[SIGCIS-Members] Tommy Flowers

Tue Oct 21 02:07:04 PDT 2025

On a date to be determined, but likely in 2026, an IEEE Milestone for the
Colossus <https://ieeemilestones.ethw.org/Milestone-Proposal:Colossus> will
be dedicated in the UK.  I worked with 4 British technologists on this
project.
_________________________
Brian A. Berg / bberg at StanfordAlumni.org
Berg Software Design - LinkedIn Profile
<https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianaberg/>
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Chair
IEEE Region 6 <https://ieee-region6.org/about-us/region-6-officers/>
History/Milestones Chair
Curator: www.SiliconValleyMilestones.com
IEEE SCV Section <http://www.ieee.org/scv/> Past Chair / IEEE-CNSV
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Co-Organizer: Celebrating 50 Years of the Internet
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_________________________

Brian Berg

FMS Technical Chair

408.568.2505

brian.berg at FutureMemoryStorage.com

www.FutureMemoryStorage.com

On Mon, Oct 20, 2025 at 1:12 PM Morten Bay via Members <
members at lists.sigcis.org> wrote:

> Just adding this to Thomas's list, in case someone less steeped in this
> particular history joins later and wants even more sources.
>
> Here are Flowers' own words on the subject from 1983 (IEEE is down right
> now, likely due to the AWS outage):
>
> https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel5/5488650/4640706/04640709.pdf
>
> /Morten
>
> Morten Bay, Ph.D.
> Lecturer
> Research fellow, Center for the Digital Future
> Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism
> University of Southern California
> On Oct 20, 2025 at 12:56 PM -0700, thomas.haigh--- via Members <
> members at lists.sigcis.org>, wrote:
>
> The Guardian piece is nicely written, but I sighed a little to see another
> retelling of the story that adds nothing new. There’s also something ironic
> in attempting to challenge the long genius myth of Turing by squeezing
> Flowers himself into
>
> The Guardian piece is nicely written, but I sighed a little to see another
> retelling of the story that adds nothing new. There’s also something ironic
> in attempting to challenge the long genius myth of Turing by squeezing
> Flowers himself into the lone genius narrative template as “the real father
> of computing.”
>
>
>
> So as a PSA for the work I did a few years ago with Mark Priestley on this
> topic, those looking to learn more might consult:
>
>    - *Contextualizing Colossus*. That’s the organizational side of the
>    story in * Technology & Culture*, based in the archival materials,
>    focused on the relationship between Bletchley Park and Dollis Hill. The
>    clearest effort to pull back from individuals to look at this as an
>    institutional relationship. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/763592
>    <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://muse.jhu.edu/article/763592__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!uNOcMVJs9rathWpIiGQHwn6FsR-I3hUTvgyR8xG6xHVUQAV4CjsiCg7GhO8Z_cJ2GVEGlRTQSsHqSh8elCch$>
>    - *Colossus and Programmability*. From *IEEE Annals*, this one digs in
>    to the questions of whether Colossus was programmable and whether it was a
>    computer. There’s a British stamp that says it was both, but we conclude it
>    was neither. But we couldn’t find an existing definition of “programmable”
>    so we had to grapple with what that even meant at the time.
>    https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/an/2018/04/08509146/17D45WgziNe
>    <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.computer.org/csdl/magazine/an/2018/04/08509146/17D45WgziNe__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!uNOcMVJs9rathWpIiGQHwn6FsR-I3hUTvgyR8xG6xHVUQAV4CjsiCg7GhO8Z_cJ2GVEGlRTQSsHqSgt11rdJ$>
>    - Tommy Flowers biography from *IEEE Annals*.
>    https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8356180
>    <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8356180__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!uNOcMVJs9rathWpIiGQHwn6FsR-I3hUTvgyR8xG6xHVUQAV4CjsiCg7GhO8Z_cJ2GVEGlRTQSsHqSlAYKXzT$>
>    - *Colossus Genius: Tutte, Flowers, and a Bad Imitation of Turing*.
>    One of the my CACM contributions, written in a more general way and also
>    taking aim at the Imitation Game movie.
>    https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3018994
>    <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3018994__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!uNOcMVJs9rathWpIiGQHwn6FsR-I3hUTvgyR8xG6xHVUQAV4CjsiCg7GhO8Z_cJ2GVEGlRTQSsHqStUPVAWp$>
>    - Colossus the Missing Manual. That’s the technical report with the
>    in-depth description of the Colossus architecture, its sequence of
>    operations and what all the controls did. There are also several documented
>    Colossus configurations.
>    https://mediarep.org/entities/book/f1548ef2-2420-4c93-9b09-4fadcc847bd3
>    <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://mediarep.org/entities/book/f1548ef2-2420-4c93-9b09-4fadcc847bd3__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!uNOcMVJs9rathWpIiGQHwn6FsR-I3hUTvgyR8xG6xHVUQAV4CjsiCg7GhO8Z_cJ2GVEGlRTQSsHqSvHmb_I4$>
>
> Perhaps unsurprisingly the world mostly shrugged at these and went on with
> the ritual retelling of the story of snubbed genius. It was nice, though,
> making my first visit to Bletchley Park earlier this year to have the
> chance to introduce myself to the volunteer Colossus operators who turned
> out to have been making extensive use of the Missing Manual. Rather a
> specialized audience, but a committed one!
>
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
>
>
> Tom
>
>
>
> Thomas Haigh
>
> Professor & Chair, UWM History Department
>
> Chair, IEEE Computer Society History Committee
>
> Director, ACM History Committee Turing Awards Project
>
> See more at www.tomandmaria.com/Tom
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.tomandmaria.com/Tom__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!uNOcMVJs9rathWpIiGQHwn6FsR-I3hUTvgyR8xG6xHVUQAV4CjsiCg7GhO8Z_cJ2GVEGlRTQSsHqSgRgMYXa$>
>
>
>
> *From:* Members <members-bounces at lists.sigcis.org> *On Behalf Of* Dag
> Spicer via Members
> *Sent:* Monday, October 20, 2025 12:49 PM
> *To:* members at lists.sigcis.org
> *Subject:* [SIGCIS-Members] Tommy Flowers
>
>
>
> A great story… Flowers’ career was full of brilliant inventions.
>
>
>
> <image001.jpg>
>
> Move over, Alan Turing: meet the working-class hero of Bletchley Park you
> didn’t see in the movies
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/12/move-over-alan-turing-meet-the-working-class-hero-of-bletchley-park-you-didnt-see-in-the-movies__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!uNOcMVJs9rathWpIiGQHwn6FsR-I3hUTvgyR8xG6xHVUQAV4CjsiCg7GhO8Z_cJ2GVEGlRTQSsHqSt_1EG6a$>
>
> theguardian.com
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/oct/12/move-over-alan-turing-meet-the-working-class-hero-of-bletchley-park-you-didnt-see-in-the-movies__;!!LIr3w8kk_Xxm!uNOcMVJs9rathWpIiGQHwn6FsR-I3hUTvgyR8xG6xHVUQAV4CjsiCg7GhO8Z_cJ2GVEGlRTQSsHqSt_1EG6a$>
>
>
>
> Dag
>
> -----
> Dag Spicer
> Senior Curator
> Computer History Museum
> Editorial Board, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing
> ACM History Committee
> 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd.
> Mountain View CA  94043
>
>
>
> “History is a vast early warning system.”
>
> — Norman Cousins, American journalist (1915-1990).
>
>
>
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>
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