ENIAC Arrives at the Ballistic Research Lab
ENIAC Arrives at the Ballistic Research Lab
In 1947 ENIAC was unpacked and installed at the Ballistic Research Laboratory in Aberdeen, Maryland. This chapter explores its first fifteen months there, beginning with some context about the mission and organization of the laboratory. It depicts ENIAC as one of several automatic computers in use there, seen at the time as a device with particular strengths and weaknesses but broadly comparably to electromechanical relay computers in its abilities. Drawing on a previously neglected source, the ENIAC Operations log, it reconstructs the challenges and frustrations involved in attempting to work with electronic computers during this era. Discussion focuses on the two main known problems it ran during this period – interpreting flight data from V2 missiles and creating tables for the analysis of statistical outliers.
Keywords: Hoffleit, Dorrit, Grubbs, Frank, Aberdeen Proving Ground, Ballistic Research Laboratory, V2 missile, Relay computer, ENIAC
MIT Press Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.