10 Years of Virtual Colossus: 2025
Did you know that Turing designed a valve computer using mercury delay lines as memory after the war? The pilot machine ran 75 years ago and was recreated as Virtual Pilot ACE this year. And we're up to date .. excited for release of Virtual SG-41 tomorrow! pilotace.virtualcolossus.co.uk

10 Years of Virtual Colossus: 2024
The next sim I worked on was the M-209, an American version of the Hagelin C-38. A new resource, the CT scans of the machines at @DeutschesMuseum, meant I could very accurately model each part giving amazing detail! https://m209.virtualcolossus.co.uk

10 Years of Virtual Colossus: 2023
We have already completed Colossus and Lorenz SZ-42 but we only had Enigma working. It was time to learn about the Turing-Welchman Bombe and to begin building it into a fully working simulation. https://bombe.virtualcolossus.co.uk

10 Years of Virtual Colossus: 2022
The next machine to get 3D treatment was one I really enjoyed learning about, the Lorenz SZ-42. I completed a 2D version in 2017, but wondered if I could do this technological marvel justice. It ended up as one of my favourite sims I've ever done.
https://lorenz.virtualcolossus.co.uk

10 Years of Virtual Colossus: 2021
Now, with new 3D skills, it was time to attempt a machine that I'd always felt already had many great sims.
And so, I created my most visited sim yet:
Virtual Enigma both model I and M4, complete with radio & Morse key. enigma.virtualcolossus.co.uk

Two new sims were completed this yr and little did I realise that Virtual Typex would be the last in 2D. I started playing with a library called three.js and ended up recreating Virtual Colossus in full 3D! This was how it continue to today ...

10 Years of Virtual Colossus: 2019
In this year, I created a sim of E.R.N.I.E to celebrate the new 5th version. A hardware random number generator built in 1956 to find winners for the UK Premium Bonds. Designed by Harry Fensom who worked at the GPO Research Station, Dollis Hill

10 Years of Virtual Colossus: 2018
In 2018, I started looking at a BP cipher breaking machine from the American Signal Security Agency. This was Dragon, a relay machine built to drag a crib through a partially decrypted message from Colossus.
Gil Hayward reported that "It sounded like a monster munching its way through sheets of tin plate" and also that "The load on the power supply was so great that the room lights dimmed as several hundred relays pulled in at once". A fascinating machine to learn about and work out it's mechanism.

10 Years of Virtual Colossus: 2017
Having completed my Colossus sim, I became interested in how the machine that it was built to crack worked: the Lorenz SZ-42. There wasn't a working machine I knew of to see working and no videos online, so I began researching to build my own.

Can you believe that the Virtual Colossus project is now 10 years old!
Today, I'm starting the countdown to the release of my latest simulation the incredible Schlüsselgerät 41. Each day, I'll show what I was working on from 2016 until we catch up to today!