The Newmanry History

52 Page 328



52. DEVELOPMENT OF ROBINSON AND COLOSSUS

Some of the paragraphs in this chapter will not be fully intelligible

A brief description of the two machines has already been given [15(b)]. The

In the experimental stages of Tunny-breaking, though other forms of machine

(a) it is easy to make.
(b) it can be adapted to any wheel length by preparing

suitable tapes.

(i) There was at first no printer: the operators

(two in number) had to write down the fleeting
figures on display: this was a fruitful source
of error.

(ii) The distance between the gate where the tape

was scanned and the sprocket-wheel which drove
it was six inches, so that the stretching of
tapes alone was sufficient to put tapes out of
alignment.

(iii) The position counter recorded, not the relative

position of the two tapes, but the number of
revolutions completed: from this the relative
position can be found but with great risk of
erroneous calculation.

(iv) Heath Robinson would not tolerate long stretches

of dots or of crosses, so that elaborate tapes,
with additional opportunities for making mistake.
had to be devised to avoid this.

(v) The minimum text length was 2000. If it was

less, rubbish had to be inserted in such a way
that it was not counted.

(vi) There was no spanning.
(vii) The forms of impossible conditions were severely

limited.

(viii)The counters were only partly electronic.
(ix) At first Heath Robinson was unable to obtain

results, even if not itself at fault, because
the tapes, not being subject to a proper system,
of checks, were incorrectly made.


As a direct result of experience with Heath Robinson all the improvements

The Old Robinson, which followed Heath Robinson, had a special Gifford

| previous page | next page | index page |