{"id":84685,"date":"2025-10-17T16:47:06","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T16:47:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/84685\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T16:47:06","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T16:47:06","slug":"the-teamwork-behind-bletchley-parks-colossus-computer-computing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/84685\/","title":{"rendered":"The teamwork behind Bletchley Park\u2019s Colossus computer | Computing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Andrew Smith is right to applaud the work of Tommy Flowers for building Colossus, the world\u2019s first digital programmable computer, delivered to Bletchley Park in 1944 (Move over, Alan Turing: meet the working-class hero of Bletchley Park you didn\u2019t see in the movies, 12 October<\/a>). The piece concludes with Flowers stressing: \u201cIt\u2019s never just one person in one place\u201d \u2013 teamwork and collaboration are key. This is even truer than the article might imply, when it says \u201csubsequent models\u201d of Colossus \u201cincluded many new features and innovations\u201d, as if these had been the result of Flowers working alone, just upgrading his design. Quite the contrary.<\/p>\n

It is well documented (for example, in the 2006 book Colossus by B Jack Copeland and others) that the Bletchley Park codebreakers Jack Good<\/a> and Donald Michie<\/a> not only utilised Colossus to help break the codes, they enhanced the computer; it was these developments that were so successfully incorporated by Flowers in subsequent machines.<\/p>\n

This was teamwork between Flowers the engineer and the codebreakers, who came from a range of disciplines, from mathematics to the humanities. Hence the need to teach a whole range of subject areas, rather than what might appear the most useful.<\/p>\n

But this goes far beyond the importance of teamwork. It\u2019s a dramatic demonstration that it\u2019s quite wrong to think that a new machine X will increase output by Y. The actual impact will depend on those working on the new machine. Hence the need to go beyond just training for today\u2019s skills. We need people with the capabilities to work with new technologies they have not come across, let alone been \u201cskilled\u201d for, and the motivation to put those capabilities to good effect. For this, we need broad-based, lifelong learning as a permanent\u00a0national necessity.
Prof Jonathan Michie
University of Oxford<\/p>\n

Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please email<\/a> us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Andrew Smith is right to applaud the work of Tommy Flowers for building Colossus, the world\u2019s first digital…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84686,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[371,111,139,69,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-84685","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-computing","8":"tag-computing","9":"tag-new-zealand","10":"tag-newzealand","11":"tag-nz","12":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}