Whirlwind Project

There are slides devoted to this topic: Lecture 8, pp. 38-39.

Websites

Visit the “Whirlwind Computer of Jay Forrester” page on the History of Computers site to learn about the inventor of the first machine capable of real time computation.

Interested in more information? Check out the Smithsonian Institution’s transcript of an oral history interview with Kenneth Olsen, the Whirlwind project manager.

The Computer History Museum’s “Whirlwind: Preparing the Way for SAGE” page includes images, text and three videos.

Videos

Check out an hour-and-a-half lecture given by Jay Forrester in 1980. Forrester is an engaging speaker who tells the story of Whirlwind in detailed and reasonably accessible language.

Books

Campbell-Kelly and Aspray, Computer: A History of the Information Machine, 141-148