Editing Whirlwind I (section)

==Background==
During [[World War II]], the [[United States Navy|U.S. Navy]]'s [[Naval Research Lab]] approached MIT about the possibility of creating a computer to drive a [[flight simulator]] for training [[bomber]] crews. They envisioned a fairly simple system in which the computer would continually update a simulated instrument panel based on control inputs from the pilots. Unlike older systems such as the [[Link Trainer]], the system they envisioned would have a considerably more realistic [[aerodynamics]] model that could be adapted to any type of plane. This was an important consideration at the time, when many new designs were being introduced into service.

The Servomechanisms Lab in MIT building 32<ref>{{Citation |format=pdf transcript of vocal recording |title=An Interview with DOUGLAS T. ROSS |date=21 February 1984 |url=http://purl.umn.edu/107610 |access-date=2013-08-12|last1=Ross |first1=Douglas T. |last2=Aspray |first2=William }}</ref> conducted a short survey that concluded such a system was possible. The Navy's [[Office of Naval Research]] decided to fund development under ''Project Whirlwind'' (and its sister projects, Project Typhoon and [[Project Cyclone]], with other institutions),<ref>[https://www.computer.org/csdl/proceedings-article/afips/1951/50400070/12OmNBvkdmJ Project Whirlwind is a high-speed computer activity sponsored at the Digital Computer Laboratory, formerly a part of the Servomechanisms Laboratory, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) by the US Office of Naval Research (ONR) and the United States Air Force. IEEE Computer Society]</ref> and the lab placed [[Jay Forrester]] in charge of the project. They soon built a large [[analog computer]] for the task, but found that it was inaccurate and inflexible. Solving these problems in a general way would require a much larger system, perhaps one so large as to be impossible to construct. [[Judy Clapp]] was an early senior technical member of this team.

[[Perry O. Crawford, Jr.|Perry Crawford]], another member of the MIT team, saw a demonstration of [[ENIAC]] in 1945. He then suggested that a digital computer would be the best solution. Such a machine would allow the accuracy of simulations to be improved with the addition of more code in the [[computer program]], as opposed to adding parts to the machine. As long as the machine was fast enough, there was no theoretical limit to the complexity of the simulation.

Until this point, all computers constructed were dedicated to single tasks, and run in [[batch mode]]. A series of inputs were set up in advance and fed into the computer, which would work out the answers and print them. This was not appropriate for the Whirlwind system, which needed to operate continually on an ever-changing series of inputs. Speed became a major issue: whereas with other systems it simply meant waiting longer for the printout, with Whirlwind it meant seriously limiting the amount of complexity the simulation could include.