Whirlwind 1

The Whirlwind 1, an early computer at MIT, featured in 1950.  Dennis and I had been watching some documentaries about women's roles in these early machines.  Didn't my aunt do some of this?  I called her today and asked.  She said she had been hired when she graduated from Wellesley in 1955 to work with the Whirlwind 1 at MIT.  She said the computer took the whole room, full of vacuum tubes.  She said that she didn't work on the computer itself but on the 10x10 calculating machines.  I think they massaged the data before or after.  Very complicated machines; you needed 'clearance' to work there.  She also worked with a team at Harvard trying to calculate the method for the legs of the lunar lander in 1960.  She mentioned some #metoo moments at the Harvard lab but not at MIT.