jan 1, 1946 - Project Whirlwind begins

Description:

During World War II, the US Navy approaches the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) about building a flight simulator to train bomber crews. Under the leadership of MIT's Gordon Brown and Jay Forrester, the team first built a small analog simulator, but found it inaccurate and inflexible. News of the groundbreaking electronic ENIAC computer that same year inspired the group to change course and attempt a digital solution, whereby flight variables could be rapidly programmed in software. Completed in 1951, Whirlwind remains one of the most important computer projects in the history of computing. Foremost among its developments was Forrester’s perfection of magnetic core memory, which became the dominant form of high-speed random access memory for computers until the mid-1970s.

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