A historical account of computer research in seismic data processing 1949–1954
Enders Anthony Robinson · The Leading Edge · 1985
The first general-purpose electronic digital computer, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator (Eniac), was built between 1943–46 and was moved to the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland in 1947. John von Neumann realized that the lack of a centralized control unit for the Eniac was not an incurable deficiency and suggested that the whole machine could be programmed into a somewhat primitive stored program computer. Richard Clippinger, head of the computing laboratory at Aberdeen and also a mathematician of note, worked out such a system and ran it on Eniac in September 1948. Although it slowed the machine’s operation, it accelerated the programmer’s task enormously. Indeed, the change was so profound that the old method was never used again.