The Colossus and Code Breaking TaskWork 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?

The first electronic digital computer was created in 1944

2. What was the name given to this computer?

The name given to this computer was 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?

The name of the place where this computer was created is 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?

The main role of this computer was to break code.

7. Colossus used valves. What was the role of these valves?

The role of these valves is processing

8. How many valves were used on each of the 10 Colossus machines?

1.500 valves were used on each of the 10 Colossus macines

9. What were the two main problems caused by using the valves?

i. They were large

ii. Making Colossus colossal

10. Many years later transistors were invented. How did transistors help in the development of new computers?

The valve was still large but it was absolutely tiny in comparison

11. Roughly how many transistors might you find on a modern laptop?

2 billion

12. What is the role of software?

Tell what to do

13. There was no such thing as software when Colossus was developed. How did they get it to work?

It was helping and many many people start to use it.

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

Mnay years

15. After rewiring Colossus it had to be given the secret message to decode. What was used to provide it with the message?

Data

16. The item which held the secret messages contained lots of holes. What was the purpose of those holes?

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

ii

iii

Most computers nowadays can also store data Colossus couldnt do this.

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