50 Years after breaking the codes: interviews with two of the Bletchley Park scientists

The work of the scientists and WRNS at Bletchley Park (Great Britain) during World War II led not only to the breaking of the codes of the opposing military forces but also to the postwar development of computing systems. While there is little evidence of the direct evolution of general purpose computers from the machines created at BP, the experiences of the participants led to two of the first three major computer projects in Great Britain. Two of the participants in the code breaking activities and in the postwar computer development, I.J. Good and Donald Michie, came together on the fiftieth anniversary of their earlier association to reminisce about those times, the people they met, and the achievements of the BP community. The article documents portions of those discussions.<>