Paul Burridge wrote:
This must be a major embarrassment for the security services in
Britain. The sheer size of this thing, I mean. And the fact that it
appears to have been designed about 60 years ago and runs off dozens
of penlight cells. Hardly state-of-the-art!
BTW, for anyone that hasn't seen pictures of Gerry Adams looking very
cross standing next to this heap of junk; it's about 6 feet long by
4"X8" and not exactly easily hidden (which is probably why it was
discovered :-))

Looks like they originally intended it to be disguised as a desk- but
then the thing consumed so much power, it would lose credibility because
it was getting so warm.