Tatja Van Vark

Every so often I stumble on something or someone that impresses me a great deal.

Because of my long involvement with communications (dating back to TubeElectronics?), I have a real affinity for the gadgets of the early years of comms.

In searching for data on various old gear, I arrived a series of pages describing the German Enigma machine. One of the links there was to the site of Tatja van Vark, a Dutch lady of some (exemplary!) accomplishment -- but with no formal education in electronics or mechanics. As she puts it: "I wanted to own a coding machine and now I do."

This is the extreme of "self taught." Clearly, learning and education are not a one-to-one mapping.

Here are some links:

The Enigma machine that she built herself:

Other samples of her work can be seen at:

  http://www.tatjavanvark.nl