← Back to context

Comment by petre

4 days ago

What they've always been used for:

> Cold War computers were primarily driven by military necessity, focusing on nuclear weapon simulation, ballistic missile trajectory calculation, and cryptography to support Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). Key uses included modeling hydrogen bomb design using Monte Carlo methods (e.g., on MANIAC), air defense systems like the Navy’s NTDS, and early AI for strategic planning.