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Whirlwind I

Whirlwind I is not a microchip but a room-sized vacuum-tube computer, listed here as the processor behind the machine. Built at MIT and first fully operational in 1951, it is a 16-bit, single-address, ones-complement machine. It was the first computer to use magnetic-core memory, replacing unreliable electrostatic storage tubes with a fast, dependable core store of 2048 words. It was also the first machine built for real-time operation and the first with an interactive CRT point-plotting display.