The IBM card-programmed electronic calculator
J. W. Sheldon, Liston Tatum · 1951
Tracking a guided missile on a test range now is the only way to make sure of its performance. At one Department of Defense facility this is done by planting batteries of cameras or photo-theodolites along a 100-mile course. During its flight, the missile position is recorded by each camera at 100 frames per second, together with the camera training angles. Formerly these thousands of pictures from each of many cameras were turned over to a crew of computers, to determine just what happened. It took 2 weeks to make the calculations for a single flight. Now this is done on the International Business Machines (IBM) Card-Programmed Electronic Calculator in about 8 hours, and the tests can proceed.