Oral history interview with Douglas T. Ross, 1984 Feb. 21.

  1. Resources
  2. View Resource

ArchivalResource

Oral history interview with Douglas T. Ross, 1984 Feb. 21.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/63295496

Ross, the founder of SofTech Corporation, recounts some of his early experiences working on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Whirlwind computer in the 1950s. He explains how a summer job at MIT's Servomechanisms Laboratory operating a Marchant calculator led him to use the Whirlwind for greater computing power--and to seventeen years in the MIT computer labs. Ross reports on his first use of the Whirlwind to solve airborne fire control problems. Soon after that the Whirlwind was used for the Cape Cod early warning system, a precursor to the SAGE Air Defense System.

Computer data (1 file : 138K)

University of Minnesota, Minneapolis

Information

SNAC Resource ID: 7885731

University of Minnesota, Minneapolis

Related Entities

There are 3 Entities related to this resource.

Ross, Douglas T.

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6r52rm9 (person)

Whirlwind computer programmer and, later, computer software industry executive. From the description of Oral history interview with Douglas T. Ross, 1984 Feb. 21. (University of Minnesota, Minneapolis). WorldCat record id: 63295496 Computer scientist. From the description of Oral history interview with Douglas T. Ross, 1989 Nov. 1. (University of Minnesota, Minneapolis). WorldCat record id: 63295652 ...

Massachusetts institute of technology. Servomechanisms laboratory

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w62p1jjh (corporateBody)

Project Whirlwind was centered in the Servomechanics Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology with its original objective being the development of a device that would simulate airplanes in flight. In the course of the research, Whirlwind eventually evolved into a key element of the U.S.'s early air defense system. Since M.I.T. did not view this as an appropriate action for an educational institution to take part in, it transferred the entire project to the MITRE Corp. From...

Aspray, William,

http://n2t.net/ark:/99166/w6ws99bf (person)