h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: Tommy Flowers - A1002420
Author: Who? - U202489

As promised - one of our forgotten heroes.

Excellent Who? Tom Flowers was treated very poorly by his country, considering his contributions. Of course, the fact he was seen as technical rather than theoretical, contributed to this, but the integrity of the man, linked to the short-sightedness of Whitehall allowed the world to overtake the leap Britain had made.

I made the point of political lack of foresight in 'Early Electronic Computers'. It was rather difficult to do this entry as I had covered many of the Colossus points in the earlier entry. I hope I didn't repeat myself too much!

A great entry, who? and very poignant!

Poor man, not being able to get a job doing what he was good at because he could not reveal he had already been working at it!

Excellent entry, Who?

I didn't quite understand this section towards the end:

>>>Even then, much credit was given to Alan Turing,

Credit for what, exactly?

>>who started the idea of a 'computer' in the 1930s and worked on the Enigma project. He died in 1954. Tommy said quite firmly, "Alan Turing had nothing to do with it!"

Nothing to do with what?

>>Tommy the Technician did not sound as good to some as Alan the Mathematical Alchemist.

To whom?

Basically I am a bit puzzled as to what you are getting at here. Are you suggesting that Turing was wrongly credited with something that Flowers did? Or is it just the case that he is more famous and that therefore people *assume* that he 'invented computers' or whatever?

Or perhaps it is that Turing and Flowers both made important contributions to computing, but worked completely independently of each other?

Also, who are the people who prefer Turing to Flowers? Is it whoever writes the history books? Or do you mean the government of the day who rewarded one but not the other?

Points noted and acted upon (where possible)

1) credit - for Colossus, which should now explain the 'nothing to do with it'.

2) As for the remainder of your queries.........













PASS !

Your guess is as good as mine. It is not easy to explain the rest. Some say 'government' (to cover Bletchley Park activities), some say 'the university set' (looking after their own) and as for preference.........

Makes a great debate, doesn't it? Perhaps someone can come up with answers....

...perhaps not.

Time for Tommy to get his recognition. I have just recommended this.

Researcher PSG

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