The man in the center of this picture, Tony Sale, led the project to build this replica of the Second World War Colossus. Part of his motive was to prove that the British built an electronic computer before the Americans. He proved his point eloquently with thorough archival research followed by actual building of a replica as identical as possible to the machine that went into operation in early 1944. The first electronic computer in the US, also a war-time project, did not begin operating until nearly a year later (at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia; it was later commercialized as Univac).
The lady at the far end was one of thousands of teenage girls who helped with code breaking at Bletchley Park during the Second World War. Now she is a Bletchley Park tour guide.
The visitor on the left, who is responding appreciatively to Tony Sale's talk, is Richard.
The racks of equipment seen here are primarily the input and output stations. The code breakers specified the logical operations that should be performed for the next computer run and the operators entered them on switches and dials. The output was on a panel of lights that indicated the statistical likelihood that the computer had identified the correct encryption code.
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