Ebay horror ...

From: John Allain <allain_at_panix.com>
Date: Wed Jun 13 17:41:53 2001

>tony asked:
>Do you have any clue as to how an Enigma works and what it consists of?
>Simple rotary switches indeed?????


Of course, like most of my answers to this list it
will likely be corrected later on, here's a quick
answer:

  Keyboard (1 letter press = 1 signal line)
  goes to...
   -> Arbitrary plugboard (''fixed'' rotor)
   -> Rotor: N signal points in,
             N out in scrambled order,
             angle dependant
   -> Rotor, with diff. scrambling AND angle
   -> Rotor, again
   -> Light array (1 signal line = 1 Illuminable Letter)

  The rotor as you may guess increments with each
  keypress. Later improvements included a fourth
  rotor and a reflection arrangement which apparently
  allowed each rotor to pass the signal both to its
  right AND to its left without ever having crossed
  wires (neat). It would reach the far wall and then
  be sent back eventually to the rotor origin. A wire
  cross anywhere would cause non unique mappings, IE 2
  letters out at once, which was designed out.

John IIRC.
Received on Wed Jun 13 2001 - 17:41:53 BST