Hall of Fame - The "Forgotten Father of the Computer": Born 100 Years Ago

Reprinted with permission from the IEEE publication, "IEEE-USA News & Views" December 2003.

Submitted by Dick Reiman, Historian

John Vincent Atanasoff was the first man to construct an electronic digital computer, in the heart of the Corn-Belt -- Ames, Iowa. In a biography, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Clark Mollenhoff called him the "forgotten father of the computer."

Born in 1903, just outside Hamilton, N. Y., Atanasoff exhibited an early ability in mathematics. By age 10, he was familiar with the operations and logarithmic principles of the slide rule, learned the principles of different number systems like binary, and had even started reading a textbook on college algebra. He also exhibited a hands-on talent for electrical technology. Both parents fostered their son's deep curiosity and love of mathematics and technology. His Bulgarian father, Ivan, was a self-taught electrical engineer. And his mother, Iva, taught mathematics.

From 1930 to 1936, while a professor at Iowa State, Atanasoff grappled with the issue of faster computational tools for physicists. He carefully studied state-of-the-art mechanical desk calculators, IBM's punch card tabulators and analog computers. Although he had studied electrical engineering as an undergraduate, Atanasoff decided to teach himself more about electronics while working on faster computation devices. He delved into the theory and use of vacuum tubes. This intellectual digression proved a turning point: in 1936, Atanasoff concluded that using pulse electronic techniques was the solution to faster computational devices. By 1938, Atanasoff had a working prototype.

World War II ended Atanasoff’s pioneering work in computer technology, but he remained a keen and interested observer. To his dismay, he learned in the late 1940s that John Mauchly and Presper Eckert held key patents to the ENIAC computer. Atanasoff was shocked to learn that Iowa State’s lawyers had never filed the patents for the groundbreaking work he and partner Clifford Berry had done. The similarity of the ENIAC patent claims to the device that he had built nearly six years earlier was striking. To add insult to injury, Mauchly had been a guest in Atanasoff's home and had spent several days at Iowa State closely studying the details of the Atanasoff-Berry computer long before he conceived the ENIAC concept. The ENIAC project never referred to Atanasoff and Berry. While the world recognized Mauchly and Eckert as the fathers of the digital electronics computer, Atanasoff remained silent, hoping that some day his role in creating the electronic digital computer would become known. But did it?

- John Vardalas, Ph.D., IEEE History Center