ABSTRACT
Father S. J. Roberto Busa and H. Paul Tasman were able to use a different large-scale machine, the IBM 705–part of the line which replaced the Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator (SSEC) in the showroom, beginning with the 701 "Defense Calculator" in 1952–to process punched-card data from their work on the Dead Sea Scrolls. The SSEC was designed to run scientific calculations, but it was also meant to represent computing to the scientific community and the public. Every program for the SSEC, whether for industry or government, ran live in the showroom, so the public could watch the computing being done in real time. The SSEC would have been running, processing actual data for customers. For a year or two, the SSEC represented the cutting edge of computing. The SSEC team included twenty-seven programmers based at IBM headquarters, whose work involved setting plugboards and working with the keypunches and paper tapes, sometimes making them into literal loops, hung vertically in the drives.
