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Inventors of the Modern Computer
The Atanasoff-Berry Computer
The First Electronic Computer
John Vincent Atanasoff & Clifford Berry
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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
Vincent Atanasoff
Professor
John Atanasoff and graduate student Clifford Berry built the world's first
electronic-digital computer at Iowa State University between 1939 and 1942.
The Atanasoff-Berry Computer represented several innovations in computing,
including a binary system of arithmetic, parallel processing, regenerative
memory, and a separation of memory and computing functions.
Presper
Eckert and John Mauchly were the first to patent a digital computing device,
the ENIAC computer. A patent
infringement case (Sperry Rand Vs. Honeywell, 1973) voided the ENIAC
patent as a derivative of Atanasoff's invention. Atanasoff was quite generous
in stating, "there is enough credit for everyone in the invention
and development of the electronic computer." Eckert and Mauchly received
most of the credit for inventing the first electronic-digital computer.
Historians now say that the Atanasoff-Berry computer was the first.
"It
was at an evening of scotch and 100 mph car rides," Atanasoff said, "when
the concept came, for an electronically operated machine, that would use
base-two (binary) numbers instead of the traditional base-10 numbers, condensers
for memory, and a regenerative process to preclude loss of memory from
electrical failure.”
Atanasoff
wrote most of the concepts of the first modern computer on the back of
a cocktail napkin. (He was fond of fast cars and scotch.)
In
late 1939, Atanasoff teamed up with Berry to build a prototype. They created
the first computing machine to use electricity, vacuum tubes, binary numbers
and capacitors. The capacitors were in a rotating drum that held the electrical
charge for the memory. The brilliant and inventive Berry, with his background
in electronics and mechanical construction skills, was the ideal partner
for Atanasoff. The prototype won the team a grant of $850 to build a full-scale
model. They spent the next two years further improving the Atanasoff-Berry
Computer. The final product was the size of a desk, weighed 700 pounds,
had over 300 vacuum tubes, and contained a mile of wire. It could calculate
about one operation every 15 seconds, today a computer can calculate 150
billion operations in 15 seconds. Too large to go anywhere, it remained
in the basement of the physics department. The war effort prevented Atanasoff
from finishing the patent process and doing any further work on the computer.
When they needed storage space in the physics building, they dismantled
the Atanasoff-Berry Computer.
Further
Reading
Biographical information on the inventors, pictures and technical drawings
of the Atanasoff-Berry Computer, the patent dispute, court papers and transcripts.
Inventors Of The Modern Computer
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