Archival History of Computing at MIT, 1950–62

The MIT Digital Humanities Programs, together with the MIT Libraries Department of Distinctive Collections, have digitized and contextualized the majority of archived documents relating to the history of the MIT Computation Center from the 1950s and early 1960s.
Try searching for: Humanities | Whirlwind | Laura | Social science research | Calvin | 704 | Physics
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A Brief Journey Inside the IBM 704 There was once a time when the Massachusetts Institute of Technology didn't have any computers. Check out this story to learn about the huge primitive beast that changed MIT.
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Announcement of the IBM 704 In December of 1955, MIT and IBM collaborated in a joint press release to announce that the university would be receiving its own IBM 704 computer. This new device was very advanced for its time, and would significantly impact many fields of study.
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Computing in the 1930s - A Geospatial Timeline A tour and timeline of notable events in the early history of computation.
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Digital Humanities: An Enduring Legacy A time without digital humanities is a time long before commercial computers. Even at its earliest, when the hours of computation were meticulously counted and rationed, the investment of technology in the humanities thrived.
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“Three Man-Months” One might presume that the primary issue with the computers of the 1950’s was that they were slow. But lack of processing power was not necessarily the bottleneck here.
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Cost of Using a Supercomputer With an infinite amount of problems to solve and only one supercomputer, time usage for the Whirlwind 1 was limited. To actually use it, one would have to request time at rates up to $250/hour or $2400/hour when adjusted for inflation.