Ballistic Research Laboratory
Encyclopedia
The Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL) at Aberdeen Proving Ground
, Maryland
was the center for the United States Army
's research efforts in ballistics and vulnerability/lethality analysis.
In 1992, its mission, personnel, and facilities were incorporated into the newly created Army Research Laboratory
, and BRL was disestablished.
BRL played an important role in the history of computer development:
Aberdeen Proving Ground
Aberdeen Proving Ground is a United States Army facility located near Aberdeen, Maryland, . Part of the facility is a census-designated place , which had a population of 3,116 at the 2000 census.- History :...
, Maryland
Maryland
Maryland is a U.S. state located in the Mid Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware to its east...
was the center for the United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
's research efforts in ballistics and vulnerability/lethality analysis.
In 1992, its mission, personnel, and facilities were incorporated into the newly created Army Research Laboratory
Army Research Laboratory
The Army Research Laboratory is the U.S. Army's corporate research laboratory. ARL is headquartered at the Adelphi Laboratory Center in Adelphi, Maryland. Its largest single site is at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland...
, and BRL was disestablished.
Computers
- Sponsored the development of ENIACENIACENIAC was the first general-purpose electronic computer. It was a Turing-complete digital computer capable of being reprogrammed to solve a full range of computing problems....
- widely regarded as the first general-purpose electronic digital computer - to aid the creation of firing tables for artillery and mortars - Developed and built several generations of computers: EDVACEDVACEDVAC was one of the earliest electronic computers. Unlike its predecessor the ENIAC, it was binary rather than decimal, and was a stored program computer....
, ORDVACORDVACThe ORDVAC or Ordnance Discrete Variable Automatic Computer, an early computer built by the University of Illinois for the Ballistics Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground, was based on the IAS architecture developed by John von Neumann, which came to be known as the von Neumann architecture...
and BRLESCBRLESCThe BRLESC I was a first-generation electronic computer built by the United States Army's Ballistics Research Laboratory at Aberdeen Proving Ground with assistance from the National Institute of Standards and Technology , and was designed to take over the computational workload... - Developed BRL-CADBRL-CADBRL-CAD is a constructive solid geometry solid modeling computer-aided design system. It includes an interactive geometry editor, ray tracing support for graphics rendering and geometric analysis, computer network distributed framebuffer support, scripting, image-processing and signal-processing...
, a solid geometric modeling systemSolid modelingSolid modeling is a consistent set of principles for mathematical and computer modeling of three dimensional solids. Solid modeling is distinguished from related areas of Geometric modeling and Computer graphics by its emphasis on physical fidelity...
- now open sourcedOpen sourceThe term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology... - The network pingPingPing is a computer network administration utility used to test the reachability of a host on an Internet Protocol network and to measure the round-trip time for messages sent from the originating host to a destination computer...
utility was authored by Mike MuussMike MuussMichael John Muuss was the author of the freeware network tool Ping.A graduate of Johns Hopkins University, Muuss was a senior scientist specializing in geometric solid modeling, ray-tracing, MIMD architectures and digital computer networks at the United States Army Research Laboratory at Aberdeen...
of BRL in December 1983 to troubleshoot network problems