Inspect the electromechanical Bombe that supported Enigma codebreaking before entering Turing machine theory.
Prelude · 1/6
A real machine, before the theory
The Bombe is not a Turing machine. It was an electromechanical device built during the Second World War, where the work of Alan Turing, Gordon Welchman, and the British Tabulating Machine Company came together to search mechanically for Enigma key settings. The Turing Machine series turns toward abstraction after this, but first it is worth seeing the pressure of the period that pushed computation into machinery — and how much iron it took.
Take in the whole machine from the front and see how much mechanism is aimed at a single purpose.
This machine cannot compute anything. It was built to answer one question faster than a person could.
Bombe Run
Historical PreludeA standby state for observing the real machine. Look at the density of the drums, wiring, and service panels.
Scan Speed
The rotation is not uniform across all banks — the top bank is shown fast, the middle/lower banks as slower stepped feeds.
Focus
OverviewCheck the density of the whole front and the three-bank layoutEstimated locations from photographic research are recorded separately in the GLB node names and the manifest.
Stop Readout
Run stateReady
Signalnone
Operatorstanding by
Modelpublic-source visual reconstruction target
Discovery check
What was the Turing-Welchman Bombe actually used for?
