The best "BP" book yet
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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.
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Colossus - a disappointment
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This book is far too long and tedious. He should have taken a leaf out of David Kahn's books (who he refers to). He goes into excessive length about the teleprinter codes, written in such a way that it does not make the essentials clear. He mentions the problems with Rommel, but nowhere mentions that Rommel's reverses were largely due to Britain stopping sending military data to the American Embassy in Cairo. In fact the Americans were sending details of the British troop movements to the USA and the Germans were reading the American transmissions. I was disappointed with this book. It could have been far better written. I had a feeling that having access to new data he felt that he had to include it all.
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Colossus - a great read!
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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!
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colossal achievment
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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.
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