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Iowa State University Biographical Dictionary • Atanaso, John Vincent

Bill Silag1

1Iowa Biographical Dictionary

Published on: Jul 30, 2021 License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0) State University Biographical Dictionary • Atanaso, John Vincent

(October 4, 1903 – June 15, 1995)

Quick Facts John Vincent Atanasoff is best known as the inventor of the . His work as a professor was the foundation for all modern .

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Source: https://jva.cs.iastate.edu/ jvabio.php

John Vincent Atanasoff was born in Hamilton, New York, the son of John and Iva Lucena (Purdy) Atanasoff. His father was an electrical engineer, working primarily in Florida. As a child, John Vincent was fascinated by numbers, an enthusiasm his parents encouraged. In 1921 he entered the , earning a bachelor's degree in in 1925. He moved on to Iowa State College (ISC, now University) for a master's in (1926) and then to the University of Wisconsin for a doctorate in theoretical (1930).

PhD in hand, Atanasoff returned to ISC as an assistant professor of physics and mathematics. Like other scientists of the time, his work was hampered by the extensive, repetitive calculations required to document mathematical relationships in ballistics, acoustics, and hydrodynamics. He tried Monroe calculators and various IBM products to help with such calculations, but none had the capacity to handle the sheer number of equations involved in each calculation. As a result, his early years at ISC

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were a study in frustration. In 1937, however, after spending years focused on the problem, Atanasoff hit upon an idea that revolutionized machine calculation and laid the groundwork for the modern computer. At the heart of Atanasoff's vision was the use of the basic digital (on/off) quality of electrical circuitry to do the work of counting. The idea has been refined over the years, but virtually all developments in computer technology since Atanasoff's great insight of 1937 embrace this fundamental principle. Digital circuitry was just one component of Atanasoff's vision, which also included binary enumeration, regenerative memory, and serial calculation, but the on/off principle was the key.

Clifford Berry working on the ABC computer. Source: University Archive, Iowa State University Library

With a grant of $650 from ISC, in 1939 Atanasoff hired an ISC graduate student, Clifford Berry, to help him build the prototype. The prototype was a couple of feet square, just big enough to mount the circuitry and peripherals necessary for calculation. Atanasoff and Berry referred to the prototype as the "Breadboard Model" because of its compact size. Demonstrations of the Breadboard Model began in October 1939. Impressed by what they saw, college officials awarded Atanasoff $850 to continue his work with Berry. ISC officials also made inquiries to the nonprofit Research Corporation of New York about an additional $5,000 to help support development of the full-size computer at ISC and contacted an attorney to begin preparation of a formal patent application. Atanasoff and Berry produced a 35-page manuscript titled "Computing Machines for the Solution of Large Systems of Linear Algebraic Questions" to document their efforts on the ABC.

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Most of Atanasoff and Berry's plan for constructing the desk-size, full-scale computer held up well in practice. When challenged by technical problems, their backgrounds as hobbyists provided the necessary improvisational skills to see them through. The 1939 demonstrations had already shown that the Breadboard Model could accurately add and subtract. But progress made in 1940 and 1941 indicated the full measure of Atanasoff's design for a totally electronic machine. At that time, MIT's Differential Analyzer—along with a few other calculating machines—was thought to be the epitome of speed and efficiency. But even the most sophisticated computing machines of the day required some mechanical (that is, human) intervention in their procedures. By contrast, the electronic "purity" of the ISC computer made for greater speed and efficiency.

Unfortunately, US entry into World War II put a stop to the computer project. Both Atanasoff and Berry left Ames in the summer of 1942, each going his own way to support the war effort. Atanasoff joined the Naval Ordnance Laboratory in the Washington, D.C., area, and Berry took a job at Consolidated Engineering Corporation in Pasadena, California. Although Iowa State College had hired a Chicago patent lawyer, Richard R. Trexler, the patenting of the ABC was never completed. There is no indication that either man was particularly hungry to get back to the ISC project after the war, perhaps because both found attractive alternatives, Atanasoff in a series of military projects and Berry in a successful career in corporate-sponsored research. Meanwhile, the revolutionary computer gathered dust in the basement of ISC's Physics Building for several years, until building staff finally dismantled the machine to make space for other uses.

Decades later, in the mid 1960s, Atanasoff found himself in the middle of a major patent controversy. The Corporation brought suit against the Sperry Rand Company, which was claiming patent rights to the basic technology underlying all electronic computers on the market. Honeywell's lawyers argued that the basic technology claimed by Sperry Rand was in fact the work of Atanasoff and Berry. In 1972, after a 10-year court case, the judge ruled in favor of Honeywell, specifying that Atanasoff and Berry had designed and demonstrated the basic digital principles of the modern computer. However, since no patent had been filed by Atanasoff, Berry, or ISC in the early , the court provided neither monetary reward nor reassignment of patent rights to any of the parties involved. Many of the concepts that originated with the ABC are still used as basic components of the computers we use today.

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Atanasoff received numerous awards and honors including: the U.S. Navy Distinguished Service Award (1945); Order of Cyril and Methodius (1970);Iowa Inventors Hall of Fame (1974); Governor's Science Medal (1985);Holley Medal, American Society of Mechanical Engineers (1985) and the Coors American Ingenuity Award (1986) and the National Medal of Technology (1990).

After a long illness, Atanasoff died of a stroke on June 15, 1995 at his home in Maryland.

Selected Sources Jean R. Berry, "Clifford Edward Berry, 1918–1963: His Role in Early Computers," Annals of the History of Computing 61 (1986), 361, is helpful in tracing the comings and goings of Atanasoff and Berry in the critical years 1939–1942. Alice Rowe Burks, Who Invented the Computer? (2003), contains interesting transcripts from the court case but is primarily a diatribe aimed at any and all who would dare challenge Atanasoff and Berry's primacy in the history of computing. Alice Rowe Burks and Arthur W. Burks, The First Electronic Computer: The Atanasoff Story (1988), is a levelheaded discussion of the state of in the 1940s. Clark Mollenhoff, Forgotten Father of the Computer (1988), is a solid piece of work, based on extensive interviews with

Atanasoff and many other key personalities in the story. See also William Silag,

"The Invention of the Electronic Digital Computer at Iowa State College, 1930–1942," Palimpsest 65 (1984), 150–78.

John V. Atanasoff Papers, RS 13/20/51, University Archives, Iowa State University Library.

See also: Silag, Bill. "Atanasoff, John Vincent" The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa. University of Iowa Press, 2009. Web. 1 June 2017

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