A1Trainer@aol.com
Thu, 23 Sep 1999 17:26:43 EDT
From: A1Trainer@aol.com Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 17:26:43 EDT Subject: Who Pioneered the Computer??
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Sorry for the late jump-in o this topic, but I was out of town. Actually,
the was John Atanasoff, with the help of graduate student Clifford Berry, of
Iowa State University. Because he never patented it in those early days, his
claim was disputed. With the help of Berry, Atanasoff assembled and
demonstrated the first electronic digital computer, the Atanasoff-Berry
Computer (ABC), from 1939 to 1942.
In 1963, the ABC became the subject of intense litigation. A court case
(Honeywell Inc. vs. Sperry Rand Corp. et. al., 1973) overturned the patent on
ENIAC, an early computer developed by John W. Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert.
Ultimately, a federal judge ruled that not only was the ABC first, but that
the inventors of the ENIAC borrowed many of ABC's design ideas such as using
electronics to store numbers as sequences of ones and zeros, and using
logical "and/or" switches to do arithmetic.
Go to http://www.scl.ameslab.gov/ABC/ to find out all about the computer, the
trial, etc.
Karen Jones
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