One of only 3 "enigma machine" stolen; A piece of ENIAC was up for auction.

From: Geoff Roberts <geoffrob_at_stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au>
Date: Mon Apr 3 01:46:47 2000

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Cheponis" <mac_at_Wireless.Com>
To: <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Monday, April 03, 2000 2:56 PM
Subject: Re: One of only 3 "enigma machine" stolen; A piece of ENIAC was
up for auction.


> And, what is unique about the Bletchley Park Enigma that made it only
one of
> three in the world?

Very likely that it's one that was built by the Poles just before WW2
after they collared one bound for the German Embassy long enough to
dismantle it and take pics etc. (they arranged to have it held up in
customs over a weekend IIRC). This then enabled them to produce some
for their own use, one of these eventually found it's way to England,
when first Poland, then France, where the operation moved to, were
overrun.]
That would fit, because only a very few of the Polish built Enigmas
survived, the rest were destroyed by the Poles to prevent the Germans
finding out they had (at least partly) penetrated it's secrets.

This particular machine might well be the one demonstrated on the BBC TV
series "The Secret War" in the final episode of the series titled "Still
Secret". If so, it was restored to full working order by the
teleprinter maintenance dept of the BBC especially for the program in
the mid 80's.

I'd predict it will probably be recovered in fairly short order. IMHO
it would be almost impossible to sell something like this for a fraction
of it's supposed value without getting nailed.

Cheers

Geoff Roberts
Computer Systems Manager
Saint Mark's College
Port Pirie,
South Australia
geoffrob_at_stmarks.pp.catholic.edu.au
netcafe_at_pirie.mtx.net.au
ICQ: 1970476
Received on Mon Apr 03 2000 - 01:46:47 BST