SEAC: review of three years of operation

Since September of 1950, the National Bureau of Standards has had SEAC, a digital-automatic computer, in almost continuous daily usage. It was originally conceived as an interim-computing facility for the use of the government until a more complete computing system could replace it. Consequently, in constructing the machine, it was intended to put into productive operation as soon as possible a minimal machine that could produce computed results. However, the machine proved quite reliable, and the experiments involved in its design were sufficiently successful that SEAC was expanded and kept in operation as a permanent tool at the National Bureau of Standards. It is the purpose of this paper to present some of the operating experience that has been obtained from the use of this computer and to indicate the ways in which component reliability and maintenance procedures have affected the amount of useful computation that has been obtained from SEAC.