1944 IBM ASCC Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator - Computer - Harvard Mark I

Dedicated this day to Harvard University August 7, 1944. The IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator (ASCC), called Mark I by Harvard University’s staff, was a general purpose electromechanical computer that was used in the war effort during the last part of World War II.

One of the first programs to run on the Mark I was initiated on 29 March 1944 by John von Neumann, who worked on the Manhattan project at the time, and needed to determine whether implosion was a viable choice to detonate the atomic bomb that would be used a year later. The Mark I also computed and printed mathematical tables, which had been the initial goal of British inventor Charles Babbage for his "analytical engine". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Mark_I