Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The caption on a black-and-white photo reads, in part: “In 1951, high school graduate Joe Thompson, 18, was trained as one of the first two computer operators. The computer was the Whirlwind, the prototype for the SAGE air defense system.”
MIT’s Whirlwind was one of the earliest high-speed digital computers, and Thompson played a key role in its operation at the start of his decades-long career in computing. With help from Deborah Douglas, director of collections at the MIT Museum, David Brock of the Computer History Museum recently caught up with Thompson, the first person trained as a Whirlwind operator at the MIT Digital Computer Laboratory, to learn more about his time with the project and his subsequent years as a leader in the computing industry.
A Black computing pioneer takes his place in technology history
February 4, 2021MIT
The caption on a black-and-white photo reads, in part: “In 1951, high school graduate Joe Thompson, 18, was trained as one of the first two computer operators. The computer was the Whirlwind, the prototype for the SAGE air defense system.”
MIT’s Whirlwind was one of the earliest high-speed digital computers, and Thompson played a key role in its operation at the start of his decades-long career in computing. With help from Deborah Douglas, director of collections at the MIT Museum, David Brock of the Computer History Museum recently caught up with Thompson, the first person trained as a Whirlwind operator at the MIT Digital Computer Laboratory, to learn more about his time with the project and his subsequent years as a leader in the computing industry.