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The birth of the enigma machine.
The enigma machine was invented by a German engineer, Arthur Scherbius, who tried to patent his machine while 3 other inventors from 3 other countries tried to patent for a rotary cipher machine around February 23, 1918. Scherbius first tried to sell his design to the German military but finding no interest decided to start up his own company to manufacture the Enigma for commercial sale. -
The first stages of the enigma.
The Enigma machine was first offered in 1923, and only had few takers. Model A and model B machines were heavy at 110 lbs. and also dificult to use. These first models had a typewriter incorporated into the device and did not have a reflector. -
Model C
Model C came out in 1925, which was much smaller and lighter and included a reflector. The typewriter was replaced by a lamp panel, so the user had to write down the results of ciphering and deciphering messages. -
The two sides of the enidma: The german side
The German Navy adopted the Enigma in 1926. They added the plugboard, (which swaps letters in pairs before and after the signal goes to the rotors,) witch added a significant cryptologic strength to the Enigma. At time the weight of the German Enigma was 26 lbs witch was much lighter than the original machines but way too heavy for a battlefield cipher. -
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The adoption
The German Navy adopted the Enigma in 1926 and the Army in 1928. Both services modified the Enigma for their purposes, and would continue to modify their Enigmas and keep them different through the end of WW2. -
Model D
The model D was unveiled in 1927, and it was this model that saw commercial interest from many countries. -
The QWERTZUI layout
The keyboard has a QWERTZUI layout, without any numbers or spaces. Pressing a key will electrically open a signal from the letter pressed and will also mechanically advance from 1 to 3 rotors. Touch typing does not work because of the pressure required to advance the rotors and since there is no printer and the letter lit up has to be written down. Each letter will be enciphered from 7 to 9 times and because of the design of the reflector, no letter will encrypt to itself. -
The coding system prt.1
The layout of the plugboard matches the QWERTZUI layout of the keyboard, which is also the layout for the lamp panel. Plugboard cables use plugs which look like the standard 2-prong European power plugs. While using a variable number of cables would provide a stronger cipher, the tradeoff would be a higher possibility of errors. Using more cables gives a stronger cipher. -
The coding system prt.2
After the electrical signal leaves the plugboard, it goes to an entry wheel, the 3 rotors, the reflector, then reverses course back through the 3 rotors, the entry wheel, the plugboard and then lights up a light under one of the 26 characters. The British worked hard to figure out the encipherment used for the entry wheel, only to be told by the Polish codebreakers there was no encipherment for that wheel. -
The coding system prt.3
Each letter is therefore enciphered by each wheel twice then by the reflector, giving 7 diffrent encipherments. The plugboard might not encipher a character, so the final result is that after going through the plugboard twice each character can be enciphered between 7 and 9 times. There are 3 rotors in the machine, from a selection of 5 available. Each rotor has the numbers 1 through 26 on its circumference, representing the letters of the alphabet. -
The lampboard
The lampboard follows the same layout as the keyboard and plugboard. Each letter has a tiny light bulb under it, which lights up to show the enciphered or deciphered letter, which must then be written down. There is a filter attached inside the lid which can be installed over the lampboard to reduce the amount of light emitted from the Enigma. When operating the Enigma at night close to enemy lines, the filter helped keep the operator from being spotted as easily. -
The lampbord
The lampboard follows the same layout as the keyboard and plugboard. Each letter has a tiny light bulb under it, which lights up to show the enciphered or deciphered letter, which must then be written down. There is a filter attached inside the lid which can be installed over the lampboard to reduce the amount of light emitted from the Enigma. When operating the Enigma at night close to enemy lines, the filter keeps the operator from being spotted as easly. -
The two sides of the enigma machine: The american side
the Army adopted the Enigma in 1928.They also added the plugboard (which swaps letters in pairs before and after the signal goes to the rotors). The US M-209 weighed only 6 lbs and did not require batteries and had a printer so it could be operated by one person.
