MIT's Lincoln Laboratory developed the first high-speed computer in the form of Whirlwind, as part of the US Air Force's SAGE project.
In 1959 Gilmore at Adams met with Taylor at Itek and proposed the idea of jointly developing a computer system for engineering design.
Taylor convinced Itek's management to fund development, finally receiving the go-ahead in August 1960, retaining Adams Associates to write the software[1] The natural choice for the host computer was DEC's newly released PDP-1.
Itek addressed this problem by developing a "display processor" that would offload the task of refreshing the screen so the computer could be used solely for processing.
The system developed intense interest, and was even featured in a Time magazine article: The operator's designs pass through the console into an inexpensive computer, which solves the problems and stores the answers in its memory banks in both digitalized form and on microfilm.
By simply pressing buttons and sketching with the light pen, the engineer may enter into a running dialogue with an EDM, recall any of his earlier drawings to the screen in a millisecond and alter its lines and curves at will.
The company was publicly involved in the computer industry (its name was phonetically shortened from "information technology") but in reality supplied a single product, the cameras for the CIA's CORONA spy satellites.
[9] Over the next few years CDC sold a small number of the Digigraphics systems, first to aerospace companies including Lockheed and Martin Marietta, and later to the US Navy, for use in submarine design.