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Restoring Bletchley Park: birthplace of modern computing
- stcredzero 15y agoThey deserve credit along with a number of other sites. (The Manhattan Project is one.)
- canistr 15y agoActually, the Queen visited Bletchley Park a couple of weeks ago and unveiled a tribute to the WWII Codebreakers. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14164529 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14164529
- chadgeidel 15y agoI'm not trying to be snarky, but I did not know the Manhattan Project used (non-human) computers in any significant way. None of the documentaries/specials I've seen have mentioned any use. Would you care to enlighten me?
- stcredzero 15y agoThey used IBM machines with punch cards to do (what were then) large numbers of automated computations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_IBM#1939-1945:_World_War_II http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_IBM#1939-1945:_World... Feynman often used to rib Danny Hillis about Computer Science being a fluff field, since he'd already done all that stuff using primitive machines back in the 40's.
- chadgeidel 15y agoThanks for that.
- iuguy 15y agoI've been to Bletchley Park about 3 times now. It is staggeringly amazing what went on there, when you think of the effort those people went through and their contribution to the war. It must have been incredibly painful to let people die rather than run the risk of the Germans knowing that the codes were broken. If you ever come to the UK from abroad, you can get a train from Euston Station (zone 1 on the underground) to Milton Keynes and from there head to Bletchley Park. It's well worth a day trip for the serious geek/hacker type.
- defeated 15y agoI just did this about a month ago, and it couldn't be easier to get from London to Bletchley Park, it's literally right up the road from the Milton Keynes train station, maybe a two minute walk. Getting to Down House (Darwin's House) from London, on the other hand, while totally worthwhile... what a hassle!