1. A turbo decoder for decoding a data signal, error-protection-coded with a turbo code at a transmitter end, transmitted via a disturbed channel, and detected by a receiver, the turbo decoder comprising: at least one symbol estimator including: an input for receiving data symbols attributable to the detected data signal; an output for providing output values for determining estimated data symbols of the data signal forming a basis for the error protection coding at the transmitter end; and a computing device configured to calculate, with the error protection code used at the transmitter end: transition metric values; and forward and reverse recursion metric values, and the output values therefrom; said computing device containing a hardware computing chip constructed of combinatorial logic for generating at least one type of the values.