Ballistics Research Laboratory

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The US Army Ballistics Research Laboratory is at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Aberdeen, Maryland. As the name implies, the mission of BRL was ballistics computations, which were used in preparing firing tables and other aids for weapons employment. BRL, as it was called, sponsored the development of the ENIAC, regarded as the first general-purpose electronic digital computer. BRL engineers developed and built several other computers until directed to discontinue home-made computers. The last of the line was the "BRLESC", the Ballistics Research Laboratory Electronic Scientific Computer. The BRLESC and its predecessor, the ORDVAC, used their own unique notation for hexadecimal numbers. The digits eleven to fifteen were represented by the letters K S N J F L instead of the sequence A B C D E F universally used today. Why? "King Size Numbers, Just For Laughs." A visitor to BRL in the late 1950's might see other artifacts of computer development such as mechanical calculators for octal numbers and a brass plaque on the wall commemorating the first installation of the ENIAC.

In 1992, BRL was renamed to the Army Research Laboratory in an effort reflect the diverse technological and scientific research being conducted at the time. ARL consists of a number of directorates working under the direction of John Miller, ARL Director.