10 | 1 lIfE AND wORk
(^1943) Works on speech encryption in New York’s Bell Labs. Meets Claude Shannon.
Returns from the United States and takes on the role of high-level scientific
advisor at Bletchley Park.
Establishes a small lab at Hanslope Park, a few miles from Bletchley Park.
Starts work on a portable speech-encryption system.
Lives among soldiers stationed at Hanslope, eats in their mess.
(^1944) Just up the road at Bletchley Park, the world’s first large-scale electronic
computer, Tommy Flowers’ Colossus, is breaking Tunny messages from February.
Meets lifelong friends Robin Gandy and Don Bayley at Hanslope.
Career as runner begins. Comes an easy first in the mile at regimental sports.
(^1945) Completes documentation for his ‘Delilah’ speech encryption system.
Celebrates VE Day (victory in Europe) by taking a quiet country walk with
Bayley and Gandy.
Travels to Germany with Flowers to investigate German cryptological and
communications systems. When the atom bomb is dropped on Hiroshima,
explains to Flowers how the bomb works.
Surprise visit from John Womersley of the National Physical Laboratory
(NPL). Accepts Womersley’s offer to join the NPL and design an electronic
universal Turing machine.
Moves to London.
Completes the design of his Automatic Computing Engine (ACE). Specifies
processor speed of 1 MHz.
Says computers can be programmed to ‘display intelligence’ but at the risk of
them making ‘occasional serious mistakes’.
Describes the concepts of self-modifying programs and of programs that
modify other programs, presaging the compiler concept.