Tommy Flowers worked at the Post Office Research Station at Dollis Hill in north-west London. He was asked to look at the Heath Robinson machine. He thought it was a weak machine. He designed an electronic machine to do the same job. It would make the patterns of the coding machine by electronics so that only one paper tape was needed. In February 1943 he showed Max Newman this design. The design needed 1,500 thermionic valves (vacuum tubes). Few people thought that so many valves could work without a lot failing. More Heath Robinson machines were ordered. Flowers, however, kept with the idea of an electronic machine. He got support from Gordon Radley, his boss at the Post Office Research Station. Tommy Flowers and his team started work on Colossus in February 1943.