The father of the modern computer is being honoured, 50 years after he died in tragic circumstances.Alan Turing was one of the pioneers of computer science, and his work helped make the modern PC a reality. He was also one of the secret code breakers working at Bletchley Park during the Second World War.
He killed himself on 7 June 1954, by eating an apple he laced with cyanide; 50 years on, a blue plaque is to be erected outside his Cheshire home.
It was his idea of creating a machine to turn thought processes into binary numbers which was one of the key turning points in the history of the computer. His revolutionary idea was for a machine that would read a series of ones and zeros from a tape. These described the steps needed to solve a problem or task. Turing's experiments are credited with helping Britain win World War II by deciphering encrypted German communications, helping the Allies remain one step ahead.
The wartime German computer Enigma generated a constantly changing code which was impossible for people to decipher. But Turing's creation of Colossus - one of the first steps toward a digital computer - managed to crack Enigma's codes, giving the Allies the break they desperately needed in fighting Germany.
