ABSTRACT
Most of the computer systems installed in commerce and government during the 1950s and 1960s were used unimaginatively. Rather, the computer industry appropriated a technology first developed for a military purpose in Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Project Whirlwind-a project that, in turn, grew out of a contract to design an "aircraft trainer" during World War II. Many of the early computer projects ran far over their original cost and time estimates, but none so much as the Whirlwind. By the spring of 1951 the Whirlwind computer was an operational system. The only major failing was the electrostatic storage tubes, which continued to be unreliable and had a disappointing capacity. During 1960 and 1961 Delta and Pan American signed up with IBM, and their systems became operational in 1965. Eastern Airlines followed in 1968. By the early 1970s all the major carriers possessed reliable real-time systems and communications networks that had become an essential component of their operations.
