Today in 1951, MIT’s Whirlwind computer first came online. It was the first computer that operated in real time and used video displays (cathode-ray tubes) for output. In the 1950s, Whirlwind became the prototype for a series of computers that enabled the air force to build a sophisticated air defense system, the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment or SAGE.
The Whirlwind required a fast memory system for real-time aircraft tracking. At first, an array of Williams tubes—a storage system based on cathode ray tubes—was used, but proved temperamental and unreliable. Several researchers in the late 1940s conceived the idea of using magnetic cores for computer memory, but MIT computer engineer Jay Forrester received the principal patent for his invention of the coincident-current core memory that enabled the 3D storage of information. Magnetic-core memory became the predominant form of random-access computer memory for about 20 years.
In 1964, after years of legal wrangling, IBM paid MIT $13 million for rights to Forrester's patent—the largest patent settlement to that date. Said Forrester: "It took us about seven years to convince the industry that random-access magnetic-core memory was the solution to a missing link in computer technology. Then we spent the following seven years in the patent courts convincing them that they had not all thought of it first."
Here’s an excerpt from the appearance on December 16, 1951, of the Whirlwind and Jay Forrester on Edward Murrow’s “See It Now” television show: