Turing/Welchman Bombe Rebuild Project

14/11/2021

Welcome one and all! The National Museum of Computing is open and we're demonstrating the Bombe, which is working perfectly.
Do come and see us! (check the web site for latest opening days and times.)

14/05/2021

It's been almost six months since the museum closed to the public, and we really want to get back to demonstrating our wonderful machine.

Over the break, we've been looking after the Bombe, making sure it stays in working order. Our team has been in, suitably masked and visored, and making sure to follow the rules. The Bombe is working fine!

The National Museum of Computing reopens on the Friday 28th for the whole Bank Holiday weekend, Then, the museum is open 4 days a week throughout June, and back to normal, 6 days a week, opening from July. Keep an eye on the TNMOC website for dates and times, and to book your tickets. (Advance booking only, please.)

See you soon.

06/09/2020

We aren’t out of the woods, we are looking for support from you - Turing/Welchman Bombe Rebuild Project https://www.tnmoc.org/tnmocshop/become-a-tnmoc-supporter

03/08/2020

We've now completed the perspex barrier around the Bombe. (Kudos to Mike Hillyard). Which was then ceremonially opened, with the peeling of the protective films!
So, when The National Museum of Computing reopens, we'll be able to safely restart our demonstrations.

27/07/2020

Making the Bombe Covid-proof. Today's engineering day continued the works to make the Bombe safe to demonstrate. The perspex barrier is now almost complete. We'll be able to demonstrate and explain the Bombe, while keeping our visitors and our demonstrators completely safe. See you on September 8th!

09/07/2020

We've now converted the Petard machine in the Bombe gallery at TNMOC to be Covid-safe. Instead of physically pressing a button, all you need to do is wave your hand near the new button. https://www.tnmoc.org/

30/06/2020

Although we've been closed during lockdown, since March. We've not been totally idle.
We've been coming in occasionally, to ensure that the Bombe is kept ticking over, taking precautions, obviously. The machine continues to work perfectly.
Meanwhile, we've been planning for the museum reopening. We're going to ensure social distancing and so on. We plan to demonstrate the machine as usual, and are constructing a new and improved barrier around the machine so that our demonstrators can remain unmasked yet perfectly safe. It's amazing what you can do with Perspex.
We look forward to seeing you again soon. Keep an eye on the pages for the timing.

14/04/2020

Bombe @ 80 Celebration

On March 14th, at TNMOC, we held the Bombe @ 80 symposium

In the morning, the plenary session comprised:
• Dr Marek Grajek, on the Polish Contribution to Enigma cryptography up to Pyry, July 1939. https://youtu.be/-Q4iEM5FWOw

• Dermot Turing, on the story of building the prototype Bombes - BP takes up the challenge https://youtu.be/GgHuSId5Dh0

• In the afternoon, we ran the Bombe machine and demonstrated what would have happened if the original prototype, “Victory”, was used. (Victory had no diagonal board,) And then, with the addition of Welchman’s diagonal board, demonstrated the effect of the diagonal board on the same menu. The improvement was clear.

• We also showed the new Polish video on Enigma Codebreaking with the latest discoveries – see it on Youtube here: https://youtu.be/HarioLuqCoA

• And we had the first showing of the updated video of the Bombe Rebuild story (coming soon!)

• Finally, we had the Anniversary Celebration – with birthday cake, naturally.

• And thanks to the Home Guard for keeping an eye on us,

12/01/2020

Did you know that the Bombe will be 80 in March?
The first, prototype, Bombe was delivered to BP on March 18 1940.
To commemorate that epochal event, there will be a commemoration event at - for details, see

Bombe 80th Anniversary Celebration

13/12/2019

13/12/2019

ENIGMA. WE HAVE GOT NEWS.
We've just seen this excellent new video, which we strongly recommend. The latest historical information about the cracking of the Enigma cipher.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HarioLuqCoA

17/07/2019

Alan Turing is to be the face on the Bank of England £50. A well-deserved honour!

You too can see (one of) the fruits of his genius, the fantastic Bombe machine that helped crack the Enigma!

You can see the working Bombe, 6 days a week at TNMOC, at Bletchley. https://www.tnmoc.org/bombe