Computer science development of sophisticated computing equipment. Wilhelm Schickard designed and constructed the first working mechanical calculator in 1623. In 1673, Gottfried Leibniz demonstrated a digital mechanical calculator, called the Stepped Reckoner. He may be considered the first computer scientist and information theorist, for, among other reasons, documenting the binary number system. In 1820, Thomas de Colmar launched the mechanical calculator industry when he released his simplified arithmometer, which was the first calculating machine strong enough and reliable enough to be used daily in an office environment. Charles Babbage started the design of the first "automatic mechanical calculator", his Difference Engine, in
Florida Automatic Computer had an operational uptime of about 90%. Other features of the computer included insertion of short words, automatic truncation, automatic zero suppression, automatic scaling, and printed format control. FLAC I was housed in a three-story wooden building south of the cafeteria at PAFB, while the two FLAC II systems were built in the South Wing of the Tech Lab in summer and fall of 1956. FLAC II abandoned mercury delay line memory in favor of a faster and more versatile 4096-word magnetic core memory. The FLAC machines' service life ended in 1960, whereupon they were replaced by IBM 709 scientific