Bletchley Park: Index, Hollerith Machines, Lorenz & Colossus, Enigma & Bombe

I am creating a detailed flow chart of manpower, machines, duties, and workflow at Bletchley Park. I own dozens of books, including rare books, about BP's activities. I own a replica Enigma also. Presently I am researching the largest and still not talked about part of BP, which was its "enlarged human memory" (Peter Calvocaressi, Hut 6). It involved the use of highly modified Hollerith machines, punch cards, many removable program boards, many master punch cards, but most importantly, here was the ability to conduct a search on the MILLIONS of puch cards created from Enigma and Lorenz deciphed messages. It was the first search engine of any significance in history. I am interested in talking to anyone with knowledge about any of the following: 1) Hut 6 at BP, 2) What modifications were made to the Hollerith machines? 3) What standardized abbreviation guide was used? 4) How were searches carried out? 5) Were the Hollerith machines modified to print out information "hits" as the card decks were run? 6) How did all of this interact with Colossus? Did Hollerith machines perform the first sorting, encoding these data on Colossi tape, followed by the running of intelligence prediction algorithems on Collosi? ... I would like to hear from anyone with insight on these. Cordially, Eric L. Nelson, Ph.D.

 

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