Not a true representation of Bletchley Park
I cannot believe that only one person would have a cup of tea in their hands.
It's a tip of the hat today to Lego fan James Pegrum, who's created a splendid miniature representation of Bletchley Park's famous Colossus Mark 2: James Pegrum's Lego Colossus. Pic: James Pegrum James Pegrum's not-so-colossal Colossus Mark 2 Working from an original photo of the Colossus, Adult Friend Of Lego (AFOL) James …
Possibly more than my soldering iron, LEGO was my greatest tool as a child. I've been responsible for leading legions of settlers in the building of colonies on far away planets and in building super computers that could manufacture anything I wanted (as long as it was in a primary color and didn't have rounded corners). I also terrorized my parents with brightly colored caltrops which were left on the fields of epic battles and lost in the high grass (carpet). I tried Playmobil because at the time the people were better but the scale went to hell.
"I'll see your EF36 and raise you one EF37A (for my valve amp of course)"
Just a thought - when did the British start using valves with the letter combinations for filament voltage/current (D, E, O, P, U) - followed by function (B, C, F, K, L) ? Post-war English Electric Deuce probably had some ECCxx types for flip-fliops.
All my war surplus things were 807, 5Z4, 6V6, 6L6 etc Then later came the QV and QQV types.
Mullard was Philips' secret entry to the UK valve Cartel in 1928. No-one really noticed till 1939. EF36 etc isn't a British nomenclature.
There was the Marconi numbering scheme. That was British.
Also till about 1942 Ever Ready had their own scheme which replaced Lissen's in 1930s. They were mostly relabelled Mullard valves.
Some UK makers used the US scheme.
see Radiomuseum and National Valve Museum
In the national interest it should be returned to BLMRA (British Leather Manufacturers Research Association) to get the industry moving and productive again rather than turn a state resource into another museum to non-existing UK enterprise appreciated by its shadow from a previous era (or of a previous error?).
Sorry Dick,
Nothing to get over.
Bombe was a machine for cracking Enigma, And yes it was a developed from work by Marian Rejewski, hence the name being derived from the Polish: "bomba kryptologiczna" The Polish Memorial at Bletchley specifically acknowledges this.
The Colossus however was for breaking the Lorenz Cypher. Nothing to do with u-boats or the Polish.
Perhaps a bit of reading on Max Newman, Ralph Tester, John Tiltman, Bill Tutte and Tommy Flowers would not go a-miss, Blighty is proud of all these men.
Playmobile created a shisma. Good old LEGO had to come up with an anwser and came out with kits and building plans. Before that it was bags of blocks in different shapes and colours. I remember that X-Mas when grandpa presented me with a LEGO kit of a scandinavian ferry of about 400 bricks. The neighbours boy received the Playmobile "Pirate Ship". Nothing to assemble, just there. We used the LEGO bricks to build a landing site for the pirate ship. Playmobile killed off a lot of creative challenge by providing a ready to use toy. Hence the lack of engineer students today. LEGO and Fischer Technik where the toys (tools) of the time. Playmobile killed it. Just unwrap it and play.