The Computer History Museum's Oral History of Les Earnest is here: http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2013/05/102746589-0... and of course it includes SAGE. Brian Berg On Fri, Apr 23, 2021 at 2:34 PM Larry Masinter <LMM@acm.org> wrote:

Les Earnest https://web.stanford.edu/~learnest/ might help "...in 1956, I went to MIT to help design a high-tech air defense system called SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment)...."

...

Innovations like this rarely occur in a complete vacuum, but I don't see references to any similar digital computing projects.

Perhaps they didn't occur then.

-- https://LarryMasinter.net https://interlisp.org

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Bonjour Pierre,   I sometimes fear that I live inside the MIT bubble, where Whirlwind's "obvious" status of launching real time computing is a given...  Do you know of a good reference to put the work into context with the rest of the world?   I'll admit that as I wrote the words about innovation and vacuum, I was tempted to add "but Whirlwind was so astonishingly expensive that it's hard to believe there could have been competitors who weren't as prominent".   I can see that once the Whirlwind team had shown it could be done, and that there were a few more computers around, lots of teams would jump on the idea.   Thanks for your advice! /guy On 4/23/2021 7:19 PM, Pierre Mounier-Kuhn wrote:

Hello Guy,

As you certainly know, Whirlwind is considered to be the first digital computer designed for real-time computing, particularly for radar tracking and interception guidance or assistance to tactical decision.

I have studied air-defense systems in Europe, particularly in France: The first projects involving digital computers did not appear before the mid-1950s, at IBM France and in a small Paris company, SEA, which was also developing digital control devices for machine-tools. At that time, several similar digital computing projects were being developed, in the USA of course (at GE, in the US Navy with Univac, etc.) but also in Britain and in the USSR.

It is true that "innovations like this rarely occur in a complete vacuum": The Whirlwind was built at MIT, one of the world's richest environments for innovation in electronics and defense systems, which had worked on a previous analogue calculator project for the US Navy. Air defense systems already existed, based on radars, telecom lines, control rooms and command centers: The idea to replace manual operators with a computer to process signals and make decisions faster "naturally" came to various people in the context of the Cold War. The Whirlwind was nevertheless a leap forward in technology, logical design and use.

Hoping that these simple remarks help you. Best, Pierre Mounier-Kuhn CNRS & Sorbonne Université, Paris

----- Mail original ----- De: "Guy Fedorkow" <guy.fedorkow@gmail.com> À: "members" <members@sigcis.org> Envoyé: Vendredi 23 Avril 2021 22:41:03 Objet: [SIGCIS-Members] whirlwind, radar and real-time tracking

Greetings Colleagues,   I've been working on restoring a 1951 Whirlwind program, written at MIT, used to demonstrate real-time tracking of aircraft with radar for the purposes of guiding an interception (the Cold War was in full flight in the 1950's).  This work ultimately led to the massive SAGE air defense network in the US.   You can see some rather informal preliminary notes on the work at https://www.historia-mollimercium.com/whirlwind/WW-Track-while-Scan-Draft-No...   The program does work in simulation; you can see a four-minute video of the simulator running an intercept at https://www.historia-mollimercium.com/whirlwind/Track-while-scan-Apr-23-2021...   Spoiler alerts: The original really did display moving dots on a CRT, but the graphics are "spartan" to say the least.  And nothing in particular happens when the intercept actually happens.

  Would anyone know of contemporaneous work involving digital computers for either radar tracking or real-time computing around 1951?  I think all the familiar digital computers from those years were used in applications where batch operation was perfectly acceptable, e.g., computing ballistics tables.   Innovations like this rarely occur in a complete vacuum, but I don't see references to any similar digital computing projects.   If anyone has pointers, do let me know! Thanks Guy Fedorkow

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The thing to remember is that 1951 is very early in the history of modern computing and there are not that many functional EDVAC-style computers around. Add to that the non-obviousness of using one for real-time control and the thing that needs explaining is that there was one at all, not that there weren’t more. The first EDVAC style computers weren’t applied to production work until 1949, with the well-documented cases of the Manchester Mark 1 and EDVAC in the UK. SEAC in 1950 was the first well-documented case in the US, as it’s not clear whether BINAC (1949) was ever applied to real problems. By 1951 there were several others, including LEO and the Pilot ACE in the UK, the IAS computer apparently partially operational, EDVAC itself in partial operation at BRL alongside ENIAC, but few enough that it wouldn’t be that much work to produce a complete list. Most of the projects were held up by the difficulty of producing reliable storage devices, more than anything else. 1951 is also the year of the very first deliveries of computers marketed as standard products. This history highlights the exceptional place of MIT in the emerging Cold War order, as people like Forrester and Everett took advantage of connections and capabilities built up during MIT’s wartime defense work to mobilize vast amounts of money towards their project, justified by the need for new defensive capabilities to guard against the USSR’s newly developed atomic bombs. As well as Atsushi’s book, the obvious references points here are Stuart Leslie’s book _The Cold War and American Science_ (actually about MIT and Stanford) and Paul Edwards’ _The Closed World_ which has a great chapter on SAGE. Not at all coincidentally, the unmatched federal largess that Whirlwind and other projects brought to MIT and its Lincoln Lab over the course of the 1950s explains why it was pretty much unique in the late-1950s and early-1960s in having a handful of computers lying around without constant queues of official work to be done on them, which in turn created the potential for self-selected undergraduates and even non-students drawn to its potential to develop MIT’s famous hacker culture. It’s not just Whirlwind. All of the examples that spring to mind from the 1950s and early-1960s of using computers for realtime control, or of making them more rugged and compact, come from Cold War applications such as mobile control centers, missile guidance, the manned space program, bombers, nuclear reactors, etc. All this is explored in chapter 4, “The Computer Becomes a Real-Time Control System” in the forthcoming Haigh & Ceruzzi _A New History of Modern Computing_ which begins with Whirlwind and finishes with the Space Shuttle, along the way exploring the origin of important technologies such as minicomputers and chips as byproducts of the work done for these Cold War projects. Best wishes, Tom From: Members <members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org> On Behalf Of Hansen Hsu Sent: Friday, April 23, 2021 8:15 PM To: Guy Fedorkow <guy.fedorkow@gmail.com> Cc: members <members@sigcis.org> Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] whirlwind, radar and real-time tracking Hi Guy, If there were any digital computers used for real-time applications before Whirlwind, I certainly am not aware of them.

From my reading of Atsushi Akera’s Calculating a Natural World, Jay Forrester’s decision to build a digital von-Neumann architecture computer for real-time applications, initially for aircraft simulation, was actually rather non-obvious. It would have been much more straightforward (and cheaper) to build an analog device. But once the Navy backed out, the general purpose nature of the Whirlwind allowed Forrester to repurpose the machine for new patrons, the Air Force thus SAGE.

So as far as I know, this is still a “first” claim that has held, as much as we want to be careful about using the “f” word. Again, if anybody knows differently, we’d all like to hear about it! Best, Hansen On Apr 23, 2021, at 5:50 PM, Guy Fedorkow <guy.fedorkow@gmail.com <mailto:guy.fedorkow@gmail.com> > wrote: Bonjour Pierre, I sometimes fear that I live inside the MIT bubble, where Whirlwind's "obvious" status of launching real time computing is a given... Do you know of a good reference to put the work into context with the rest of the world? I'll admit that as I wrote the words about innovation and vacuum, I was tempted to add "but Whirlwind was so astonishingly expensive that it's hard to believe there could have been competitors who weren't as prominent". I can see that once the Whirlwind team had shown it could be done, and that there were a few more computers around, lots of teams would jump on the idea. Thanks for your advice! /guy On 4/23/2021 7:19 PM, Pierre Mounier-Kuhn wrote: Hello Guy, As you certainly know, Whirlwind is considered to be the first digital computer designed for real-time computing, particularly for radar tracking and interception guidance or assistance to tactical decision. I have studied air-defense systems in Europe, particularly in France: The first projects involving digital computers did not appear before the mid-1950s, at IBM France and in a small Paris company, SEA, which was also developing digital control devices for machine-tools. At that time, several similar digital computing projects were being developed, in the USA of course (at GE, in the US Navy with Univac, etc.) but also in Britain and in the USSR. It is true that "innovations like this rarely occur in a complete vacuum": The Whirlwind was built at MIT, one of the world's richest environments for innovation in electronics and defense systems, which had worked on a previous analogue calculator project for the US Navy. Air defense systems already existed, based on radars, telecom lines, control rooms and command centers: The idea to replace manual operators with a computer to process signals and make decisions faster "naturally" came to various people in the context of the Cold War. The Whirlwind was nevertheless a leap forward in technology, logical design and use. Hoping that these simple remarks help you. Best, Pierre Mounier-Kuhn CNRS & Sorbonne Université, Paris ----- Mail original ----- De: "Guy Fedorkow" <guy.fedorkow@gmail.com <mailto:guy.fedorkow@gmail.com> > À: "members" <members@sigcis.org <mailto:members@sigcis.org> > Envoyé: Vendredi 23 Avril 2021 22:41:03 Objet: [SIGCIS-Members] whirlwind, radar and real-time tracking Greetings Colleagues, I've been working on restoring a 1951 Whirlwind program, written at MIT, used to demonstrate real-time tracking of aircraft with radar for the purposes of guiding an interception (the Cold War was in full flight in the 1950's). This work ultimately led to the massive SAGE air defense network in the US. You can see some rather informal preliminary notes on the work at https://www.historia-mollimercium.com/whirlwind/WW-Track-while-Scan-Draft-No... The program does work in simulation; you can see a four-minute video of the simulator running an intercept at https://www.historia-mollimercium.com/whirlwind/Track-while-scan-Apr-23-2021... Spoiler alerts: The original really did display moving dots on a CRT, but the graphics are "spartan" to say the least. And nothing in particular happens when the intercept actually happens. Would anyone know of contemporaneous work involving digital computers for either radar tracking or real-time computing around 1951? I think all the familiar digital computers from those years were used in applications where batch operation was perfectly acceptable, e.g., computing ballistics tables. Innovations like this rarely occur in a complete vacuum, but I don't see references to any similar digital computing projects. If anyone has pointers, do let me know! Thanks Guy Fedorkow _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org <http://sigcis.org> , the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org

Hi Colleagues, This is quite fascinating—thanks Guy, and everyone else. I worked a bit on the longer arc of vigilance and aerial defense WWI through Cold War, leaping from WW2 radar to digital SAGE (over/through Whirlwind) in the essay below. Taking cues from Mindell, I suggest that the continuity of the control priblem trumps the significance of analog/digital for some key concerns: Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan, “An Ecology of Operations: Vigilance, Radar, and the Birth of the Computer Screen,” Representations 147, no. 1 (August 2019): 59–95, https://doi.org/10.1525/rep.2019.147.1.59. I’m deeply indebted to Paul’s book, mentioned already. More generally, for situating these technologies in a wider network of technologies and protocols cutting across analog and digital, WW2 and Cold War talks and technologies, I also found helpful: Sharon Ghamari-Tabrizi, “Cognitive and Perceptual Training in the Cold War Man-Machine System,” in Uncertain Empire: American History and the Idea of the Cold War, ed. Joel Isaac and Duncan Bell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 267–93. (On the human element but the training was so thorough and rigorous, and the systems-design so pervasive, it’s hard to view “human factors” as not also a technical element, perhaps even a technology) Christoph Borbach and Tristan Thielmann, “Über das Denken in Ko-Operationsketten. Arbeiten am Luftlagebild,” in Materialität der Kooperation, ed. Sebastian Gießmann, Tobias Röhl, and Ronja Trischler (Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien, 2019), 115–67, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-20805-9_5. Also: Thomas Parke Hughes, Rescuing Prometheus (New York: Pantheon Books, 1998). [Chapter 2 on SAGE, but I seem to recall discussions of Whirlwind, too] Stephen B. Johnson, The United States Air Force and the Culture of Innovation, 1945-1965 (Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2002). (I think this may have something. Not sure) For a philosophical and speculative take on these kinds of systems and their signifance, including fallout in gaming: Claus Pias, “The Game Player’s Duty: The User as the Gestalt of the Ports,” in Media Archaeology: Approaches, Applications, and Implications, ed. Erkki Huhtamo and Jussi Parikka (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 164–83. [I think his book on computer games has relevant material too] I’d be delighted to keep apprised of your continuing work on this topic Guy, thank you so much for sharing! Best, b From: Members <members-bounces@lists.sigcis.org> on behalf of Paul N. Edwards <pedwards@stanford.edu> Date: Saturday, 24 April 2021 at 20:56 To: Guy Fedorkow <guy.fedorkow@gmail.com> Cc: members <members@sigcis.org> Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] whirlwind, radar and real-time tracking Guy, seconding Pierre’s good response and adding that in 1951, analog computers were still far faster than digital for most complex calculations, because they are inherently parallel processors. Digital machines were also prone to *very* frequent failure. Most sensors were analog, too, providing no numerical readouts. Few control engineers would have even considered a digital computer for any real-time application until the second half of that decade, and even then they were not the natural choice for most applications. The early chapters of my book The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996) cover SAGE and the surrounding computing landscape of the 1940s-1950s. Other resources on SAGE: Everett, Robert R., Charles A. Zraket, and Herbert D. Benington. “Sage: A Data-Processing System for Air Defense.” Proceedings of the Eastern Joint Computer Conference (1957): 339–45. Redmond, Kent C. and Thomas M. Smith. Project Whirlwind: The History of a Pioneer Computer. Boston: Digital Press, 1980. Valley, George E., Jr. “How the Sage Development Began.” Annals of the History of Computing 7, no. 3 (1985): 196–226. Redmond, Kent C. and Thomas M. Smith. From Whirlwind to Mitre: The R&d Story of the Sage Air Defense Computer. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000. Best, Paul Edwards On Apr 23, 2021, at 16:41, Guy Fedorkow <guy.fedorkow@gmail.com<mailto:guy.fedorkow@gmail.com>> wrote: Greetings Colleagues, I've been working on restoring a 1951 Whirlwind program, written at MIT, used to demonstrate real-time tracking of aircraft with radar for the purposes of guiding an interception (the Cold War was in full flight in the 1950's). This work ultimately led to the massive SAGE air defense network in the US. You can see some rather informal preliminary notes on the work at https://www.historia-mollimercium.com/whirlwind/WW-Track-while-Scan-Draft-No... The program does work in simulation; you can see a four-minute video of the simulator running an intercept at https://www.historia-mollimercium.com/whirlwind/Track-while-scan-Apr-23-2021... Spoiler alerts: The original really did display moving dots on a CRT, but the graphics are "spartan" to say the least. And nothing in particular happens when the intercept actually happens. Would anyone know of contemporaneous work involving digital computers for either radar tracking or real-time computing around 1951? I think all the familiar digital computers from those years were used in applications where batch operation was perfectly acceptable, e.g., computing ballistics tables. Innovations like this rarely occur in a complete vacuum, but I don't see references to any similar digital computing projects. If anyone has pointers, do let me know! Thanks Guy Fedorkow _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org ________________________ Paul N. Edwards<https://profiles.stanford.edu/paul-edwards> Director, Program on Science, Technology & Society<http://sts.stanford.edu> William J. Perry Fellow in International Security and Senior Research Scholar Center for International Security and Cooperation<http://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/> Co-Director, Stanford Existential Risks Initiative<https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/stanford-existential-risks-initiative> Stanford University Professor of Information<http://www.si.umich.edu/> and History<http://www.lsa.umich.edu/history/> (Emeritus) University of Michigan

From Whirlwind to Mitre: The R&d Story of the Sage Air Defense Computer. Cambridge: MIT Press,

Dear colleagues, Following in what Bernard Geoghegan just wrote, regarding "the continuity of the control problem [that] trumps the significance of analog/digital" demarcation: The history of the Whirlwind computer has so far been told as an evolutionist history of leaving behind a problematic initial start with the inferior analog computer in favor of the superior digital computer. We have yet to have a story that acknowledges that this actually meant leaving, initially, behind the analog only to find ahead, eventually, the problem of software. The limits left behind by the digital independence of the analog were actually transformed into limits due to the dependence of the digital hardware by the digital software. With the software side of computing, just like the analog side of computing, pointing to the indispensability of skilled computing labor. The continuity of the problem of the dependance on computing labor -to produce, initially, the computing analogy, and eventually, the computing software- does, indeed, trump the significance of the digital. To put it simply: Why should we continue with a history of Whirlwind (and all the computers of this period) as an escape from the limits of the analog and not, also, as an encounter with the comparable limits of software. And, as we now very well know, the limits of software have overdetermined the history of computing (we know it through a series of arguments/works -from Mahoney to Ensmenger- on the inability to control software production by taylorist-fordist production methods). Best, Aristotle   Hi Colleagues,   This is quite fascinating—thanks Guy, and everyone else.   I worked a bit on the longer arc of vigilance and aerial defense WWI through Cold War, leaping from WW2 radar to digital SAGE (over/through Whirlwind) in the essay below. Taking cues from Mindell, I suggest that the continuity of the control priblem trumps the significance of analog/digital for some key concerns:   Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan, “An Ecology of Operations: Vigilance, Radar, and the Birth of the Computer Screen,” Representations 147, no. 1 (August 2019): 59–95, https://doi.org/10.1525/rep.2019.147.1.59.   I’m deeply indebted to Paul’s book, mentioned already. More generally, for situating these technologies in a wider network of technologies and protocols cutting across analog and digital, WW2 and Cold War talks and technologies, I also found helpful:   Sharon Ghamari-Tabrizi, “Cognitive and Perceptual Training in the Cold War Man-Machine System,” in Uncertain Empire: American History and the Idea of the Cold War, ed. Joel Isaac and Duncan Bell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 267–93. (On the human element but the training was so thorough and rigorous, and the systems-design so pervasive, it’s hard to view “human factors” as not also a technical element, perhaps even a technology)   Christoph Borbach and Tristan Thielmann, “Über das Denken in Ko-Operationsketten. Arbeiten am Luftlagebild,” in Materialität der Kooperation, ed. Sebastian Gießmann, Tobias Röhl, and Ronja Trischler (Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien, 2019), 115–67, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-20805-9_5.   Also: Thomas Parke Hughes, Rescuing Prometheus (New York: Pantheon Books, 1998). [Chapter 2 on SAGE, but I seem to recall discussions of Whirlwind, too]   Stephen B. Johnson, The United States Air Force and the Culture of Innovation, 1945-1965 (Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2002). (I think this may have something. Not sure)   For a philosophical and speculative take on these kinds of systems and their signifance, including fallout in gaming: Claus Pias, “The Game Player’s Duty: The User as the Gestalt of the Ports,” in Media Archaeology: Approaches, Applications, and Implications, ed. Erkki Huhtamo and Jussi Parikka (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 164–83. [I think his book on computer games has relevant material too]   I’d be delighted to keep apprised of your continuing work on this topic Guy, thank you so much for sharing!   Best, b   From: Members on behalf of Paul N. Edwards Date: Saturday, 24 April 2021 at 20:56 To: Guy Fedorkow Cc: members Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] whirlwind, radar and real-time tracking Guy, seconding Pierre’s good response and adding that in 1951, analog computers were still far faster than digital for most complex calculations, because they are inherently parallel processors. Digital machines were also prone to *very* frequent failure. Most sensors were analog, too, providing no numerical readouts. Few control engineers would have even considered a digital computer for any real-time application until the second half of that decade, and even then they were not the natural choice for most applications.   The early chapters of my book The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996) cover SAGE and the surrounding computing landscape of the 1940s-1950s.   Other resources on SAGE:   Everett, Robert R., Charles A. Zraket, and Herbert D. Benington. “Sage: A Data-Processing System for Air Defense.” Proceedings of the Eastern Joint Computer Conference (1957): 339–45.   Redmond, Kent C. and Thomas M. Smith. Project Whirlwind: The History of a Pioneer Computer. Boston: Digital Press, 1980.   Valley, George E., Jr. “How the Sage Development Began.” Annals of the History of Computing 7, no. 3 (1985): 196–226.   Redmond, Kent C. and Thomas M. Smith. 2000.         Best,   Paul Edwards   On Apr 23, 2021, at 16:41, Guy Fedorkow guy.fedorkow@gmail.com> wrote:   Greetings Colleagues, I've been working on restoring a 1951 Whirlwind program, written at MIT, used to demonstrate real-time tracking of aircraft with radar for the purposes of guiding an interception (the Cold War was in full flight in the 1950's). This work ultimately led to the massive SAGE air defense network in the US. You can see some rather informal preliminary notes on the work at https://www.historia-mollimercium.com/whirlwind/WW-Track-while-Scan-Draft-No... The program does work in simulation; you can see a four-minute video of the simulator running an intercept at https://www.historia-mollimercium.com/whirlwind/Track-while-scan-Apr-23-2021... Spoiler alerts: The original really did display moving dots on a CRT, but the graphics are "spartan" to say the least. And nothing in particular happens when the intercept actually happens. Would anyone know of contemporaneous work involving digital computers for either radar tracking or real-time computing around 1951? I think all the familiar digital computers from those years were used in applications where batch operation was perfectly acceptable, e.g., computing ballistics tables. Innovations like this rarely occur in a complete vacuum, but I don't see references to any similar digital computing projects. If anyone has pointers, do let me know! Thanks Guy Fedorkow _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org   ________________________ Paul N. Edwards Director, Program on Science, Technology & Society William J. Perry Fellow in International Security and Senior Research Scholar Center for International Security and Cooperation Co-Director, Stanford Existential Risks Initiative Stanford University Professor of Information and History (Emeritus) University of Michigan   -- Aristotle Tympas, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens Professor & Chair, Department of History and Philosophy of Science Faculty, Graduate Program ‘History and Philosophy of Science and Technology’ Director, Graduate Program ‘Science, Technology, Society—Science, Technology, Studies’ Publications (links-extracts): http://scholar.uoa.gr/tympas Mail: P.O. Box 18310, Athens 11610, Greece, Email: tympas@phs.uoa.gr

I appreciate the reading list, thanks! As to Aristotle's point -- I absolutely agree they threw off their own analog history, and ran head first into software complexity.  I do recall notes in some of the management reports along the lines of "hurry up and hire more programmers or we'll have computer with no programs!"  Of course the Whirlwind team quickly got on board the Automatic Programming train, although I think they had lots of company on that trip. I think Thomas's point of "why did they do it at all" is well taken.  The WW team had spent some years convincing the Navy that a digital flight simulator would be better than an analog one, so when the contacts with the Air Force came into play, they were already on a digital path.  But as Thomas says, MIT's deep connections with the military must have been critical in convincing the Air Force that something that would have been a hare-brained idea from anyone else, was a serious and viable proposal from MIT. I look forward to Haigh & Ceruzzi's book, and will add all the suggestions to my reading list .   Thanks for all the advice! /guy On 4/25/2021 3:29 AM, Pierre Mounier-Kuhn wrote:

To complement the previous commentaries by Aristotle, Paul and Bernard, I would recommend reading Ronald R. Kline's chapter on "Inventing an Analog Past and a Digital Future" in "/Exploring the Early Digital/" (Thomas Haigh, ed.), a remarkable "historicization" of these categories. Let's add that Von Neumann's "/The Computer and the Brain/" (chapter 1) contain a convincing demonstration of the intrinsic superiority of the digital over the analogue for a large class of problems. Best, Pierre

NB: lesson: Never ask a simple question on this list, unless you want to be assigned with a year-long list of must-reads!

------------------------------------------------------------------------ *De: *"Aristotle Tympas" <tympas@phs.uoa.gr> *À: *"Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan" <bernardgeoghegan2010@u.northwestern.edu> *Cc: *"members" <members@sigcis.org> *Envoyé: *Dimanche 25 Avril 2021 01:52:12 *Objet: *Re: [SIGCIS-Members] whirlwind, radar and real-time tracking

Dear colleagues,

Following in what Bernard Geoghegan just wrote, regarding "the continuity of the control problem [that] trumps the significance of analog/digital" demarcation:

The history of the Whirlwind computer has so far been told as an evolutionist history of leaving behind a problematic initial start with the inferior analog computer in favor of the superior digital computer. We have yet to have a story that acknowledges that this actually meant leaving, initially, behind the analog only to find ahead, eventually, the problem of software. The limits left behind by the digital independence of the analog were actually transformed into limits due to the dependence of the digital hardware by the digital software. With the software side of computing, just like the analog side of computing, pointing to the indispensability of skilled computing labor. The continuity of the problem of the dependance on computing labor -to produce, initially, the computing analogy, and eventually, the computing software- does, indeed, trump the significance of the digital. To put it simply: Why should we continue with a history of Whirlwind (and all the computers of this period) as an escape from the limits of the analog and not, also, as an encounter with the comparable limits of software. And, as we now very well know, the limits of software have overdetermined the history of computing (we know it through a series of arguments/works -from Mahoney to Ensmenger- on the inability to control software production by taylorist-fordist production methods).

Best,

Aristotle

Hi Colleagues,

This is quite fascinating—thanks Guy, and everyone else.

I worked a bit on the longer arc of vigilance and aerial defense WWI through Cold War, leaping from WW2 radar to digital SAGE (over/through Whirlwind) in the essay below. Taking cues from Mindell, I suggest that the continuity of the control priblem trumps the significance of analog/digital for some key concerns:

Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan, “An Ecology of Operations: Vigilance, Radar, and the Birth of the Computer Screen,” /Representations/ 147, no. 1 (August 2019): 59–95, https://doi.org/10.1525/rep.2019.147.1.59 <https://doi.org/10.1525/rep.2019.147.1.59>.

I’m deeply indebted to Paul’s book, mentioned already. More generally, for situating these technologies in a wider network of technologies and protocols cutting across analog and digital, WW2 and Cold War talks and technologies, I also found helpful:

Sharon Ghamari-Tabrizi, “Cognitive and Perceptual Training in the Cold War Man-Machine System,” in /Uncertain Empire: American History and the Idea of the Cold War/, ed. Joel Isaac and Duncan Bell (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 267–93. (On the human element but the training was so thorough and rigorous, and the systems-design so pervasive, it’s hard to view “human factors” as not also a technical element, perhaps even a technology)

Christoph Borbach and Tristan Thielmann, “Über das Denken in Ko-Operationsketten. Arbeiten am Luftlagebild,” in /Materialität der Kooperation/, ed. Sebastian Gießmann, Tobias Röhl, and Ronja Trischler (Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien, 2019), 115–67, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-20805-9_5 <https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-20805-9_5>.

Also:

Thomas Parke Hughes, /Rescuing Prometheus/ (New York: Pantheon Books, 1998). [Chapter 2 on SAGE, but I seem to recall discussions of Whirlwind, too]

Stephen B. Johnson, /The United States Air Force and the Culture of Innovation, 1945-1965/ (Washington, D.C.: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2002). (I think this may have something. Not sure)

For a philosophical and speculative take on these kinds of systems and their signifance, including fallout in gaming: Claus Pias, “The Game Player’s Duty: The User as the Gestalt of the Ports,” in /Media Archaeology: Approaches, Applications, and Implications/, ed. Erkki Huhtamo and Jussi Parikka (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 164–83. [I think his book on computer games has relevant material too]

I’d be delighted to keep apprised of your continuing work on this topic Guy, thank you so much for sharing!

Best, b

*From: *Members on behalf of Paul N. Edwards *Date: *Saturday, 24 April 2021 at 20:56 *To: *Guy Fedorkow *Cc: *members *Subject: *Re: [SIGCIS-Members] whirlwind, radar and real-time tracking

Guy, seconding Pierre’s good response and adding that in 1951, analog computers were still far faster than digital for most complex calculations, because they are inherently parallel processors. Digital machines were also prone to *very* frequent failure. Most sensors were analog, too, providing no numerical readouts. Few control engineers would have even considered a digital computer for any real-time application until the second half of that decade, and even then they were not the natural choice for most applications.

The early chapters of my book The Closed World: Computers and the Politics of Discourse in Cold War America (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996) cover SAGE and the surrounding computing landscape of the 1940s-1950s.

Other resources on SAGE:

Everett, Robert R., Charles A. Zraket, and Herbert D. Benington. “Sage: A Data-Processing System for Air Defense.” Proceedings of the Eastern Joint Computer Conference (1957): 339–45.

Redmond, Kent C. and Thomas M. Smith. Project Whirlwind: The History of a Pioneer Computer. Boston: Digital Press, 1980.

Valley, George E., Jr. “How the Sage Development Began.” Annals of the History of Computing 7, no. 3 (1985): 196–226.

Redmond, Kent C. and Thomas M. Smith. From Whirlwind to Mitre: The R&d Story of the Sage Air Defense Computer. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2000.

Best,

Paul Edwards

On Apr 23, 2021, at 16:41, Guy Fedorkow guy.fedorkow@gmail.com> wrote:

Greetings Colleagues, I've been working on restoring a 1951 Whirlwind program, written at MIT, used to demonstrate real-time tracking of aircraft with radar for the purposes of guiding an interception (the Cold War was in full flight in the 1950's). This work ultimately led to the massive SAGE air defense network in the US. You can see some rather informal preliminary notes on the work at https://www.historia-mollimercium.com/whirlwind/WW-Track-while-Scan-Draft-No... <https://www.historia-mollimercium.com/whirlwind/WW-Track-while-Scan-Draft-Notes-v1.pdf> The program does work in simulation; you can see a four-minute video of the simulator running an intercept at https://www.historia-mollimercium.com/whirlwind/Track-while-scan-Apr-23-2021... <https://www.historia-mollimercium.com/whirlwind/Track-while-scan-Apr-23-2021.mp4> Spoiler alerts: The original really did display moving dots on a CRT, but the graphics are "spartan" to say the least. And nothing in particular happens when the intercept actually happens.

Would anyone know of contemporaneous work involving digital computers for either radar tracking or real-time computing around 1951? I think all the familiar digital computers from those years were used in applications where batch operation was perfectly acceptable, e.g., computing ballistics tables. Innovations like this rarely occur in a complete vacuum, but I don't see references to any similar digital computing projects. If anyone has pointers, do let me know! Thanks Guy Fedorkow

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Paul N. Edwards <https://profiles.stanford.edu/paul-edwards>

Director, Program on Science, Technology & Society <http://sts.stanford.edu>

William J. Perry Fellow in International Security and Senior Research Scholar

Center for International Security and Cooperation <http://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/>

Co-Director, Stanford Existential Risks Initiative <https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/stanford-existential-risks-initiative>

Stanford University

Professor of Information <http://www.si.umich.edu/> and History <http://www.lsa.umich.edu/history/> (Emeritus)

University of Michigan

-- Aristotle Tympas, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens <https://en.uoa.gr/> Professor & Chair, Department of History and Philosophy of Science <http://www.phs.uoa.gr/> Faculty, Graduate Program ‘History and Philosophy of Science and Technology’ <https://hpst.phs.uoa.gr/> Director, Graduate Program ‘Science, Technology, Society—Science, Technology, Studies <https://sts.phs.uoa.gr/>’

Publications (links-extracts): http://scholar.uoa.gr/tympas <http://scholar.uoa.gr/tympas>

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