Oral history interview with Thomas Harold Flowers, ca. 1976.

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Oral history interview with Thomas Harold Flowers, ca. 1976.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/63288502

Flowers discusses the development of the Colossus electronic cryptanalytic machine beginning with his work for the British government in switching systems. As early as 1930, he says, he turned to vacuum tubes because of reliability problems with mechanical switching equipment. He describes the construction of a voice-frequency signalling system at the Post Office Research Establishment (PORE) from 1932 to 1935. At the beginning of World War II PORE directed its efforts to cryptanalysis, and Flowers' expertise in vacuum tube switching led him to a key role in the project. Flowers describes in detail his work with Colossus at the Bletchley Park Government Code and Cipher School, and his relationship with Alan Turing, one of the senior Bletchley Park scientists.

Sound cassette : 1 (60 min.) : analog, mono.

University of Minnesota, Minneapolis

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SNAC Resource ID: 7885472

University of Minnesota, Minneapolis

Related Entities

There are 5 Entities related to this resource.

Bletchley Park Government Code and Cipher School (Great Britain)

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6dz8g01 (corporateBody)

Turing, Alan Mathison, 1912-1954

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w65x59c7 (person)

Alan Mathison Turing, code breaker and computer science pioneer (born June 23, 1912, London, England-died June 7, 1954, Wilmslow, Cheshire, England), read mathematics at King's College, Cambridge. He was elected Fellow of King's in 1935. He began research in mathematical logic which led to his well-known work on computable numbers and the 'Turing Machine.' He spent two years at Princeton University, 1936-1938, working with A. Church, and the war years at Bletchley Park, at the Code and Cypher Sc...

Post Office Research Establishment (Great Britain)

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6x43390 (corporateBody)

Evans, Christopher Riche

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6gm8sx1 (person)

British computer scientist. From the description of Pioneers of computing, 1975-1976. (University of Minnesota, Minneapolis). WorldCat record id: 63283010 ...

Flowers, T. H. (Thomas Harold), 1905-1998

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w62827v2 (person)

British computer scientist. From the description of Oral history interview with Thomas Harold Flowers, ca. 1976. (University of Minnesota, Minneapolis). WorldCat record id: 63288502 ...