  When apprised in 1936 of Turing's idea for a universal machine, Turing's contemporary and friend, the economist David Champernowne, reacted by saying that such a thing was impractical; it would need ‘the Albert Hall.’ If built from relays as then employed in telephone exchanges, that might indeed have been so, and Turing made no attempt at it. However, in 1937 Turing did work with relays on a smaller machine with a special cryptological function (Hodges 1983, p. 138). World history then led Turing to his unique role in the Enigma problem, to his becoming the chief figure in the mechanisation of logical procedures, and to his being introduced to ever faster and more ambitious technology as the war continued. 