Heath Robinson (codebreaking Machine)

Heath Robinson (codebreaking Machine)

Heath Robinson was a machine used by British codebreakers at the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) at Bletchley Park during World War II in Cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher. This achieved the decryption of messages in the German teleprinter cipher produced by the Lorenz SZ40/42 in-line cipher machine. Both the cipher and the machines were called "Tunny" by the codebreakers, who named different German teleprinter ciphers after fish. It was the predecessor to the electronic Colossus computer, and was dubbed "Heath Robinson" by the Wrens who operated it, after cartoonist William Heath Robinson, who drew immensely complicated mechanical devices for simple tasks, similar to Rube Goldberg in the USA.

The functional specification of the machine was produced by Max Newman. The main engineering design was at the Post Office Research Station at Dollis Hill in North London either by Frank Morrell or Tommy Flowers. The high-speed electronic valve counters were the work of C. E. Wynn-Williams from the Telecommunications Research Establishment at Malvern. Work started in January 1943, the prototype machine was delivered to Bletchley Park in June and was first used to help read current encrypted traffic soon afterwards.