The Atanasoff-Berry Computer at Iowa State U.

New book released last week --

Jane Smiley, The Man Who Invented the Computer: The Biography of John
Atanasoff, Digital Pioneer, Random House, Inc., 2010

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=3D9780385527132

"One night in the late 1930s, in a bar on the Illinois=96Iowa border,
John Vincent Atanasoff, a professor of physics at Iowa State
University, after a frustrating day performing tedious mathematical
calculations in his lab, hit on the idea that the binary number system
and electronic switches, com=ADbined with an array of capacitors on a
moving drum to serve as memory, could yield a computing machine that
would make his life and the lives of other similarly burdened
scientists easier. Then he went back and built the machine. It worked.
The whole world changed."

Portions of Smiley's book are available for browsing here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=3DBoUl_Z5XO7wC

Other info on Atanasoff and his computer:

http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Milestones:Atanasoff-Berry_Computer,_=
1939

http://www.scl.ameslab.gov/ABC/

http://www.cs.iastate.edu/jva/jva-archive.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atanasoff%E2%80%93Berry_Computer

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Vincent_Atanasoff

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honeywell_v._Sperry_Rand

"The publication of the Honeywell v. Sperry Rand decision coincided
with the event of the Saturday Night Massacre, one of many events in
the ongoing Watergate scandal of Richard Nixon's presidency. As a
result of the media's focus on Watergate, news of the decision did not
attract public attention at the time."

wrote:


There are probably much better places to post this (interesting, I
admit) thread!

Of course, development of anything like a computer is not a single
'eureka' moment, but more an evolving process, built on the ideas of
those in the past, and in turn to be expanded and developed by the
future.

Ed M. schrieb:


Hello,

one additional and important link:

http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/STARS:Inventing_the_Computer

Here you find the important difference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atanasoff%E2%80%93Berry_Computer
" The ABC pioneered important elements of modern computing, including
binary arithmetic and electronic switching elements,[3] but its
special-purpose nature and lack of a changeable, stored program
distinguish it from modern computers."

The first universal programmable computers were build by others later.

Bye