Flowers’s team at Dollis Hill built the first machine in eleven months. It was immediately dubbed ‘Colossus’ by the Bletchley Park staff for its immense proportions.
Flowers was left in debt after the war after using his own personal funds to build Colossus.
It was not until the 1970s that Flowers’ work in computing was fully acknowledged. His family had known only that he had done some ‘secret and important’ work.
Tommy Flowers, the man who built the first computer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Flowers
Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tommy_Flowers
Dang, we really should have learned about him in school. Talk about impact, and he even had a memorable name.