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Hardware Hacking Build

Desktop Turing-Welchman Bombe Build 69

Posted by timothy from the purely-awesome dept.
An anonymous reader writes: I completed a months long project to build my own version of the Turing-Welchman Bombe. My machine uses a Raspberry Pi2 and an Arduino to drive stepper motors to turn the three output indicator drums and to drive an LCD display, to work like the indicator unit on the real Bombe. Everything was custom made by me at home. The unit is built to reflect the style of the real Bombe at Bletchley Park and to run in a similar way but as a portable, desktop sized unit. To demonstrate it I use the same Weather Report Menu as used at BP to demonstrate their real Bombe. The entire build was painstakingly documented over many months but the link given shows an overview and a film of the completed machine in action.
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Desktop Turing-Welchman Bombe Build

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  • PLEASE (Score:5, Funny)

    by wbr1 ( 2538558 ) on Sunday October 04, 2015 @06:08PM (#50658381)
    For the love of all that is holy, do not take it to a school in Texas.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Why not? As long as he's brown, he'll get free tuition and a visit to the White House out of it.

    • Re:PLEASE (Score:5, Funny)

      by binarstu ( 720435 ) on Sunday October 04, 2015 @06:29PM (#50658441)

      For the love of all that is holy, do not take it to a school in Texas.

      And if you do take it to a school in Texas, when questioned by the authorities, don't make the mistake of saying, "No, no, don't worry -- it's just a bombe!"

  • That Bombe looks like a clock!

    Panic!!

  • Nice TARDIS in the corner there...
  • This is an amazing accomplishment. I can't help thinking how sad it is, however, that all the brilliance and effort that went into this didn't go into doing something that would have been more productive. Solving problems that have already been solved, but in a novel way, just seems like an incredible squandering of talent to me. There are so many problems that still need solutions. Still, I will say it again. It is indeed quite impressive work.

    • How many have you solved? (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Yeah, and how many of these important problems have you solved? Stop shitting on people for how they choose to spend their free time. If they had been eating chips while watching I Love Lucy reruns after work you'd still be out of line.

    • Christ alive!

      Well shit man, posting negative comments on the internet is (a) not really any kind of achievement and (b) been so done before that it's hard to describe just how done before it really has been.

      Frankly using your own terms of judgement for the original poster will see you, because of your post, judged much, much more harshly.

      The guy has a hobby, and it's a cool nerdy one that many people here like to read about. I have hobbies too with which I will never change the world, and that the slashdot

      • My original post, with emphasis added:

        "This is an amazing accomplishment. I can't help thinking how sad it is, however, that all the brilliance and effort that went into this didn't go into doing something that would have been more productive. Solving problems that have already been solved, but in a novel way, just seems like an incredible squandering of talent to me. There are so many problems that still need solutions. Still, I will say it again. It is indeed quite impressive work."

        ... and your bizarre in

        • ... and your bizarre interpretation:

          Yep totally bizarre that I think the following are negative:

          I can't help thinking how sad it is,

          incredible squandering of talent

          weird. Cannot understand it.

          You must have never heard of constructive criticism.

          It's not constructive criticism to tell someone what he does in his spare time sucks because he ought to be bettering humanity. You're simply telling him you don't like how he spends his time away from work and you'd rather he do other things for your gratification.

          • " what he does in his spare time sucks"

            You are an idiot for even suggesting I said that. I said he has incredible talent, and it would be better served using it to make the world a better place. That you can see that as negative speaks volumes about you. I didn't bother to read the rest of your drivel. Off you go now sketchy ...

            • That you can see that as negative

              You literally said that he was squandering talent.

              You are an idiot for even suggesting I said that.

              You're a moron for not even realising that's what you said.

              • "You literally said that he was squandering talent.

                I thought, according to you, I said what he does in his spare time sucks. Make up your fucking mind, will you sketchy? You evidently don't know that squandering can mean to allow (an opportunity) to pass or be lost, as in he has a real opportunity to add value to humanity with his impressive talent, and he isn't taking advantage of it. Clearly you speak English about as well as you doodle. Now off you go again there, sketchy ...

                • I thought, according to you, I said what he does in his spare time sucks.

                  Yes. You said it was a colossal waste of talent. If that's not full of suckage, I don't know what is.

                  Or are you actually sufficiently thick that you don't realise that telling someone that they are wasting their life is in fact an insult?

                  Whatever. You get your jollies cutting down other people. You should at lease be honest/self aware enough to admit it.

                  I like how you ignored the point about Einstein because you managed to pick an exam

  • In old school vein... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Here are a couple of vids of the renovated Hartree Difference Analyser in action. (A pre-war analog computer built from Meccano.)
    Nerd Potter's Wheel. [man.ac.uk]

    (For those of an archo-nerdish persuasion. the narrator of the first video is Charles Lindsey - author of "An Informal Introduction to Algol 68".)

  • I managed to get an Enigma simulator into the AppStore http://ricks-thoughts.denhaven... [denhaven2.com] The bombe is orders of magnitude harder,I'm sure.

  • I completed a months long project to build my own version of the Turing-Welchman Bombe.

    No, you didn't. You programmed a Bombe simulator and then spent months building an output display.

    Though I suppose from a certain point of view the output display could be considered a cool thing, but it isn't a Bombe.

    • Though I suppose from a certain point of view the output display could be considered a cool thing, but it isn't a Bombe.

      Tell that to the cops.

  • Maybe it's that I'm "into" embedded stuff and all that. Or maybe it's because I've been studying my Masters at a school with heavy emphasis on crypto. But this project rings my nerdy bells in so many ways I cannot really count anymore. It's way past cool.

    The only thing that lets me down a bit is that there's so little following of the idea here at Slashdot. It's as great as it gets. Congratulations!

  • The "D" in "LCD" already means display. "LCD Display" is like white mustang, free gift, ATM machine.... The project is neat, but with the lack of understanding technical terms the OP instantly drops down a few notches on the credibility scale.
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