Build a bombe?

How to make a Bombe, ice cream style

January 2021

As I’ve mentioned before, one of my top ten questions is about the machine’s name, bombe. I have never read a definitive answer as to the origin of the name, but one theory is that the Polish cryptologists were fond of an afternoon ice cream treat. I have not checked for information about the dessert for many years an easy internet search just turned up what may be an excellent source

Recipe for an ice cream bombe on the Food Network: Ice Cream Bombe.

For more information on the Polish codebreakers, see:
Solving the Enigma at the NSA Cryptologic History site
Bomba, at Wikipedia
How the Poles broke the Enigma code at the Polish Culture site.

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CODE GIRLS

In the summer of 2015 I was contacted by an author interested in the stories of the Sugar Camp WAVES–one of my favorite topics. Now their story as well as that of the WACS at Arlington Hall is available and wonderfully successful.

“Code Girls is an extraordinary book by an extraordinary author. Liza Mundy’s portraits of World War II codebreakers are so skillfully and vividly drawn that I felt as if I were right there with them—mastering ciphers, outwitting the Japanese army, sinking ships, breaking hearts, and even accidentally insulting Eleanor Roosevelt. I am an evangelist for this book: You must read it.”
author of The Good Girls Revolt – Lynn Povich
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Stray Thoughts in the Information Age

Although the calculating technologies available through the 1930s served business and scientific users well, during World War II they were not up to the demands of the military, which wanted to break codes, prepare firing tables for new guns, and design atomic weapons. The old technologies had three shortcomings: they were too slow in doing their calculating, they required human intervention in the course of computation, and many of the most advanced calculating systems were special purpose rather than general-purpose devices.

Because of the exigencies of the war, the military was willing to pay whatever it would take to develop the kinds of calculating machines it needed…

Computer, Martin Campbell-Kelly et al., p. xii

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Build a bombe?

How to make a Bombe, ice cream style

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DAYTON CODEBREAKERS DOCUMENTARY

CODE GIRLS

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Stray Thoughts in the Information Age