HX-63 - Wikipedia

A diagram of a loopback-rotor construction; in this simplified example, two rotors with nine contacts each are used. There are six inputs and outputs, leaving three loop-back wires.

The HX-63 was an advanced rotor machine designed by Crypto AG, who started the design in 1952. The machine had nine rotors, each with 41 contacts. There were 26 keyboard inputs and outputs, leaving 15 wires to "loop back" through the rotors via a different path. Moreover, each rotor wire could be selected from one of two paths. The movement of the rotors was irregular and controlled by switches. There were two plugboards with the machine; one to scramble the input, and one for the loop-back wires. The machine could be set up in around 10⁶⁰⁰ different configurations.

Only twelve of these machines were manufactured, and it was used by only one department of the French government.

External links

Jerry Proc's pages — photographs and a brief description
Notice of a past eBay auction of an HX-63
John Savard's discussion on the machine

References

Cipher A. Deavours and Louis Kruh, "Machine Cryptography and Modern Cryptanalysis", Artech House, 1985, p199.

v t e Cipher machines
Rotor machines	CCM Enigma M-125 Fialka Hebern HX-63 KL-7 Lacida M-325 Mercury NEMA OMI RED SG-39 SG-41 SIGABA SIGCUM Singlet Typex
Mechanical	Bazeries cylinder C-36 C-52 CD-57 Cipher disk HC-9 Kryha Jefferson disk M-94 M-209 Reihenschieber Scytale
Teleprinter	5-UCO BID 770 DUDEK KW-26 KW-37 Lorenz SZ 40/42 Siemens and Halske T52 SIGTOT
Secure voice	BID 150 FASCINATOR KY-3 KY-58 KY-68 NESTOR OMNI SCIP Sectéra Secure Module SIGSALY STE STU-II STU-III VINSON
Other	JADE KG-84 KL-43 KL-51 Noreen Red Purple Pinwheel Rockex
Computer hardware	AES instruction set Intel SHA extensions IBM 4758 IBM 4764

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Mathematics	Cryptographic hash function Block cipher Stream cipher Symmetric-key algorithm Authenticated encryption Public-key cryptography Quantum key distribution Quantum cryptography Post-quantum cryptography Message authentication code Random numbers Steganography
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