Summary report no. 26, second quarter, 1951
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Date
2009-06-15T22:27:55ZAbstract
In-depth review of Project Whirlwind in the second quarter of 1951.
Description
Includes: foreword; quarterly review (and abstract); system engineering, computer reliability, electrostatic storage system, and input-output system; circuits and components, five-digit multiplier, vacuum-tube life, component replacements in WWI, ferromagnetic and ferroelectric cores, and plug-in units; electrostatic storage, tube program and storage-tube development; input-output control, photoelectric tape reader, magnetic tape, magnetic drums, and display scope (16-inch); mathematics, coding, and applications, extra-precision and floating-point arithmetic (interpretive subroutines), non-linear difference equations (study of economic systems), non-linear partial differential equations (study of tape-wound magnetic cores), transcendental equations (optical constants of thin metal deposits), combinatorics (UHF TV channel allocation), trigonometry (two-tower-antenna radiation pattern), other problems solved by MIT students, numerical quadrature (intact stability study), 20,000 multiplications (autocorrelation coefficients), other problems being undertaken, and revisions in the Whirlwind order code; academic program in automatic computation and numerical analysis; appendix, reports and publications, and visitors.