S. N. Alexander
ABSTRACT
Some of you undoubtedly recall hearing reports during 1949 on the progress of the Interim Computer at the Washington Laboratory of the National Bureau of Standards. The program to develop that computer was proposed and explored during the summer of 1948 as means for providing a "stop-gap" installation for the NBS Computation Laboratory during the interim period while full scale equipment from a commercial source was being completed for delivery. This point of view was retained up to the end of 1949, during which period the machine's system and circuitry were developed. Early in 1950, however, it became evident that this "stop-gap" equipment would be the only equipment that would be available for two, and possibly three years. In view of this, the ultimate objectives for the computer installation were raised to cope with what could no longer be considered "an interim situation." Furthermore, the name "Interim Computer" was no longer appropriate and was eventually replaced by "SEAC"---Standards' Eastern Automatic Computer.
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