Most people, even those interested in the early history of computing, have probably never heard of Jay W. Forrester and the team of so-called "bright boys" at MIT who created the machine known as Whirlwind. Originally starting out as a project for the US Navy (which liked to name their computer projects after various kinds of wind), Whirlwind eventually became the most reliable and respected general purpose, fully electronic, computing machine of its time.
Out of Pennsylvania
The Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania was the place to be in the 1930's for anyone interested in the new frontier of electronic computing. That was the birthplace of Eckert and Mauchly's mighty ENIAC. It also happened to be the gathering place for a cadre of the worlds extant computer experts for an intense series of lectures and workshops on the theoretical aspects and practical considerations for building electronic computers.
A group from MIT attended this conference and returned to Massachusetts to work on what they envisioned would be a great leap forward in digital machine design. Exactly how the bright boys pulled this off is rather amazing given how the deck seemed stacked against them from the start. No one had heard of these young guys who decided they could build the world's most advanced computer. Many of the heavy hitters of the day were skeptical that they had the chops, and old-timers with careers made on mechanical analog computers were not exactly cheering for them. Good ideas pushed forward by smart and determined people tend to win the day though.
The Birth of Information Technology
Whirlwind may have started out as a proposed fire control computer intended to track incoming enemy jets, but fortunately for the history of computing, the bright boys saw its potential to be so much greater. In fact, the disregard that Forrester and others had for actually attempting to meet the Navy's original requirements for the machine, came very close to getting the project cancelled before its completion.
Wiser and more visionary souls kept the machine alive until it was able to prove itself as a highly versatile, general-purpose machine. In recounting the developments of the two decades (1938-1958) over which the story of Whirlwind and its direct descendants unfolds, Green makes a compelling case for crediting the US Air Force and the bright boys with doing nothing less than launching the modern computer age.
Although Forrester and his colleagues at MIT have been (up until now) largely unknown by the general public, many other names of people who were somehow involved with Whirlwind will be familiar. The names include those of men who went on to form well-known computer companies or have major Air Force installations named after them. It would seem that modems, long distance data transmission, efficient random access memory (derived from Forrester's brilliant magnetic core design), video terminals, real-time computing, the air traffic control system, the SABRE airline booking system, payroll systems, early warning radar networks, time sharing, and a number of other truly important development can be credibly traced back to the lone machine known as Whirlwind.
Bright Boys is meticulously researched and includes many notes, and it gets technical at times. Green does an admirable job of telling an important story without bogging it down (too much) with dry details. It's high time this story was told, and anyone with an interest in computing and/or the technical air defense challenges facing the United States at the beginning of the cold war will appreciate it.
Sources
- Bright Boys; Tom Green A. J. Peters, Ltd.; Natick, MA: 2010
Philip McIntosh - The author holds a B.Sc. in Botany and Chemistry and an M.A in Biology and he has thirty + years of experience in science and industry.
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