The first fully digital computer—the ENIAC, pictured here—was originally developed by the U.S. Army to compute ballistic firing tables in World War II. The accurate collection and computation of geospatial data, including parameters like wind speed and height of target above sea level, would prove integral to processing calculations needed to strike a faraway target.
Data was collected with manual tools like weather balloons before being entered to the ENIAC via punched cards (including FORTRAN). Roughly 125 hours of computing time later, according to scientists at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering where ENIAC was housed, one could expect a “reasonably complete table for the determination of the drag on an ordinary shaped projectile head moving at supersonic speeds.”