Attached is my Enigma cipher machine simulator. The Enigma machine is the mechanical cypher machine used by the German military forces in WWII.

Lest you misunderstand, I am NOT a Nazi sympathizer; far from it! I am, however, interested in codes and cyphers, and the Enigma is an important development in the long, long history of secret codes and cyphers.

This program is an accurate simulation of the standard Army 3-Rotor Enigma machine. You can perform machine setup, including the choice of rotors and their order, index ring positions, plugboard settings, and initial rotor positions. You can encrypt and decrypt messages.

There is a 10-page help system that shows how the Enigma operates and gives detailed instruction on how to use the program.

Enjoy!
-Bill


Enigma.zip

Thanks Bill,

good idea ()!
I recently saw a movie about it and wondered if I should do it in MMBasic.
Also recommended: The Imitation Game.

Regards
Michael

The Imitation Game is a good movie. They distort some of the history of the Bletchley Park activities to make it more dramatic, but it is still pretty good. I have read "Alan Turing: The Enigma", which is an excellent biography of Turing.  My program help includes a small bibliography of Enigma-related info, but I forgot to include that book.

-Bill

The whole Enigma story is a great glimpse into the world of spooks and spies, really fascinating stuff.
The development of the very first computers used to break these codes is equally as interesting.

And then Lorenz and Bill Tutte...

John

There is this in the library from early MaxiMite days

http://www.fruitoftheshed.com/MMBasic.ENIGMA-Code-simulator-part-of-the-original-MMBasic-library.ashx?HL=enigma


Sadly the story of Alan Turing is another occasion when Britain has covered itself in mud with the way we treat people who love and help us...

Alan Turing, the Gurhkas, the Iraqi translators... and this is just three that spring to mind in my lifetime. Although broadly, a patriot, I have to say there are times when I am ashamed to be a Brit.
Edited 2021-01-04 22:55 by CaptainBoing

I had not thought to look at the FruitOfTheShed listings. Thanks for pointing that out!

I agree that Alan Turing's story is sad. He is one of my intellectual heroes. I remember reading his paper "On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the Entscheidungsproblem" while in grad school. And of course his work in breaking the Enigma code very likely saved England in WWII.

As a tribute to Turing, I am just about done with a CMM2 version of his theoretical computer, the thing we call a Turing Machine today. It should be ready for publication in a few days.

-Bill

I know it is rated lower, but I like this one more:

Enigma - the movie