James Bond Film Gadgets and Devices – Tomorrow Never Dies

Tomorrow Never Dies Gadgets

Encoder

Actually, not just an Encoder, as previously seen in Thunderball and Never Say Never Again. Or, of course, the Lektor Decoder in From Russia With Love, but an American Encoder, which apparently, the Americans use, “to control their navigational satellites. The GPS systems.”
And it’s a new M. And the new M, is a woman. And the new M obviously doesn’t share the same relationship with her American counterparts that her 1960s to 1980s versions enjoyed, “I wonder whether the CIA will be more upset that they lost it, or we found it.”
Admiral Roebuck then tries to kill everyone, the brand new shiny Pierce Brosnan type of James Bond included, but 007 saves the day and sets himself onto an adventure to snatch the latest Encoder/Decoder Device thing.

The scytale (which rhymes with Italy), was perhaps the most well known early encryption machine. The device featured a rod or stick wrapped with a narrow strip of leather (often worn as a belt to hide its real purpose) or papyrus. The coder wrote his message lengthwise across the strip. A specific thickness of rod would be required to read the message when wrapped – if someone did not have the correct thickness, it could not be read.

It was however, the Cipher and Coding machinery and equipment that played such a prominent part in the Second World War that influenced Ian Fleming’s writing. No less than three James Bond films feature coders and deciphering type devices.
From Russia With Love – Lektor Decoder
For Your Eyes Only - Automatic Targeting Attack Communicator (A.T.A.C.)
Tomorrow Never Dies – Encoder
Pierce Brosnan’s incarnation of 007 came across Goldeneye in the previous film, which was a device that did virtually the same job as the Tomorrow Never Dies Encoder, and later, he dealt with Icarus, which also performed a similar function – it is perhaps no surprise that the franchise struggled at around this point in its originality.
In many respects the Voice Changing Machine featured in Diamonds Are Forever, is also an imaginative version of a coding/decoding machine. Even the Microfilm and Reader featured in The Spy Who Loved Me, is used for decoding purposes.

Early Scytale

20th Century Enigma Machines

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