Code Machine Defies Brainwork (Apr, 1934)
Source: Modern Mechanix ( More articles from this issue )
Issue: Apr, 1934
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Code Machine Defies Brainwork
DURING the World War, practically all governments suffered loss of code books which revealed to the enemy the contents of wirelessed messages.
And when the enemy did not have the necessary code dictionary, skilled code workers, by diligent search for a key letter or word, could usually decipher almost any message.
A new machine, invented by Swedish scientists, is said to be so complicated in its action that it defies solution by a human brain. A message is typed on this machine from a standard keyboard, but instead of delivering the words as written, the machine delivers them typed in the code which is being used.
To decode a message, it is necessary to have a machine arranged exactly like the one on which the message was written. The message is typed in the code in which it is received and it is delivered from the machine in ordinary, understandable language.
Hellooooo, Enigma! Originally developed for commercial cipher use, if I remember correctly.
Comment by mrchurchill109 — November 15, 2007 @ 9:43 am
The programmable electronic computer was developed to break the codes, allowing us to post photos of illiterate cats today.
Comment by jayessell — November 15, 2007 @ 11:12 am
Computer-historians recreating the code breaking machine.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6895759.stm
Comment by jayessell — November 15, 2007 @ 11:18 am
Now that’s a verb that has passed out of use: “wirelessed”. And yet Firefox’s spell-checker doesn’t trip up on it.
Comment by glindsey — November 15, 2007 @ 12:27 pm
It’s a perfectly cromulent word.
Comment by jayessell — November 15, 2007 @ 3:58 pm
This article came from one published by Scerbius. His machine was the foreunner of Enigma. I had a copy of the original article published in Radio News a long time ago.
His mecahnical computer took the Brits a long time to replicate . It took a British genius to replicate it.
Comment by Ralph Cameron — November 19, 2007 @ 7:53 pm