Project Whirlwind: The History of a Pioneer Computer by Kent C. Redmond, Thomas M. Smith, and: Early British Computers by Simon H. Lavington (review)
Nancy Stern · Technology and Culture · 1981
644 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE means the era of that now obsolescent device, the vacuum tube. Of critical importance here was the emergence of continuous-wave transmitters, which called for as great a revolution in the technology of detection as in the technology of generation. Tone wheels and “tickers,” which interrupted the incoming signal at an audio rate, helped to bridge the gap until the development of stable local oscil lators made heterodyne reception feasible. Phillips ends his story with the advent of vacuum tube detectors, briefly discussed in the closing pages. And clearly Fleming’s diode and the De Forest triode did mark an important technological dis continuity (despite the well-known links to incandescent bulbs and flame detectors). It is easy to forget that in the early years of radio, when the new technology was struggling to find a place for itself in competition with wired systems, there was no known means of radiofrequency amplification. The triode valve changed all that. But, in receiver design, the triode was equally important as an oscillator. Small arcs and alternators could be and were used as local oscillators in heterodyne receivers; but it was the oscillating triode—convenient, compact, with low power requirements—that made heterodyne and later superheterodyne receivers standard equipment. I have only minor criticisms. First, the connection between early crystal detectors and modern solid-state devices could, I think, have been made more positively. Crystal detectors were reintroduced for radar and ultra-high-frequency receivers during World War II be cause of the difficulty of making vacuum tubes with sufficiently short electron transit times; and between these crystal diodes and the in vention of the transistor there is an unmistakable historical connec tion. Second, Phillips’s book would have been richer and would have gained in general appeal if he had told us more about the use of these devices in commercial and military practice. We are not given much evidence on which to base ajudgment about their relative importance as “technology-in-use.” This is, perhaps, a task for a subsequent book. Hugh G. J. Aitken* Project Whirlwind: The History of a Pioneer Computer. By Kent C. Red mond and Thomas M. Smith. Bedford, Mass.: Digital Press, 1980. Pp. 280 +xiv.$21.00. Early British Computers. By Simon H. Lavington. Bedford, Mass.: Dig ital Press, 1980. Pp. 140. $8.00 (paper). Digital Press, a subsidiary of the Digital Equipment Corporation, has begun publishing a series in the history of computing. Project *Dr. Ai tken teaches economic history at Amherst College and, when time permits, writes about the history of radio technology. TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 645 Whirlwind, by Kent C. Redmond and Thomas M. Smith, and Early British Computers, by Simon H. Lavington, are the first two works in this series. Before considering the works themselves, a word or two is in order about this rather unique commitment to history on the part of a major computer manufacturer. It is relatively rare when any scientific or technological organization makes such a commitment to the history of its discipline. In large part, this low priority afforded to the study of history is quite understandable. In technological fields where it re quires considerable effortjust to maintain state-of-the-art knowledge, retrospective and historical studies are considered luxuries that can only be granted the lowest of priorities. The Digital Equipment Cor poration, the parent company, and Digital Press have recognized that to be able to make judgments about the future of computing one must have some understanding of the past. This recognition is not only unique but is of considerable importance in providing a vehicle for publishing future works in this field. This review, however, is not of the press but of its first two publications in the series. Project Whirlwind was a post-World War II research and develop ment effort at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under the direction of Jay Forrester and Robert R. Everett. Whirlwind, with its random access core memory, was also the first computer to operate in real time. The focus of this work, however, is not on the tech nical but on the administrative features, of Whirlwind and the problems...