[GreenKeys] Here's a sweet one on the bay. (crypto machines)

[John Nagle]

> From: COURYHOUSE at aol.com
> some of these  sellers  like to throw a lot of  terms  around  to look 
> educated and make the listing  look    authoritative.... . many times if  you 
> try to explain to them how it  was  they  just  argue!  weird?  Yea! 

    True.  That teleprinter is totally unrelated to an Enigma machine.

    I've pushed the keys on an Enigma machine.  The keyboard is awful.
There's about an inch of key travel and you have to push the keys
really hard, because the rotors are advanced by the key presses.
Each rotor has 52 big electrical contacts rubbing, (26 on each
face) so there's a huge amount of friction in the system.
The only electrical parts are the battery and lamps, and
a plugboard for some extra cryptographic complexity.  The
rotor advance sequence is very simple, which is why it's
not difficult to break its cypher.

    Machines with more rotors were built, like the
T-52 Geheimschreiber, but they needed power drive and
were much bulkier.  An Enigma is a little briefcase-sized box
with a self-contained battery.  Command cars, tanks, and
submarines carried them.  The bigger machines were for
fixed installations.

    The M-209 is about as secure as an Enigma, but
even more portable.  Those were produced in quantity.
They're available but expensive. There's a pair of them on
eBay right now:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290910134213

That's a nice little mechanical device.  Prints, too.


			John Nagle