ABSTRACT
The fully operational stored-program electronic computer in the United States was built at the National Bureau of Standards. The Standards Electronic Automatic Computer (SEAC) began useful computation in May 1950. The stored program was held in the machine's internal memory where the machine itself could modify it for successive stages of a computation. Although originally intended as an "interim" computer, SEAC had a productive life of 14 years, with a profound effect on all U. S. Government computing, the extension of the use of computers into previously unknown applications, and the further development of computing machines in industry and academia. George Dantzig urged the Air Force to contract with National Bureau of Standards (NBS) for the development of an interim machine which would serve multiple purposes. NBS began development, in its own laboratory, of an interim machine for use by NBS, the Army and Air Force, and the Census Bureau, which wished to test automatic methods on the 1950 Census.
