Difference between revisions of "Whirlwind"

From Computer History Wiki
Jump to: navigation, search
m (location)
m (Proper cat)
Line 5: Line 5:
 
Whirlwind was orginally built at [[MIT]] (MIT's first computer) for use in a flight simulator, but wound up being used to prototype the [[SAGE]] air defence system.
 
Whirlwind was orginally built at [[MIT]] (MIT's first computer) for use in a flight simulator, but wound up being used to prototype the [[SAGE]] air defence system.
  
{{stub}}
+
{{semi-stub}}

Revision as of 23:33, 21 October 2018

Whirlwind was one of the very first computers; it was enormously influential, for several reasons. It was the first real-time computer, unlike all the other first-generation computers, which were intended only for large-scale computations for numerical applications. It was also the first computer with core memory, which was invented for it.

It was built out of vacuum tubes, and used a predecessor to microcode for internal control logic.

Whirlwind was orginally built at MIT (MIT's first computer) for use in a flight simulator, but wound up being used to prototype the SAGE air defence system.