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Colossus Worksheet

The document discusses the Colossus, the first electronic digital computer created in 1944 at Bletchley Park. Colossus had 1,500 valves and was used to break secret war codes by processing punched paper tapes containing binary numbers representing secret messages. While Colossus was primitive compared to modern computers, it could input data through punched tapes, process the messages, and output the decoded text.

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255 views3 pages

Colossus Worksheet

The document discusses the Colossus, the first electronic digital computer created in 1944 at Bletchley Park. Colossus had 1,500 valves and was used to break secret war codes by processing punched paper tapes containing binary numbers representing secret messages. While Colossus was primitive compared to modern computers, it could input data through punched tapes, process the messages, and output the decoded text.

Uploaded by

Kate
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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The Colossus and Code Breaking Task

Work your way through the Colossus movie and find the answers to the
questions below.
1. In which year was the very first electronic digital computer created?
1994

2. What was the name given to this computer?


Colossus

3. Go on the internet and find a picture of this computer. Copy and paste it
into your worksheet.

4. What was the name of the place where this computer was created?
Bletchley park

5. Go on the internet and find a picture of this place. Copy and paste it into
your worksheet.

6. What was the main role of this computer?


Breaking secret war codes
7. Colossus used valves. What was the role of these valves?
Processing/ cracking the codes
8. How many valves were used on each of the 10 Colossus machines?
1,500 for each of the computers
9. What were the two main problems caused by using the valves?
i. They were very big
ii. You needed thousands of them

10. Many years later transistors were invented. How did transistors help in
the development of new computers?
They are very small and, can then be used in smaller forms of computers.

11. Roughly how many transistors might you find on a modern laptop?
1- 2 billion transistors

12. What is the role of software?


The role of the Software is to tell the computers what to do

13. There was no such thing as software when Colossus was developed.
How did they get it to work?
They got it to work through, physically re-wiring the computers

14. How long might it have taken to re-wire Colossus?


It might have taken weeks to re-wire the Colossus

15. After rewiring Colossus it had to be given the secret message to decode.
What was used to provide it with the message?
Punched Paper Tapes to provide it with the message
16. The item which held the secret messages contained lots of holes. What
was the purpose of those holes?
The holes contained binary numbers which the computer could use to
decode the message
Holes=1
No holes=0

17. Even though Colossus looks primitive to us now, it effectively does the
same thing as a modern computer today. Write down the three things that
all computers can do:
I Input
Ii Process
Iii Output
Most computers nowadays can also store data Colossus couldnt do this.

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