for "programmable", "fully programmable", "electronic", "general purpose", "Turing complete", "actually constructed and worked", etc., with check-marks in appropriate places.

Debate on this talk page is one thing, but WP is not written from the opinions of its editors. WP must rely on reliable sources, and Colossus is widely regarded as the first programmable electronic digital computer. When Colossus was revealed, Dr. Mauchly acknowledged that it counted as that. This was quite a blow to him personally, since he thought he'd co-invented the first of those with ENIAC, so who are we to disagree? "Programming" does not have to mean storing instructions in memory and following them step by step, it does not require that any particular set of instructions be supported, it does not even require that branching be supported. The concept of "programming" evolved as the hardware got more complex to support it.

But even today, the word "programming" is used in a much broader sense than some here seem to acknowledge. Consider that a "programmable read-only memory" does not by itself follow sequences of instructions (though it might be part of a larger system that does); "programming" it consists simply of storing bits in it. Similarly for an FPGA. We don't call those "partially programmable". In the present day (well, almost) "programming" a VCR means setting its timer events. et cetera. Perhaps you think of this as simply meaning "configurable", but that's not the common usage.

As I said above, the right thing here is not to simply stick "partially" in front of "programmable" every place in this article (that is, in addition to the places where the point is already discussed and described) and call it a day. We need a well-referenced description of just what "partially" means for Colossus, or else it's just a word that conveys no useful information. Jeh (talk) 21:26, 10 March 2015 (UTC)

The main article qualifies "programmable"; the lede does not, thus it is a misleading summary. Our sourced information currently states "partially"; we must fix the lede to match the article. Saying "it's complicated" is not a reason to mislead -- just the opposite. If it can't be summarized, it should be removed completely. Besides, currently, it couldn't be simpler; add the same single word.

I'm all for better explaining what "programmable" means, in the main, in keeping with the sources. But that's a different issue. --A D Monroe III (talk) 14:44, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

The lede doesn't have to summarize every last point in the article, and the opening sentence doesn't have to contain all qualifiers necessary to precisely define the subject. Anyway, most references start out by saying "first programmable, electronic, digital computer" - and then go on to qualify it. Why should this be different? I do not find this "misleading" as long as the article provides the full information. Jeh (talk) 18:21, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

I agree the lede does not need to summarize everything, but it must summarize, not contradict. I agree a case might be made for Colossus to be first, but the main article says it was not first -- ENIAC was. The lede is now wrong, according to the main. If someone wants to "fix" the main, that's fine; bring the sources and balance the views. If we can't reach any balance, and the statement "programmable" becomes too complicated to summarize, then we take it out of the lede completely, because -- as stated -- it need not summarize everything. But for now, we must correct the lede, by adding the single word "partially". --A D Monroe III (talk) 21:41, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

A later qualification is not a contradiction. You seem to be stuck on the notion that the word "programmable" in the lede necessarily means "fully programmable, as the term is interpreted for modern computers." Remember, WP is written for the general reader, who does not necessarily know that meaning. The general reader does not know what an algorithm is, what a von Neumann machine is, a conditional branch, etc. Colossus was capable of being "set up" to change the input data being considered, the conditions of the decisions it made, and the configuration of its logic array, via plugboard and selector switches. That's "programming" even by some of today's uses, as I outlined above, and was enough to get Dr. Mauchly to agree that the crown of "first programmable computer" no longer belonged to Eniac. Jeh (talk) 22:03, 11 March 2015 (UTC)

JEH - Are You sure about that? I've never heard about John Mauchly saying the Colossus was the first programmable computer, and I'm pretty informed on his whole story. Do you have a source? Zebbie (talk) 14:19, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

This was from an account of the event at which Colossus was revealed. I believe the reporter was Bob Bemer. I'll try to find a ref. Anyway, that aside, the rest of my point still stands: It was as programmable as a lot of other things are that are called programmable. Jeh (talk) 14:28, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

Maybe you read this. http://www.bobbemer.com/COLOSSUS.HTM. It says his jaw dropped, but does not say any more than that. So that is probably not useful as an external validation. Zebbie (talk) 18:10, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

We are evidently dancing around definitions of words that can be taken as general or specific. Who invented, or what was the first "computer" depends on you definition of computer. That has led to all this scratching around for terms that allow the broadest claim possible, sort of like a patent claim. Does "computer" without qualifying adjectives, mean a general-purpose electronic computer, or does it mean any device which manipulates numbers automatically?

There is a Table, over here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_computing_hardware#Early_computer_characteristics

Now the adjective "programmable" has been thrown into the mix, apparently to allow the Colossus to differentiate itself from the Atanasoff ABC, which is also an electronic device which manipulates numbers automatically. But Unlike "Turing Complete," "programmable" is a very soft, nebulous term. "Programmable" can be taken to be quite generally or specifically. I want it to mean "it runs a program that is a list of mathematical steps" and you want it to mean "you can flip a switch to do one rinse cycle or two." Zebbie (talk) 18:19, 16 March 2015 (UTC)

"Programmable" is indeed a relatively nebulous term. The Jacquard loom has often been described as such. Professor Brian Randell in his seminal paper that first made the existence of Colossus widely known (Randell, Brian (1980), "The Colossus", in Metropolis, N.; Howlett, J.; Rota, Gian-Carlo (eds.), A History of Computing in the Twentieth Century (PDF), pp. 47–92, ISBN 978-0124916500) lists its particular features as follows:

Electronic storage registers changeable by an automatically controlled sequence of operations, Conditional (branching) logic, Logic functions preset by patch panels or switches, or conditionally selected by telephone relays, Fully automatic operation, Variable programming by means of lever keys which controlled gates which could be connected in series or parallel as required, Calculated complicated Boolean functions involving up to about 100 symbols.

He is clear that there was conditional branching and he uses the word "programming". --TedColes (talk) 11:38, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

That seems pretty definitive to me. TY for finding it. Jeh (talk) 21:42, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Randall's paper was written very early on, before much had been revealed about Colossus. I would not rely on it for fine technical details.

In particular, Colossus - much as I admire it, and much as it had a huge impact on the world - did not have 'conditional branching', because it did not have a program (in the normal sense of that term, i.e. a set of algorithmic steps). It did have the ability to increment counters depending on whether or not certain conditions were met, but that is not 'conditional branching'.

The Colossus was no more 'programmable' than the Atanasoff-Berry Computer - so if you're going to accept that definition of 'programmable' (I myself find 'configurable' a more approriate term) you have to list the ABC as the the first 'programmable' digital electonic computing device. So either way the Colossus isn't the first 'programmable electronic digital computing device'. Noel (talk) 15:14, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

Colossus printed out the current count only if it exceeded the "set total" (see the section "Operation" in: Flowers, T. H. (1983), "The Design of Colossus", Annals of the History of Computing, 5 (3): 239–252). There was also a feature for suspending counting and incrementing of the key sequence circuits, if a second count needed to be printed before the printer had finished a preceding one. These are both quite clearly conditional branching.

The Atanasoff-Berry Computer is usually described as being designed only for the solution of systems of linear equations. Colossus, on the other hand, could perform a wide variety of tasks to help with decrypting Tunny messages. These ranged from implementing "Tutte's 1+2 break-in" to performing a frequency count of the characters in a "delta "de-chi" (see: Small, Albert W. (December 1944), The Special Fish Report, The American National Archive (NARA) College Campus Washington{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)).

Perhaps it is also worth mentioning that the Atanasoff-Berry Computer was an experiment that was not very successful and was abandoned, whereas Colossus was a resounding success with a total of ten in use at the end of WWII, even though it did not become at all widely known about for three decades. --TedColes (talk) 20:23, 31 March 2015 (UTC)

I think the above gives ample support for "programmable", unmodified, in the lede. But how to succinctly phrase it in the article, and not give the impression that it was as programmable as (for example) an IBM 704, is another question. Jeh (talk) 08:24, 1 April 2015 (UTC)

Suppose the lede is rewritten as follows. Besides covering the "not as programmable as later computers" point, I rearranged it some so as to flow better. Note, the mention that Colossus was not used for attacking Enigma doesn't really belong in the lede, but I think that's the only thing I left out. Note also that the Lorenz cipher was used on teleprinter circuits, not telegraphy!

Colossus was the name of a series of computers developed for British codebreakers during World War II to help in the cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher. Colossus used thermionic valves (vacuum tubes and thyratrons) to perform Boolean operations and digital calculations, and some details of its operations could be changed via switches and patch-panel wiring. Colossus is thus regarded as the world's first programmable, electronic, digital computer, although its programming was not as flexible as that of later computers such as ENIAC.

Colossus was designed by the engineer Tommy Flowers to solve a problem posed by mathematician Max Newman at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park. Alan Turing's use of probability in cryptanalysis contributed to its design. The prototype, Colossus Mark 1, was shown to be working in December 1943 and was operational at Bletchley Park by 5 February 1944. On that date, Colossus Mk I attacked its first message encrypted by Lorenz, the highly sophisticated cipher used in communications between Hitler and his generals during the Second World War. An improved Colossus Mark 2, which used shift registers to quintuple the speed, first worked on 1 June 1944, just in time for the Normandy Landings. Ten Colossi were in use by the end of the war. They permitted the Allies access to some of the encrypted teleprinter messages between the German High Command (OKW) and their army commands throughout occupied Europe.

The destruction of most of the Colossus hardware and blueprints, as part of the effort to maintain a project secrecy that was kept up into the 1970s, deprived most of those involved with Colossus of credit for their pioneering advancements in electronic digital computing during their lifetimes. A functioning replica of a Colossus computer was completed in 2007 and is on display at The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park.

Well? It's been over three weeks since I proposed the above, and no comments? Jeh (talk) 20:37, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

I don't think it is much of an improvement, and comparisons with ENIAC surely belong further on and not in the lead. To say "some details of its operations could be changed via switches and patch-panel wiring" is seriously understating the case. I have just received notification from my local library that they have in the copy of Tommy Flowers' journal article “The Design of Colossus” for me to collect. --TedColes (talk) 22:00, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

I think it's fine to have ENIAC mentioned in the lead. Claims to "first" can be troll bait, where nationalistic editors bring their nationalistic sources to "prove" the WP:TRUTH. Unless we want to remove all claims to being first from the lede, we should at least acknowledge the other claims to keep this pointless nonsense to a minimum. --A D Monroe III (talk) 23:04, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

This whole discussion started because someone wanted a clarification of what "at all programmable" meant. But there was objection to simply saying "programmable" with no qualifications, as clearly Colossus was not as flexibly programmable as later computers; there was strong opinion that this should be clarified in the lede.

While "some details of its operations could be changed via switches and patch-panel wiring" may seem to be understating the case, it is unquestionably true. Perhaps we should drop the word "some"? Jeh (talk) 23:16, 13 April 2015 (UTC)

I am planning to amend the article by including details of how Colossus was programmed. After that, and when others have had an opportunity to make amendments, would I suggest be a better time to amend the lead. --TedColes (talk) 10:04, 14 April 2015 (UTC)

It must be noted (again!) that:

• The following program demonstrates that it is possible to emulate a "SUBLEQ computer" with code inside a single 'while(1)' loop - which can be implemented without a conditional instruction of any kind providing the machine can be made to unconditionally loop over the entire code (eg by looping a paper tape containing program instructions):

// Initialization:
typedef unsigned char byte ;
int lut [ 256 ] =
   {
     1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, ....  // 128 ones.
     0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, ....  // 128 zeroes.
   } ;
byte mem [...whatever...] = { ...whatever... } ;  // The initial state of memory in the SUBLEQ machine
int PC = 0 ; // The SUBLEQ machine's program counter.

// Runtime:
while ( 1 )  // (Implemented via a paper tape loop)
{
  // Read instruction operands from the program counter location.
  int a = mem[PC++] ;
  int b = mem[PC++] ;
  int c = mem[PC++] ;
  // Perform subtraction:
  mem[b] -= mem[a] ;
  // Use lookup table to extract sign of mem[b] so that:
  // c is multiplied by 1 and added to the program counter if mem[b]<=0
  // c is multiplied by 0 and added to the program counter if mem[b]>0.
  PC += lut[mem[b]+128] * c ;
}

• One instruction set computer points out that a machine that implements nothing more than the 'SUBLEQ' instruction is Turing complete.
• Turing completeness says that a machine is considered to be Turing complete if it can emulate a Turing complete machine.
• The Church-Turing thesis says that all Turing complete machines are equivalent - if sufficient time and memory is available.

So, even without a conditional instruction of ANY kind, or even a "JUMP" instruction - a machine with simple memory addressing and minimal arithmetic capability alone can be Turing complete - and that means that given time and memory, it can emulate any modern computer, including the one you're reading this post on.

I'm not sure whether Colossus could do something like the code above...you need the ability to index into memory using a variable. But you can't claim that the lack of a conditional instruction proves that it's not "programmable" or not "Turing-complete".

SteveBaker (talk) 07:34, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Fascinating! But I think we've wandered far into WP:SYNTH land. We should focus on sources. Right now, all we have in the article is one source saying Colossus could be considered Turing Complete if all 10 of them were operated together in some fashion, which may fail WP:UNDUE. We also have other articles on ABC, Z3, and ENIAC with their own sourced claims to "first computer". Let's just look for sources on programming for each, and find a balance for those. --A D Monroe III (talk) 21:13, 16 April 2015 (UTC)

Certainly my argument is WP:SYNTH - it's my own idea - and I do not deny that for one moment! But none the less, it is a pretty convincing proof to those who understand what we're discussing here. So you're 100% right...we can't use it to say "Colossus was Turing Complete" without a pretty solid reference to back it up.

BUT we should use this synthesised knowledge to avoid saying outright that: "Colossus was NOT Turing Complete" when we know it's untrue, or at best highly debatable. If some reference that we dredge up from someplace is unreliable because the author didn't consider an argument like mine, then it's better to either leave it out - or use words like "Professor XXX says that Colossus was not turing complete - but this is disputed" - or better still...just say nothing on the subject on grounds that we don't have sufficient referenced material to do a good job of conveying the truth.

If a single source says "The Sky is Purple with Green spots" - we're not going to use it to definitively state that "The sky is not blue" - no matter the qualifications of the author or the prestigiousness of the source.

IMHO: Since there is considerable debate and confusion over what is or is not turing complete - and whether turing-completeness is or is not the bright-line definition for being "a computer" or whether "programmable" has to imply loops and conditionals...and because the very meaning of the word "computer" changes every decade or so - I really don't think it's encyclopedic to label one or other of these machines as "The First Computer" - or to enter into the discussion of whether such-and-such machine is a "true" computer or not. The machine that was "The First Computer" was different in 1960 than it was in 1980 and in 2000 - whatever we say will probably be wrong again in 2020.

We just need to say what it was, what it did and when it did it...and if we need comparisons with other earlier or contemporary machines then let's stick to concrete features and avoid vague (and time-varying) things like "The first programmable computer". SteveBaker (talk) 18:41, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

But if there's a RS that says "first programmable computer", we can and should quote and cite that. Jeh (talk) 19:52, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

If the source is recent...perhaps...but these terms have both changed meaning repeatedly over the years. SteveBaker (talk) 00:39, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

Professor Randell is accepted by many as being a reliable source. In his 1980 paper he says

Certainly it seems fair to classify the COLOSSUS as a special-purpose program-controlled electronic digital computer. It was, however, externally programmed, and there is no question of its having been a stored-program computer. This final step in the invention of the modern computer had to await the development of a practical highspeed store, capable of holding a large number of binary digits.

Howard Campaigne of the US National Security Agency said the following in his introduction to Flowers' 1983 paper.

My view of Colossus was that of cryptanalyst-programmer. I told the machine to make certain calculations and counts, and after studying the results, told it to do another job. . . . It was programmable by means of a switchboard. Toggle switches enabled one to choose among binary functions of the input, which was a long string of cipher text, and then the outputs of these functions were counted. At the end of each pass of the input string, the counts were used to control the printer, suppressing those counts of lesser interest.

Are these statements sufficient to support the use of the word "programmable"? --TedColes (talk) 07:15, 18 April 2015 (UTC)

Perhaps.

The idea that having the machine be programmed via switches and plugboards somehow invalidates the term "programmable" (and by implication, the word "computer") is tricky and technical. The Von Neumann architecture - that was for a while, the model for most modern computers - requires that program and data be stored in the same memory. The Colossus was definitely not a Von Neumann machine...and for a while, that was the common definition of "computer". But these days, a small, embedded computer may well have its program instructions stored in ROM - quite separately from its RAM. I don't think THAT distinction means that those machines are not programmable - just not programmable right now. Swap the ROM for an EPROM or a Flash memory - and (logically) nothing changes...it's still a "computer" and it's still "programmable" no matter how the programming instructions are stored. Colossuses program instructions came from a "ROM" that just happened to be implemented with switches and plugboards - I don't see that as being at all significant. You could (with some degree of effort) replace the ROM memory in almost any computer with a bunch of toggle switches - and that wouldn't change the fact that it's a computer or that it's programmable. SteveBaker (talk) 00:39, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

{Resetting indent..}

I think it all depends on what one means by the term 'programmable'. These days, when it comes to computing devices (as opposed to, say, TV remote controls), it has mostly come to be a synonym for 'stored program' (and whether that storage is in ROM or RAM doesn't, I think, matter that much). Colossus was clearly not a 'stored program' computing machine, so were we to call it 'programmable', we'd possibly be misleading what I would guess to be the vast majority of Wikipedia's readers, for whom 'programmable' == 'stored program'. Noel (talk) 17:16, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

References

Revisionist history?

Colossus wasn't a computer. It was a calculator. 174.22.24.165 (talk) 20:16, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

1. We put very little stock in anything that drive-by IPs write on talk pages.

2. At the International Research Conference on the History of Computing, Los Alamos, New Mexico, June 10 1976, the existence of the Colossus machines was finally revealed. And they were acclaimed at that time by that organization as the first programmable electronic digital computers (a title formerly accorded to ENIAC). Who are you to disagree? Jeh (talk) 23:15, 29 July 2016 (UTC)

Duplicate article for Colossus Computer

This shows up at https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus_computer and is of poorer quality than this article. The "simple" version is shown first by Google, at least for the search I did.--FScot2 (talk) 09:40, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

We can't control what Google shows first. If you want to suggest changes to the page at simple.wikipedia.org you should go to the talk page over there. Jeh (talk) 22:03, 4 October 2016 (UTC)

First programmable computer was Z3 (1941)

Hello.
Wasn't the first programmable computer actually the Zuse Z3, if not the Z1 (depending whether one would let a not fully reliable devicecount), since it was developed two years ealier (the Z3, that is)?
Regards,
Findus

KaterFindus (talk) 22:02, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

The Z3 was electromechanical - it used relays and so ran at a "clock rate" of from 5 to 10 Hz. Colossus is considered the first electronic digital computer: Computation was done by electronic circuits, i.e. vacuum tubes. This wording is crucial. Jeh (talk) 23:44, 10 March 2017 (UTC)

Date of Colossus photo at top of article

The title photo of a Colossus with two women WRENS is labelled as a Mark II Colossus which did not become working until June 1944. But the photo is dated 1943. Even the Mark I Colossus first worked in December 1943 (according to the article) but was operational in February 1944 (when WRENS would be using it). Hugo999 (talk) 02:33, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Yes, the 1943 date is clearly wrong, particularly as it is said to be Colossus 9. 1945 seems much more likely, but there probably is no direct evidence.--TedColes (talk) 06:57, 17 April 2017 (UTC)

Pic sizes

If you want a size different to thumb you need |thumb|upright=1.5 (for e.g.)| rather than Xpx. Regards Keith-264 (talk) 21:17, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

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Harvard Mk I not Turing complete?

We give as an example of machines that were not Turing complete, the Harvard Mk I. I believe that I can show that it was indeed Turing complete (see Talk:History_of_computing_hardware#Was_the_Harvard_Mark_I_.22Turing_Complete.22.3F_--_Revisited) - which (although it's clearly WP:OR) puts in doubt this statement in this article. Since we have no reference for this claim and it is "challenged" - then per WP:V we should remove it...which I'm about to do. SteveBaker (talk) 13:46, 7 May 2012 (UTC)

Wouldn't a truly Turing-complete machine require storage space of unlimited size ? — MFH:Talk 13:42, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Colossus fuelled further development in the US?

I don't see that the edits on 25 July 2018 make the case for this assertion. What do others think?--TedColes (talk) 17:49, 15 July 2018 (UTC)

"some of its personnel and secret information undoubtedly fueled further development in the U.S. in the late 1940s" does sound pretty speculative. Might be true, but I don't see a source for this. Who from Bletchley ended up in the U.S.? Maybe Turing's influence is what's implied? Dicklyon (talk) 03:57, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

To answer the question of who from Bletchley Park ended up in the US, one thinks of the following. Howard Campaigne who was with a US. Navy communications operation and was assigned to work at Bletchley Park. After the war he joined the newly formed National Security Agency, where he eventually became chief of research. He wrote a forward to Flowers 1983 paper "Flowers, T. H. (1983), "The Design of Colossus", Annals of the History of Computing, 5 (3): 239–252" Gordon Welchman who, in 1943, became assistant director in charge of mechanisation at Bletchley Park and also had responsibility for cryptographic liaison with the US, and who moved to the US in 1948. In 6813 Division History October 1945 there is mention of four American Personnel in Block F - T/Sgt (later 2/Lt) George H. Vergine, Lt Elmer van der Veal, Lt Arthur J. Levenson and Tec 3 Tilmar Moilien. One also thinks of Albert W. Small an American Cryptanalyst in the U. S. Signal Corps who was seconded to Bletchley Park and worked in the Newmanry and wrote Special Fish Report, and Cpt. Walter Fried who wrote Walter Fried's Fish Notes March 1944 to January 1945.

The assertion could well be accurate, but I don't know of any reliable evidence for it.--TedColes (talk) 11:25, 14 February 2019 (UTC)

Agree that Americans using secret Colossus info may well be accurate, but with no source, any claim of violating secrecy must be removed. I have done so. --A D Monroe III^(talk) 23:33, 4 March 2019 (UTC)

Fascinating insight into pre-installation valve testing

91.190.161.223 (talk) 10:49, 16 February 2020 (UTC)Hi, seems that a lot of amateur radio enthusiasts rediscovered the secret technique invented at Bletchley used to sort valves for Colossus, for front end matched pairs on RF amplifiers and other radio devices.

The method was to get the valve under test and use a metal kitchen scouring pad and resonant oscillator based on a handheld grid dip meter. This when applied to the valve cap and base was able to determine specific timing related parameters which would normally require far more extensive testing and installation in a test socket.

The technicians generally went around all the shops selling radio tubes looking for the parameters needed then purchasing a box at a time. Any that didn't make the grade were later sold on normally back to another shop they hadn't visited before so that suspicion wasn't aroused. This way the more extensive analysis for tubes that made it into Colossus could be done in secret and any that did not work for one use were matched up and used for slower applications or for the less demanding power regulation and display tasks.

The reason that this didn't emerge before appears to be secrecy. The valves used on the destroyed machines were put into storage but other parts such as the metalwork and wiring were recycled and ended up on the surplus market with their origins disguised or simply mixed with other scrap metal being melted down.

This can be told now because it has historical value as similar techniques were used by Sinclair and others when transistors were a commodity item. In Sinclair's case he purchased units that had been rejected and then retested them designing circuits around the low gain/high leakage. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.190.161.223 (talk • contribs)

References

Colossi ?

Is colossi really the appropriate way to make the word colossus plural? it seems very odd, is there supporting early documentation for this strange usage? Captain Rotundo 15:26, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I believe there is. — Matt Crypto 19:07, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Keep in mind the standard plural form of the english word "colossus" is "colossuses" Captain Rotundo 15:29, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

To my (English speaking) ear, neither seems right, but colussuses sounds worse. Besides, pseudo Latinate plurals are in vogue nowadays. I say let's go with the fad... ww (talk) 02:51, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Unlike the wholly indefensible octopi and platypi, colossi is the correct plural in Latin, as colossus is a second declension noun. One way to verify this for people who do not own a Latin dictionary is to look at derived adjectives: the usual adjective corresponding to colossus is colossal, which shows the usual second declension paradigm also seen in focal (<= focus/foci) and social (<= socius/socii) rather than the third declension paradigm seen in temporal (<= tempus) or indeed octopodal or the fourth declension paradigm seen in manual (<= manus; second declension **mani would give **manal). Thus the plural colossi is entirely acceptable. Vremya (talk) 14:35, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

This only has meaning if one states the number of Colussi completed (disposition would be nice, 100s of bombes were made). And not variants (Mark I and II) (that's a separate dimension). 00:03, 12 May 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.232.210.38 (talk)

Wouldn't the appropriate statement be "Colossus machines" or "Colossus computers"? It seems wrong to change the name of the machine just to pluralize it. 98.117.210.249 (talk) 04:59, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

"Colossi" was the terminology used by the people at Bletchley Park and Dollis Hill. --TedColes (talk) 10:01, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

I see that this thread is several years old, but it's not too late to add my two cents. In the context of this article, Colossus is a proper noun, and so Colossuses seems like the appropriate plural form, regardless of what's in vogue. Hadron137 (talk) 04:59, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

not a general purpose computer

IIRC, describing the Colossus as "general-purpose" and "programmable" is stretching things considerably. --Robert Merkel 14:14, 1 Sep 2003 (UTC)

That's true. The main alterable feature was the set of Boolean functions used in the cross-correlation algorithm, which didn't really amount to a "program". The rest of the functions were fixed. It would be more accurate to say that it was a fixed-program, single-purpose computer with variable coefficients, and certainly not a stored-program computer, which is what most people mean today by "computer". -- Heron 14:57, 22 Jul 2004 (UTC)

T-52

I've moved the following from the article for now:

Another, different, teletype cypher machine was designed and built by Siemens & Halske, the T-52 Geheimfernschreiber (meaning, 'secret teleprinter'). Early versions of the Siemens machine (the T-52a and T-52b) were used to send signals between Germany and Norway over a cable running through Sweden. The Swedes tapped the cable, copied the traffic, and Arne Beurling, a Swedish mathematician, broke the cypher. Later production versions of the T-52 (there were variants through 'e') were considerably more secure, and quite hard to break even for Bletchley Park. Some of the T-52 traffic was also sent over Luftwaffe Enigma networks which were much more easily broken, and so T-52 traffic was a lower priority for Bletchley Park than might have otherwise been expected. [1]

This is true, but is it on-topic? That is, was Colossus ever used for breaking T-52 traffic? — Matt 20:18, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I have found no reference anywhere that it was used to attack the T-52. However, I haven't found a definite statement of the form "the Colossi were never used to attack Sturgeon", so I suppose it's still theoretically possible. However.... my take on this question would be "very probably not". If you go through the detailed description of the Colossus here (make sure to click on the "More Text" links on each image. to see the informative detailed text about that part of Colossus), it's incredibly specialized to attacking the SZ-40/42. E.g. a very large part of the machine (and tube count) was dedicated to generating the key-stream from the Chi wheels of the SZ-40/42 - e.g. the sizes of the various wheels were wired into the machine, etc. So to attack the T-52 you'd have had to basically rewire the whole machine. I consider it highly unlikely that they did so, given the pressure on them to break into Tunny traffic. Had they wanted to attack the T-52, they probably would have used the Robinson (or some tweaked variant thereof), because on those machines the key-stream was on a second paper-tape, i.e. it would have been a lot easier to adapt it to attack a different machine. Still, the latest reference I've found in the original documents to breaking into Sturgeon was in the summer of '44, at which point it was all being done by hand. I'll keep an eye out to see if I see any references to attacking it later with any machine help. Noel (talk) 02:28, 16 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Colossi is improper and needs changed

Colossus is a proper name and therefore is not subject to pluralization rules for common nouns. Adding an -es to create a plural is an accepted English standard for words ending in sh, ch, s, x, or z. This should be changed. --Snippert (talk) 02:14, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

I prefer rewording these cases, e.g. "Ten Colossus computers ... " Bubba73 ^{You talkin' to me?} 03:43, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

This has already been debated, see above. Colossi was the plural used by those at Bletchley Park during WWII. In my view there is no reason at all not to use that word in this article. The following is from the formal description written immediately after the war, in Section "31 Mr. Newman's Section, paragraph 31A".

By May, 1945 there were 26 cryptographers, 28 Engineers, and 273 Wrens with 10 Colossi, 3 Robinsons, 3 Tunnies and 20 smaller electrical machines.

— Good, Jack; Michie, Donald; Timms, Geoffrey (1945), General Report on Tunny: With Emphasis on Statistical Methods, UK Public Record Office HW 25/4 and HW 25/5.

--TedColes (talk) 07:48, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree, TedColes. Mejorasi723 (talk) 16:11, 25 November 2020 (UTC)