Born Oct. 4, 1903, John Vincent Atanasoff is not just the inventor of the electronic digital computer—he’s the legally proclaimed inventor of the digital computer. On March 19, 1972, in the case Honeywell v. Sperry Rand, a judge ruled that the premise of the ENIAC, the first digital general-purpose computer, was actually derived from Atanasoff’s work. Learn more as we celebrate Atanasoff in this edition of Pioneers in Tech.
From road trip to revolution
As a student at Iowa State College (now University), Atanasoff had collaborated with electrical engineering student Clifford E. Berry to develop a faster computing machine. This had been in the back of his mind since his time in a doctoral program at the University of Wisconsin. As he studied theoretical physics, Atanasoff worked to find a means of more quickly performing advanced calculations.
It took one of those aimless road trips for inspiration to strike. He started driving one night in 1937 with no destination in mind. Two hundred miles later, he stopped at an Illinois roadhouse, where he found inspiration alongside a glass of bourbon. On a cocktail napkin, Atanasoff outlined the basics of the Atanasoff-Berry Computer—the ABC for short—on a cocktail napkin. He envisioned an advanced computing machine that ran on the binary system, used regenerative memory, and computed with direct logical action instead of enumeration. Most of all, it would run with speed using electricity.
Atanasoff returned to Iowa State, and with a $650 grant from Iowa State, began working with Berry in 1939 to create the ABC. They worked on it until wartime jobs took them away—and before they had completed the ABC patent process.
After the war, Atanasoff heard that the ENIAC patent contained elements of his work on the ABC. In 1967, he joined Honeywell in an ultimately successful effort to challenge the ENIAC patent (now owned by Sperry Rand).
President George H.W. Bush presented the National Medal of Technology to Atanasoff in 1990.
Atanasoff’s legacy reminds us that innovation often begins with curiosity, and sometimes, a cocktail napkin. As we celebrate his birthday, let’s also celebrate the spirit of invention that drives technology forward.
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