colossus was a collection of electronic computing devices that was developed by British code breakers during World War two, to crack German codes that were intercepted. The machine used vacuum tubes/ thermionic valves to perform calculations. The machine was first shown working in 1943 and colossus mark 2 began operating in mid 1944. Instead of finding the correct message entirely the machine would give possible code combination's. An example of a code that was deciphered during the war by colossus is the Lorenz cipher. Colossus was also the first machine to break the German enigma cipher, which proved to be a helpful aid in the war effort. |  A photo of colossus (the first truly electronic computer) |
