Enter MIT

This was not an impossible problem to solve, but would require some sort of feedback system, like a selsyn, to directly measure how far the controls had actually turned. Faced with the daunting task of building such a system, in the spring of 1949 Parsons turned to the MIT Servomechanisms Laboratory, a world leader in mechanical computing and feedback systems. During the war the Lab had built a number of complex motor-driven devices like the motorized gun turret systems for the B-29 and the automatic tracking system for the SCR-584 radar. They were naturally suited to building a prototype of Parsons' automated "by-the-numbers" machine.

The MIT team was led by William Pease assisted by James McDonough. They quickly concluded that Parsons' design could be greatly improved; if the machine did not simply cut at points A and B, but instead moved smoothly between the points, then not only would it make a perfectly smooth cut, but could do so with many fewer points - the mill could cut lines directly instead of having to define a large number of cutting points to "simulate" it. A three-way agreement was arranged between Parsons', MIT and the Air Force, and the project officially ran from July 1949 to June 1950. The contract called for the construction of two "Card-a-matic Milling Machine"s, a prototype and a production system. Both to be handed to Parsons for attachment to one of their mills in order to develop a deliverable system for cutting stringers.

Instead, in 1950 MIT bought a surplus Cincinnati Milling Machine Company "Hydro-Tel" mill of their own and arranged a new contract directly with the Air Force that froze Parsons out of further development. Parsons would later comment that he " never dreamed that anybody as reputable as MIT would deliberately go ahead and take over my project." In spite of the development being handed to MIT, Parsons filed for a patent on "Motor Controlled Apparatus for Positioning Machine Tool" on 5 May 1952, sparking a filing by MIT for a "Numerical Control Servo-System" on 14 August 1952. Parsons' received US Patent 2,820,187 on 14 January 1958, and the company sold an exclusive license to Bendix. IBM, Fujitsu and General Electric all took sub-licenses after having already started development of their own devices.