Thank you all for the interesting answers...

If there isn't an active device in the circuit, then it's just an electrical device-- not properly electronic, no?

Electronics is a technology within the total electrical science domain so all electronic devices are just electrical. There is an increasing amount of electrical science technologies (like Spintronics and others) today (including old school technologies like mag-amps that are making a comeback) beyond strictly 'Electronics' so the definition of what's 'active' in a purely electronic sense has to be wider (and less meaningful) as we discover more about the physical structure of matter and energy.

 

Hi,

Did anyone mention the simple RELAY yet? A coil with at least two contacts that make or break on activation.
I think invented circa 1835.

The simplest active element would have two output states and an input, and the relay has two output states and an input so that must be considered an active element. Relays can be used to create a digital computer with memory and all, and all made from individual relays. Gates, inverters, flip flops, etc., all from a set of simple relays connected together in various configurations.

 

Hi,

Did anyone mention the simple RELAY yet? A coil with at least two contacts that make or break on activation.
I think invented circa 1835.

The simplest active element would have two output states and an input, and the relay has two output states and an input so that must be considered an active element. Relays can be used to create a digital computer with memory and all,
.

A team of British GPO engineers did that in WW2 to decrypt the German Enigma messages, it was rather slow - they soon switched to using valves.

Incidentally - someone experimented with using a decent spec PC running Windows to decrypt Enigma codes - it was slower than the all valve computer.

Presumably a PC with a custom OS to serve only that purpose would do better.

 

A team of British GPO engineers did that in WW2 to decrypt the German Enigma messages, it was rather slow - they soon switched to using valves.

Incidentally - someone experimented with using a decent spec PC running Windows to decrypt Enigma codes - it was slower than the all valve computer.

Presumably a PC with a custom OS to serve only that purpose would do better.

Indeed! -- It's a spot-on and withering indictment of the software (Specifically Windows) as opposed to modern hardware -- on the other hand Windows is all of those 70 years ahead of them where Ad servers and user tracking are concerned! (Ya getting this Microsoft?)

Best regards
HP

 

.....................
Incidentally - someone experimented with using a decent spec PC running Windows to decrypt Enigma codes - it was slower than the all valve computer.

Presumably a PC with a custom OS to serve only that purpose would do better.

Certainly the speed to do that on a PC would depend upon the programming language used and how good the programmer is at writing optimized code.
Also the valve computer may have had a dedicated parallel structure optimized to do the decryption, which would make it much faster than the common sequential architectural designs, such as used in a PC.

 

http://jproc.ca/crypto/enigs1.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-28167071

Our old KL-7 machine was a rotor type device. ADONIS was later used in a transistor device.

http://jproc.ca/crypto/kl7.html

We had an old device at school just as a teaching device for off-line systems.

 

Certainly the speed to do that on a PC would depend upon the programming language used and how good the programmer is at writing optimized code.

Of course that goes without saying --- That said, Windows-internal background process not uncommonly consume upwards of 90% of hardware resources on every core! --- To anyone finding this incredible, please check out 'Processhacker' (a highly sophisticated process monitor/manager)
http://processhacker.sourceforge.net/

Best regards
HP

 

Certainly the speed to do that on a PC would depend upon the programming language used and how good the programmer is at writing optimized code.
Also the valve computer may have had a dedicated parallel structure optimized to do the decryption, which would make it much faster than the common sequential architectural designs, such as used in a PC.

It was claimed that Enigma cyphers were being intercepted and decoded faster than delivered to the intended recipient in some cases.

Of course it all depended on discovering the current rotor settings.

Any recent Pentium should be able to beat that - as long as it isn't doing a lot of multi-tasking crap at the same time.

Quite handy having the French resistance blowing up telephone poles and forcing the Germans to use their radios.