Whirlwind I
Vacuum tube computer developed by the MIT Servomechanisms Laboratory
About
Whirlwind I is a vacuum-tube computer developed by the MIT Servomechanisms Laboratory for the U.S. Navy. Operational in 1951, it was among the first digital electronic computers that operated in real-time for output, and the first that was not simply an electronic replacement of older mechanical systems.
It was one of the first computers to calculate in bit-parallel (rather than bit-serial), and was the second to use magnetic-core memory after it had been proven to work for some months of use on the Memory Test Computer (MTC). (The MTC received a new core stack later so that some of the work for Whirlwind could instead be done on the MTC. The MTC was a complete, functional computer similar in capability to Whirlwind.)
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