The GE Heavy Military Electronics Department in Syracuse designed and built a tracking system for the ATLAS missile system named MISTRAM that was in fact an advanced computer system. This was quite in accordance with Cordiner's directions since it would not develop a line of machines that be placed on the open market in competition with IBM. (Ralph J. Cordiner was Chairman & CEO of General Electric from 1958 to 1963.) This project also had the advantage that the up front development expenditures were to be paid by the U.S. government rather than GE, an arrangement much more satisfactory to GE's 570 "bean counters." These circumstances brought about the possibility of duplicating the MISTRAM opportunity for the computer department. Much later, the result was an order for 32 computer department machines. However, the MISTRAM computer was the first in a line of developments by John Couleur that led to what may be regarded as the most successful and long-lasting machine - the GE 600 line.