Ebay horror ...

From: Paul Braun <nerdware_at_laidbak.com>
Date: Wed Jun 13 22:08:28 2001

Actually, there was a guy with a booth outside at Dayton, and he
was demonstrating an Enigma machine (I think this one was
Polish...I know it wasn't of German origin) and you are pretty much
right on. The one he was showing was a 4-rotor version with the
two-way signal path. Pretty cool tech, even for today.

If you were there, it was in a double space, under an awning, and
his main thing was old telegraph keys.



>
> 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 +AD0- 1 signal line)
> goes to...
> -+AD4- Arbitrary plugboard (''fixed'' rotor)
> -+AD4- Rotor: N signal points in,
> N out in scrambled order,
> angle dependant
> -+AD4- Rotor, with diff. scrambling AND angle
> -+AD4- Rotor, again
> -+AD4- Light array (1 signal line +AD0- 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.
>
>






Paul Braun WD9GCO
Cygnus Productions
nerdware_nospam_at_laidbak.com

"A computer without a Microsoft operating system is like a dog without a bunch of bricks tied to its head."
Received on Wed Jun 13 2001 - 22:08:28 BST