ABSTRACT
Forrester and Everett returned from the Whistle Factory to Brown’s Servomechanisms Laboratory raring to get going at engineering their electronic digital computer. The buildout phase was slated for 1948. Although they had yet to build out even the barest of structure for their electronic digital computer, they were far ahead of the outdated analog machines around them. The big difference in their favor was that they intended to build a control computer—a machine that would automatically control the actions of yet another machine. Seemingly everyone else building computers had a fixation on constructing single-purpose, scientific computers used solely to hurry into being answers to previously intractable mathematics problems. Forrester and Everett insisted that all parts, assemblies, and subassemblies be tested individually and then together, and that designers should take the time to build whatever test equipment was necessary to locate deficiencies and remedy them before building them into Whirlwind.
