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"I have always taken the position that there is enough credit for everyone in the invention and development of the electronic computer.",
John Atanasoff (1903 - 1995)
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The the world's first electronic-digital computer was built by professor John Atanasoff and graduate student Clifford Berry at Iowa
State University between 1939 and 1942. It featured several innovations in computing such as:
- a binary system of arithmetic
- parallel processing
- regenerative memory
- separation of memory and computing functions
The Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) was the first electronic digital computing device.
The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) was the first patented electronic-digital computer. The ENIAC patent was challenged in a
patent infringement lawsuit filed on May 26, 1967 by Honeywell Inc. against Sperry Rand in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The case was legally
resolved on Friday, October 19, 1973. United States District Judge Earl R. Larson declared the ENIAC patent null and void and explicitly stated, "Eckert and Mauchly did
not themselves first invent the automatic electronic digital computer, but instead derived that subject matter from one Dr. John Vincent Atanasoff". The
case was so unambiguous and clear that Sperry declined to appeal. Atanasoff stated, "there is enough credit for everyone in the invention and development of the
electronic computer."
| BIOGRAPHY - Source: www.johnatanasoff.com |
| John Atanasoff’s father, Ivan Atanasoff, was born in the village of Boyadjick, Bulgaria. Ivan Atanasoff had lost his own father in 1876,
when the latter was brutally killed in the April Uprising of the Bulgarians against the Ottoman Empire. In 1889, when Ivan Atanasoff was
thirteen years old, he emmigrated to the United States accompanied by an uncle. He later married Iva Lucena, a mathematics teacher. John
Vincent Atanasoff was born in the town of Hamilton, New York on October 4, 1903. After John's birth, the Atanasoff family moved a number
of times as Ivan Atanasoff sought better employment in several different electrical engineering positions. They eventually settled in
Brewster, Florida, where John completed grade school. The Atanasoff home in Brewster was the first house the family had lived in that
was equipped with electricity. By age nine, John had taught himself how to repair faulty electric wiring and light fixtures on their back-porch. |
| It was recognized early that John Atanasoff had both a passion and talent for mathematics. His youthful interest in baseball was quickly forgotten
once his father showed him the logarithmic slide rule he had bought for facilitating engineering calculations. The slide rule completely captivated
the nine-year-old boy, who spent hours studying the instructions and delighting in the fact that this mathematical tool consistently resulted in
correct solutions to problems. Young John's obsession with the slide rule soon led to a series of discoveries on the logarithmic principles
underlying slide rule operation and, subsequently, to a study of trigonometric functions. It was not long before the gifted youth had achieved
substantial progress in his math studies. At this time John's mother introduced him to counting systems and number bases other than base ten,
including an introduction to the binary system which would prove important in his later work. |
| John Atanasoff completed his high school course in two years, with excellence in both science and mathematics. He had decided to become a theoretical
physicist, and with that goal in mind, entered the University of Florida in Gainesville in 1921. Because the university curriculum did not offer degrees
in physics, John began his undergraduate studies in the electrical engineering program. The knowledge of electronics and higher math that John acquired
as an electrical engineering student would later prove fortuitous in helping to transform the theory of the computer into a working reality. |
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John Atanasoff graduated from the University of Florida in Gainesville in 1925, with a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering. He received
his Master’s degree in mathematics from the Iowa State College in Ames, Iowa in 1926. After completing his graduate studies, Atanasoff accepted a
position teaching physics and mathematics at Iowa State College. He was then accepted into the doctoral program at the University of Wisconsin, and
received his doctoral degree (Ph. D.) in theoretical physics from Wisconsin in 1930. In his doctoral thesis, "The Dielectric Constant of Helium",
Atanasoff was required to do many complicated and time consuming computations. Although he utilized the Monroe mechanical calculator, one of the best
machines of the time, to assist in his tedious computations, the shortcomings of this machine were painfully obvious and motivated him to think about
the possibility of developing a more sophisticated calculating machine. After receiving his Ph. D. in theoretical physics in July 1930, John returned
to the staff of Iowa State College and began his work on developing a better and faster computing machine. |
| In 1970 John Atanasoff was invited to Bulgaria by the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, and the Bulgarian Government conferred to him the Cyrille and
Methodius Order of Merit First Class. This was his first public recognition, and it was awarded to him three years before similar honors were conferred
to him in the United States. The credit for this timely recognition of Atanasoff's achievement should be given to the Bulgarian academicians, Blaghovest
Sendov, Ph.D. and Kyrille Boyannov, Ph.D., among others. During his lifetime, the highest honor and recognition awarded to John Vincent Atanasoff, the
Father of the Computer, was the National Medal of Science and Technology, conferred to him by George H. W. Bush in 1990. |
| THE PROTOTYPE - Source: www.johnatanasoff.com |
| In the late 1930s, John Atanasoff was still trying to develop ways to facilitate the process of calculating
solutions to the extended systems of linear algebraic equations that were applicable to his research work. He became convinced that the digital approach
offered considerable advantages over the slower and less accurate analog machines. In December of 1939, working with his graduate student Clifford Berry,
John Atanasoff developed and built the prototype of the first electronic digital computer, which would be fully completed in 1942. This prototype of the
first computer included four significant and entirely novel operating principles in its operation: The binary system, regenerative data storage, logic
circuits as elements of a program, and electronic elements as data carrying media. |
| "After the prototype had started working, we were convinced we could build a computer capable of calculating whatever we would like to.", wrote Atanasoff. Having demonstrated the viability
of the four major principles, the prototype unequivocally opened the way for all present day computers. |
| In their history of the ENIAC computer, Alice R. Burks and Arthur W. Burks summarize the Atanasoff achievement as follows:
"He invented a new type of a serial storage module, applicable to digital electronic computing. He formulated, developed and proved the major principles
involved in electronic circuits for digital computing, principles that included arithmetical operations, control, transition from one to another number base
systems, transfer and storage of data, and synchronized clocking of the operations. Having applied that data storage and those principles, he constructed a
well-balanced electronic computer with centralized architecture, including storage, and arithmetically controlled input/output devices. He had invented the
first-ever specialized electronic computer with such a degree of multi-aspect applicability." |
Clifford Berry with the ABC (1942) |
| The ABC computer would have been fully operative by 1943, had the efforts of John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry not
been interrupted by World War II. In September of 1942, Atanasoff was conscripted into the military and was forced to set aside his work on the computer. He began
working at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory (NOL), a research laboratory at the Armed Forces Ordnance Administration, where, as a theoretical physicist, he was put in
charge of testing acoustic mines, depth charges, and other similar projects. From 1942 to 1966, Atanasoff\'s scientific research centered on the dynamic principles
of naval ships. During this time, he patented more than 30 devices, including the first mine-sweeping unit for blowing up hydrodynamic naval mines; instruments for
detection and recording of high amplitude seismic and sonic waves; a unit computing and recording projectile trajectory errors in artillery shelling; postal sorting
systems; automated systems for parcel post handling; quick search systems for classified information items; and an electronic quartz clock. Simultaneously, he worked
on several developments related to national defense and naval armament systems, including work on guided missiles. |
| In 1945 John Atanasoff dedicated the results of his innovative professional work to a number of governmental and
industrial projects. He also established two successful companies and served each simultaneously as chief executive. |
| THE PROCESS - Source: www.johnatanasoff.com |
| A significant event had occurred in 1941, when Atanasoff received a colleague, John W. Mauchly, into his home as a guest. Mauchly had expressed great
interest in the work Atanasoff was doing relating to computer technology and had enthusiastically accepted Atanasoff's invitation. It is important to ask
exactly what transpired during this visit between Atanasoff and Mauchly, since the events that resulted from the time they spent together are now etched
in history. The facts were examined in detail at a judicial hearing 26 years later, when the courts had to decide whether John W. Mauchly and John P. Eckert
had unlawfully made use of Atanasoff's invention when they developed the ENIAC computer between 1942 and 1946. Before this time, the ENIAC had been recognized
as the first electronic computer, but the facts of the case would prove otherwise. The following facts were established during the court hearings: |
John Mauchly & John Eckert |
- J. Mauchly had stayed as a guest at Atanasoff's home in Ames from June 13 to June 18, 1941.
- During that stay, Mauchly spent many hours discussing the Atanasoff-Berry computer and computer theory with John Atanasoff and Cliff Berry.
- For three or four days, Mauchly accompanied Atanasoff to his office in the physics building at Iowa State University and observed the
Atanasoff-Berry computer in the presence of both Atanasoff and Berry.
- Mauchly had also watched demonstrations of the operations of the computer, or at least viewed some phases of the Atanasoff-Berry computer
functioning. Mauchly may also have been engaged in the manipulation of some parts of the computer in the company of Clifford Berry.
- Mauchly was allowed to read 35 pages of a manuscript describing the design and operation of the Atanasoff-Berry computer. Atanasoff and
Berry had benevolently answered all of Mauchly's questions and had conducted many detailed discussions with him related to the computer and
the manuscript. Atanasoff had, however, rejected Mauchly's request to take a copy of the manuscript with him to Pennsylvania.
- Immediately after meeting with Atanasoff in June, Mauchly had written letters to both Atanasoff and to another friend, Helms Clayton,
expressing his enthusiasm for the Atanasoff-Berry computer. Mauchly subsequently attended a crash course in electronics at Pennsylvania University.
- On August 15, 1941, Mauchly wrote a comprehensive summary of the differences between analog and digital computing devices. The summary included
ideas that were almost identical to those found in Atanasoff's manuscript relating to the Atanasoff-Berry computer.
- On September 30, 1941, Mauchly wrote to Atanasoff, proposing that the two of them develop a computer jointly. Mauchly also asked whether Atanasoff
would mind if he used some of Atanasoff's ideas in a computer that he himself was intending to build.
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| On October 19, 1973, Judge Earl R. Larson made public his ruling on the ENIAC case. According to the US statutory judicial procedure, Justice Larson
issued a court ruling on the merits of the evidence, a summation, and a court verdict, which resulted in a total of 420 pages of material. The court verdict
said: "With this Verdict the Court has ruled that the Patent of ENIAC - US Patent, Serial No. 3 120 606, issued to the Illinois Scientific Developments
Incorporated, is hereby declared null and void." Thus, the US Patent of what had been considered the first digital computer in history was declared null
and void. The significance of the judge's ruling, which was based on a chronological examination of the events, provided irrefutable proof of the great
achievement made by Atanasoff and Berry in developing an electronic digital computer before December 1940. Judge Larson noted that the advanced stage of the
Atanasoff-Berry computer was established beyond reasonable doubt, and that it was not just an opinion on behalf of Atanasoff or the Administration officials
of the State of Iowa, but the learned opinion of independent experts. These experts had made their own observations and tests of the Atanasoff - Berry
Computer in addition to reviewing the research and development plans that Atanasoff had produced in the period between 1939 and 1942. |
| The Federal Judge ruled that Mauchly derived the basic ideas for an electronic digital computer from the
Atanasoff-Berry computer. He also ruled that John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry were the first to have constructed an electronic digital computer at the
Iowa State College in the years between 1939 and 1942. In addition, the judge ruled that John Mauchly and John Eckert, who had for over 25 years been
the recipients of recognition and admiration as co-inventors of the first electronic digital computer, had, in fact, lost all rights to the patent upon
which all of the praise had been based. "Eckert and Mauchly had not invented the first automated electronic digital computer, but had derived the basic
ideas for it by John Atanasoff." (Excerpt of the Summation of the Court in Minneapolis, 1973). |
| ATANASOFF RECOGNIZED AS THE FATHER OF THE COMPUTER! |
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