Free Knowledge Culture Calendar/January 24

Today in 1948 the IBM company dedicated the Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator (SSEC), the first electronic computer with stored instructions. Instead of representing the programming in the (more or less fixed) wiring of the machines, computing instructions are stored alongside the data being processed, separating software from the hardware. This innovation allows for easy adaptability to arbitrary computations, enables programming languages and the software ecosystem, and simplifies the development of more complex and abstract programs.