The Cape Cod System and Whirlwind II
The Cape Cod System was designed to demonstrate a computerized air defence system, covering southern New England. Signals from three long range (AN/FPS-3) radars, eleven gap-filler radars, and three height-finding radars were converted from analog to digital format and transmitted over telephone lines to the Whirlwind I computer in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Cape Cod System verified that the new core-based machine was fast enough for use in SAGE, and an industrial effort was started in order to mass-produce the AN/FSQ-7 computers for this role.
After Whirlwind was completed and running, a design for a larger and faster machine to be called Whirlwind II was begun. But the design soon became too much for MIT's resources. It was decided to shelve the Whirlwind II design without building it and concentrate MIT's resources on programming and applications for the original machine, now called Whirlwind I. IBM based their production designs, the AN/FSQ-7, on the stillborn Whirlwind II. Thus the AN/FSQ-7 is sometimes incorrectly referred to as "Whirlwind II", even though they were not the same machine or design.
Read more about this topic: Whirlwind (computer)
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