The Ring Setting
The ring settings, or Ringstellung, are used to change the position of the internal wiring relative to the rotor. They do not change the notch or the alphabet ring on the exterior. Those are fixed to the rotor. Changing the ring setting will therefore change the positions of the wiring, relative to the turnover-point and start position.
The ring setting will rotate the wiring. Where rotor I in the A-position normally encodes an A into an E, with a ring setting offset B-02 it will be encoded into K
As mentioned before these encodings only happen after the key is pressed and the rotor has turned. Tracing the signal on the rotors AAA is therefore only possible if a key is pressed while the rotors were in the position AAZ.
With the rotors I, II, III (from left to right), wide B-reflector, all ring settings in B-position, and start position AAA, typing AAAAA will produce the encoded sequence EWTYX.
Read more about this topic: Enigma Rotor Details
Famous quotes containing the words ring and/or setting:
“Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)
“The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)