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)
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