
May 11, 1951: RAM Is Born - jaybol
http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2010/05/0511magnetic-core-memory
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hga
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...](http://www.amazon.com/Project-Whirlwind-History-
Pioneer-Computer/dp/0932376096/)

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 after Whirlwind since all the interesting (to him)
problems had been solved. And I can see why he'd think that.

Anyway:

Jay Forrester and company initially sold it to the Navy for flight simulators,
but they knew this sort of computer would be needed for much more.

Whirlwind initially used CRT based storage, as did IBM's first two computers.
The UNIVAC I used mercury delay lines:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delay_line_memory>

