Counting
Wynn-Williams had obtained his PhD at Cambridge University for his work at the Cavendish Laboratory with Sir Ernest Rutherford. In 1926 he had constructed an amplifier using thermionic valves (vacuum tubes) for the very small electrical currents arising from detectors in their nuclear disintegration experiments. Rutherford had got him to devote his attention to the construction of a reliable valve amplifier and methods of registering and counting these particles. The counter used gas-filled Thyratron tubes which are bi-stable devices.
The counters that Wynn-Williams designed for Heath Robinson, and subsequently for the Colossus computers used thyratrons to count units of 1, 2, 4, 8; high speed relays to count units of 16, 32, 48, 64; and slower relays to count 80, 160, 240, 320, 400, 800, 1200, 1600, 2000, 4000, 6000, and 8000. The count obtained for each run-through of the message tape was compared with a pre-set value, and if it exceeded it, was displayed along with a count that indicated the position of the key tape in relation to the message tape. The Wren operators initially had to write down these numbers before the next count that exceeded the threshold was displayed – which was "a fruitful source of error", so a printer was soon introduced.
Read more about this topic: Heath Robinson (codebreaking Machine)
Famous quotes containing the word counting:
“But counting up to two
Is harder to do....”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“What we commonly call man, the eating, drinking, planting, counting man, does not, as we know him, represent himself, but misrepresents himself. Him we do not respect, but the soul, whose organ he is, would he let it appear through his action, would make our knees bend.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Love is sinister,
is mean to us in separation;
makes our thin bodies thinner.
This fellow Death
lacks mercy
and is good at counting our days.
And Master,
you, too, are subject
to the plague of jealousy
so think:
how could womenfolk,
soft as sprouts,
live like this?”
—Amaru (c. seventh century A.D.)