Tommy Flowers Research Paper

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Alan Hornsby 11/7/14 1104-003 Flowers for Tommy (Thomas “Tommy” Flowers) Tommy was born Thomas Harold Flowers in 1905 on December 22nd. Tommy’s early life tended to remain in his birthplace which was London’s East Side. Even as a young man Tommy showed interest in engineering. Unlike his father who was a bricklayer, “At the age of 16 [Thomas] took an apprenticeship in mechanical engineering at the Royal Arsenal”. (Reuver and Simons 1) Despite working with mechanical engineering, Thomas would turn his attention to communications especially after graduating with “a degree in electrical engineering at the University of London.” (“Tommy Flowers” 1). Upon earning his degree, Tommy later found a job working for the “GPO as an engineer” “in 1926” …show more content…

Eventually a group was formed with precisely that purpose. Members of the group would consist of members like Max Newman, Alan Turing and by request Thomas Flowers. Initially Flowers was brought in to fix Newman’s machine, ‘Heath Robinson’ which “kept breaking down” (“Tommy Flowers” 1), but after analyzing the device Flowers was convinced he could develop an even better machine. Despite criticism that the idea would not be efficient Thomas, while using mostly his own investments and “his dedicated team [was] able to demonstrate” what would be known as “Colossus at Dollis Hill in November 1943.” (Reuver and Simons 1) Surprisingly the project for Colossus took Thomas and his collaborators “just 11 months”. (Reuver and Simons 1) Sadly, like anything groundbreaking, Colossus had its own issues that needed to be …show more content…

The glass valves would constantly break, which would cause inefficiency and delay critical info pertaining the war. Rather quickly Thomas realized that his machine was breaking valves due to temperature, the more frequently it was turned off and on then the more likely the valves would break. The simple solution was to leave the Colossus more or less always on to maintain a constant level of efficiency. Throughout the war, “In total, 10 Colossi were built and installed…with an 11th being ready by the end of the war.” (Reuver and Simons 1) The notable day in June known as D-Day owes the majority of its success to the Colossus computers. After the wars’ end, Thomas’s life greatly declined in quality. In summary the British government paid him a “reward of £1000” (“Thomas Flowers” 1) which, even before he split the money with his team didn’t come anywhere near the monetary Thomas personally invested in designing the first programmable computer. The catch to this was all of Thomas work became heavily classified. “Even in 2011,” long after his death “some of the work done by Tommy Flowers [remained] classified.” (“Tommy Flowers”

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