FLAC, the Florida Automatic Computer, was an early digital electronic computer built for the United States Air Force at Patrick Air Force Base (PAFB) in Brevard County of Florida, to perform missile data reduction.
It was operated by RCA's Data Reduction Group, a subcontractor to Pan American Airways.
The Air Force Civilian engineering team assembled to design and build the computer consisted of seven key members: Thomas G. Holmes, Charlie West, John MacNeill, Jim Bellinger, Steve Batchelor, Bruce Smith and Harlan Manweiler.
Thomas G. Holmes was responsible for the overall logical design of the computer, ensuring all of the components worked together.
Like the ENIAC, EDVAC, and other early computers, FLAC's basic electronic element was the vacuum tube, but it also used crystal diodes for gating.
FLAC's electronic components were built into 7 different kinds of exchangeable plug-in units which could be inserted or removed into 6 separate cabinets (excluding those for power and air conditioning), permitting faulty units to be replaced quickly to restore the machine to functionality following, for example, the burn-out of a vacuum tube.
The FLAC machines' service life ended in 1960, whereupon they were replaced by IBM 709 scientific computers.
Some of the USAF personnel involved in the construction of FLAC, including Thomas G. Holmes, Charlie West, John MacNeill, Jim Bellinger,[6] Steve Batchelor and Harlan Manweiler, together with Jim Allen, later went on to form Soroban Engineering, (later Mohawk Data[7]) in Melbourne, Florida.