John Vincent AtanasoffInventor of the First Electronic Digital

Computer

Personal Life

• (October 4, 1903 – June 15, 1995)• Was an American Physicist and Inventor• Degrees earned:

-Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Florida

-Master’s degree in mathematics from Iowa State College

-Ph.D. in theoretical physics from University of Wisconsin-Madison

Contribution to Computer Science• Due to impracticalities of the technology of the time

including the Monroe calculator and IMB tabulators, Atanasoff sought faster methods of computation and invented the Analogue calculator used for the analysis of surface geometry.

• Atanasoff then began to consider digital solutions after realizing mechanical systems could not accurately compute numbers.

• With a grant of $650 ($8400), John Atanasoff and his graduate student Clifford Berry created the first prototype of the Atanasoff-Berry Computer. (ABC)

• ABC was designed as an electronic that used vacuum tubes for digital computation.

• This machine supported ideas including binary math and Boolean logic that could solve up to 29 linear equations at once.

• The ABC had no central processing unit.• Used a separate regenerative capacitor

memory that operated by a process that is still in use today in DRAM memory.