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

From: David Wollmann <dwollmann_at_puttybox.com>
Date: Thu Apr 6 14:42:00 2000

On Sun, Apr 02, 2000 at 10:26:28PM -0700, Mike Cheponis wrote:
> As for the BBC article saying it was only one of three in the world, this is
> hard to believe. Thousands of Enigmas were built, and it's quite difficult
> to believe that all but three have been destroyed.
>
> The Computer Museum History Center <http://www.computerhistory.org>
> has at least one, and I know that the NSA lobby also is reported to have one.
>
> As the article points out, even Mick Jagger owns an Enigma machine, but of
> a different type than the stolen machine.
>
> I know about the 4-rotor and 3-rotor versions; what other types have there
> been?
>
> And, what is unique about the Bletchley Park Enigma that made it only one of
> three in the world?
>
> -Mike
>


According to information linked to by the Wired article on this subject,
the missing machine was an "Abwehr" (sp?) variant, with no patch panel,
and extra symbols on the keys:

http://home.cern.ch/~frode/crypto/BPAbwehr/press.html


More details on the machine are located here:

http://www.eclipse.net/~dhamer/Abwehr_theft.htm


And yes, there may be a few more around, but this one was one of three
Abwehr models _known_ to exist.
Received on Thu Apr 06 2000 - 14:42:00 BST

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