Generative Art Timeline · Chapter 3: Analog Era (1950s)
1951
MIT Demonstrates the Whirlwind Computer
Begun in the mid-1940s under Jay Forrester at MIT to drive a programmable flight simulator for the Office of Naval Research, Whirlwind was demonstrated processing live radar data in September 1950. The Whirlwind is a significant step in the evolution of computing technology as it was the first computer that could display real-time graphics and text with its oscilloscope screen. The computer would last until 1959 when it was finally shut down due to its large costs.
Text by Peter Bauman. Generative Art Timeline, Le Random, fact-checked September 2026.
Sources
People
Movements
digital art, Computing Machinery
Filed under
- Ideas
- digital art
- Technologies
- computer graphics, flight simulator, oscilloscope, Processing, radar, real-time computing, Whirlwind computer
- People
- Jay Forrester
- Organisations
- MIT, Office of Naval Research
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- Timeline Ch 3—Analog Era (1950s) with Georg Bak — listen with transcript on Le Random (10 Aug 2023, 65 min). Chapter 3’s episode. Apple Podcasts · Spotify