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janrinok writes:

A historic machine used to swap top secret messages between Hitler and his generals has been found languishing in a shed in Essex.

Volunteers from The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park used eBay to track down the keyboard of the Lorenz machine. It was advertised as a telegram machine and was for sale for £9.50.

The museum, in Buckinghamshire, is now asking people to search for the motor, another key piece of the equipment.

"My colleague was scanning eBay and he saw a photograph of what seemed to be the teleprinter," said John Wetter, a volunteer at the museum. He then went to Southend to investigate further where he found the keyboard being kept, in its original case, on the floor of a shed "with rubbish all over it". "We said 'Thank you very much, how much was it again?' She said '£9.50', so we said 'Here's a £10 note - keep the change!'"

The teleprinter, which resembles a typewriter, would have been used to enter plain messages in German. These were then encrypted by a linked cipher machine, using 12 individual wheels with multiple settings on each, to make up the code.

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