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In the
1930’s and 40’s electronic computer systems were
designed and built in laboratories by scientists. They
had limited functionality making them essentially
gigantic calculators. In 1946, Penn State University
had built ENIAC. ENIAC was designed to solve
engineering problems. In 1951, the Whirlwind computer
at MIT was being used for applications involving air
defense. In 1959, Stanford Research Institute and the
Bank of America collaborated in the design of a computer
system to manage the checking accounts of customers with
the main feature being a device that could read magnetic
ink on the checks for the purpose of automating the
account posting process. |
