Project Whirlwind
by Kent C. Redmond · first published 1980
5mentions
2recommended by
2HN commenters
2010–2022first – last mentioned
100% recommend
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Boy, there are many things wrong with this account; here's two things, for the full story get a copy of this book: http://www.amazon.com/Project-Whirlwind-History-Pioneer-Comp... And I'll note it's still relevant, we still build computers in the general approach this team developed. At a talk I attended in the '80s, Forrester said that he got out of hardware…
on “May 11, 1951: RAM Is Born” ↗…considering among other things a microwave version of mercury delay lines, running a signal out to western Massachusetts and back. All that and lots more in this gem of a book: http://www.amazon.com/Project-Whirlwind-History-Pioneer-Comp...
on “Programming the ENIAC: an example of why computer history is hard” ↗…finished Whirlwind, he (and his team) had solved all the significant outstanding problems in computer design. And that's not an exaggeration, read this excellent book for the details: https://www.amazon.com/Project-Whirlwind-History-Pioneer-Com...
on “Jay W. Forrester, a pioneer in computer models, has died” ↗I heard that from his own mouth in the one talk of his I attended, and having read this book https://www.amazon.com/Project-Whirlwind-History-Pioneer-Com... I knew he was right. Although "logic" might not make clear what we're talking about, it's things like parallel execution, modularity, 3D core memory, the first seriously useful…
on “Jay W. Forrester Dies at 98; a Pioneer in Computer Models” ↗…MIT Press has published a fairly large set of books, mostly about IBM, that I found very useful for understanding the 1950s (and for IBM the early-mid 1960s as in the System/360). I would start with Project Whirlwind: The history of a pioneer computer by Kent C Redmond, that's a Digital Press as in DEC book, that computer by and large defined a great many standards in the way we build computers to this day, and that…
on “Ask HN: Best way to learn about computing history?” ↗