ENIAC was the first general-purpose electronic digital computer, financed by the U.S. Army and built during World War II at the University of Pennsylvania to calculate artillery firing tables. It was 1000 times faster than any previous machine but difficult to reprogram. EDVAC was an improved stored-program computer designed by the ENIAC team to be easier to program by storing programs in memory; it pioneered the modern computer architecture of stored programs. EDVAC was completed in 1949 and in continuous operation until 1961, proving reliable and productive during its lifetime.