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The combination of elements that is the essence of the modern computer is the conception of one man-a member of the Cosmos Club from 1957 until his death in 1995. The words of the University of Wisconsin citation conferring an honorary Doctor of Science degree on May 16, 1987, are descriptive:
John Vincent Atanasoff ... had the central insights that led to one of the most momentous inventions of the century, the electronic digital computer. His invention is transforming our world. It accelerates mathematical calculations beyond the dreams of our ancestors; it enhances our collective memory; it functions as a surrogate to human intelligence in applications so numerous that not even a computer can aggregate them all.
This recognition was corroborated in 1990 when President George Bush awarded Atanasoff the National Medal of Technology "...for his invention of the electronic digital computer and for contribution toward the development of a technically trained U. S. workforce."
Like all great inventions, the computer is the product of the ideas and devices of many individuals. The earliest known calculating device, the abacus, probably originated in Babylonia between 4000 and 3000 B.C., during the development of writing. Originally it was a board or slab sprinkled with sand or dust on which marks were made to keep track of numbers. Over time this system evolved into a board marked with lines and counters whose positions indicated numerical values, such as ones, tens, hundreds and so forth, which probably grew out of the habit of counting on fingers. In a Roman version the board was grooved to facilitate moving the counters. This evolved into a frame with counters strung on wires. Through the Middle Ages the abacus was in universal use throughout Europe, Asia and the Arab world and is still used in the Middle East and Asia.
The modern decimal, or base 10, number system has Egyptian, Babylonian or Sumerian, and Chinese roots although major credit for this system belongs to Hindu-Arabic mathematicians of the eighth to the 11th centuries. Use of zero as a number appeared only sporadically in Egyptian number systems, and zero was first used as a placeholder in the eighth or ninth century. The beginning of the modern form of notation began with publication of a work entitled "Liber abaci" by Leonardo of Pisa in 1202.
The first digital calculator was constructed by Blaise Pascal (1623-1662), a precocious French mathematician who built a mechanical adding machine in 1642. This device was essentially a mechanized abacus in which toothed wheels replaced the counters and columns, and it was only able to add and subtract. Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), a German philosopher, jurist and mathematician who independently invented calculus about the same time as Newton, constructed a mechanical calculating machine in 1673 that could also multiply, divide and extract square roots. Leibniz gave a generalized treatment of positional number systems and in 1679 introduced a binary system of numeration, suggesting 1 represented God and 0 a void. Although that rationale has not been widely accepted, the binary system, which uses 0 and 1 in differing combinations to represent all numbers, has proved very useful both in providing a notation for the logical forms later developed by George Boole and in permitting these to be adapted to electronic processing, which utilizes only "on" and "off'' electrical states.
Charles Babbage (1791-1871), an English mathematician, constructed a mechanical calculator for mathematical tables about 1813. His machine could perform calculations to eight decimals, and he designed one that would have a 20-decimal capacity. He drew plans for an analytical engine to perform any arithmetical operation. It was never built and was forgotten until the discovery of his unpublished notebooks in the 1930s.
In 1847 George Boole (1815-1864), also an English mathematician, published a "Mathematical Analysis of Logic" which argued that logic was a matter of mathematics rather than of philosophy. He expounded this idea further in "The Laws of Thought" in 1854, demonstrating that symbols of quantity can be separated from those of operation. In Boolean logic a proposition is either true (1) or false (0) and these can be represented by the two symbols of binary notation. Propositions thus represented can be combined by conjunctions, disjunctions and other logical relations. This Boolean algebra is basic to the design of digital computer circuits.
Herman Hollerith (1860-1919), another Cosmos member, invented a machine in 1886 which recorded data by punching small holes in cards that were then read by passing them through a device which made electrical contacts through the holes. Punchcards were first used in the 1890 census and then widely adopted in the United States and Europe and led to the formation and growth of IBM.
English mathematician Alan Turing (1912-1954) published "On Computable Numbers" in 1937, proving that there are some mathematical problems which cannot be solved by a fixed process performed by an automatic machine. Turing conceived a hypothetical device-now known as the "Turing machine"-a theoretical computer not liable to malfunctioning as are actual machines and with unlimited possible input, calculation space and output. It would be impossible to construct such a machine, but this concept, known as the "Turing test," is used to determine whether a problem may be solved by a computer, that is, by use of an algorithm. Roger Penrose employed the Turing test in expounding his thesis that there can be no such thing as "artificial intelligence." Turing's ideas have influenced the design of computers constructed in the 1940s and later. By that time Atanasoff had already built his prototype.
John V. Atanasoff was born in 1903, the son of well- educated parents: His father was an electrical engineer; his mother was a schoolteacher with a talent for mathematics. When he was about nine, his father bought a new slide rule, which fascinated the boy. He soon understood the mathematical principles on which it operated. This led him to the study of logarithms, trigonometric functions and algebra, which he mastered within a few months while still nine years old.
Atanasoff completed high school in two years, with A's in science and mathematics. He worked for a year to save money before entering the University of Florida in 1921. He maintained an A average, graduating in 1925 with a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering. He accepted a teaching fellowship at Iowa State where he earned a master's degree in mathematics in 1926. At the University of Wisconsin he taught mathematics while earning his doctorate in physics in 1930. His doctoral thesis involved extremely complicated mathematical problems which required hours of work on a Monroe calculator.
In 1930, Atanasoff, back at Iowa State as assistant professor of mathematics and physics, was increasingly conscious of the need for faster and more effective ways of solving complex mathematical problems. He worked with Monroe calculators and with IBM tabulators. These, together with analog devices such as the slide rule and a "differential analyzer" built by Vannevar Bush (1890-1974) at MIT, were the best devices available in the mid- 1930s for solving complex mathematical problems. All of these calculating machines were little more than refined versions of the machines designed and constructed by Pascal, Leibniz and Babbage. Atanasoff, wanting to go beyond anything then known, concentrated on devising a machine that would solve linear algebraic equations, assuming this would have essentially no limit to the tasks it could perform.
After months of frustrating intellectual struggle, Atanasoff went for a long solitary drive one evening and stopped in a roadhouse for warmth and a bourbon. Suddenly ideas began to flow: His machine would have to be electronic-the mathematical operations would occur by changes in electrical charges rather than mechanical movements. This would require control of electric charges by vacuum tubes (now more commonly known as thermionic valves) which had never previously been used in such an application. This would permit use of a digital, rather than analog, system with base two, or binary, mathematics that would ensure precision and be compatible with the on-off nature of electronics. It would use condensers (now called capacitors) which can store electric charges to create a memory with a regenerative (periodic readout and recharging) process to avoid losses by power leakage. And it would compute by direct logical action (which turned out to be Boolean algebra). The machine would solve sets of up to 29 equations with 29 unknowns, with each of 30 coefficients (including constants) having about 15 decimal places.
This was an extremely ambitious plan for 1937, going far beyond any machine then known. Atanasoff spent 1938 working out the details and in 1939 received a grant to employ an assistant. By October, Atanasoff and his assistant, Clifford Berry, had a small working model, referred to as a breadboard prototype. In December 1939 he demonstrated it to college officials, and by the following spring construction of the full-scale machine was under way. Atanasoff and Berry prepared a 35-page description of the theories and construction ideas involved in what they called the "ABC" (Atanasoff Berry Computer).
At an American Association for the Advancement of Science conference the following December, Atanasoff heard a lecture by a young physics professor, John W. Mauchly, who had constructed a "harmonic analyzer" (a kind of analog processor) to sift through large amounts of weather data. He told Mauchly he was building a computing machine. Later that year Mauchly spent four days as Atanasoff's house guest, examining the computer, reading the technical papers and discussing it fully with Atanasoff.
Prior to Mauchly's visit, Atanasoff had arranged with Iowa State officials to patent the machine. When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, he was called to Washington where-except for brief interruptions-he worked in the Naval Ordnance Laboratory until 1952. Meanwhile the patent application was abandoned by the university. Atanasoff's invention was never patented and passed into the public domain.
In 1952, Atanasoff founded his own engineering company which he later sold to Aerojet General where he was made vice- president. He served as scientific consultant to several other companies and received more than 30 patents on other inventions. Two fellow scientists who nominated him for membership in the Cosmos Club said he was highly competent in mathematics and physics, the author of many publications in those fields and the originator of several important scientific discoveries while doing classified research for the Navy. There was only a passing, and inaccurate, reference to work on computers. In 1957 he joined the Club, and remained a loyal member until his death, June 15, 1995.
While Atanasoff was working for the Navy, Mauchly worked for the Army where he and J. Presper Eckert completed a computer in 1946 called the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator). Although often referred to as the first general-purpose electronic computer, the ENIAC was designed to calculate artillery firing tables. It had to be manually wired to execute each program, having no internal memory. It covered 15,000 square feet, weighed 30 tons, and contained 6,000 switches and 17,468 vacuum tubes. The longest number it could handle contained 10 digits. Mauchly and Eckert got patents on the ENIAC and sold their rights to Sperry Rand, which undertook to collect royalties from all firms producing or marketing any electronic computer.
mong the companies from which royalties were demanded was Minneapolis Honeywell. It resisted the demands of Sperry Rand, and the two companies sued each other. The cases were consolidated in the Minnesota federal court before Judge Earl R. Larson. The litigation consumed 135 trial days, running until March 1972. Seventy-seven witnesses (including Atanasoff and Mauchly) gave testimony. An additional 80 witnesses were presented through depositions. Honeywell introduced over 25,000 exhibits, and Sperry Rand approximately 7,000. The trial transcript was 20,667 pages. The judge issued his 420-page decision on October 19, 1973.
Judge Larson stated in his Findings of Fact that Mauchly visited Atanasoff in 1941 when both the principle and design of the computer were explained and demonstrated to Mauchly and he read the comprehensive technical description.
As a result of this, the decision said: "Eckert and Mauchly did not themselves first invent the automatic electronic digital computer but instead derived that subject matter from one Dr. John V. Atanasoff.... Between 1937 and 1942, Atanasoff, then a professor of physics and mathematics at Iowa State College, Ames, Iowa, developed and built an automatic electronic digital computer for solving large systems of simultaneous linear algebraic equations. In December 1939, Atanasoff completed and reduced to practice his basic conception in the form of an operating breadboard model of a computing machine.... The breadboard model established the soundness of the basic principles of design. . . ." In short, Atanasoff was the inventor of the computer.
Based on these and other detailed findings, Judge Larson concluded that the ENIAC patent was invalid and unenforceable. Despite the millions of dollars it had at stake in the validity of the patent, Sperry Rand did not appeal.
This decision concerning one of the major inventions of the 20th century should have been of widespread interest. Unfortunately it was issued nine days after the resignation of Vice President Spiro Agnew and one day before the "Saturday Night Massacre" when Robert Bork, on President Nixon's order, fired Archibald Cox, Elliott Richardson and William Ruckelshaus. News of the decision was lost in the tidal wave of publicity about Watergate.
However, the case continued to be of interest to journalists and scholars. In 1984 the American Federation of Information Processing Societies induced Atanasoff to write and publish an account of his thought processes leading to invention of the computer and construction of the ABC. In 1988, two books were published which related and analyzed the facts established in the lawsuit. One was by Arthur W. Burks and his wife, Alice R.-both mathematicians and computer scientists. Arthur Burks was also one of the scientists who helped to construct the ENIAC and was a collaborator of John von Neumann in the writing of their seminal paper on computer design. With a thorough technical knowledge of the theory, construction, operation and history of computers, the Burkses wrote, "John Vincent Atanasoff initiated the computer revolution with his invention of the world's first electronic computer."
The other book was by Clark R. Mollenhoff, Washington bureau chief for the Des Moines Register in 1973, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and a professor at Washington and Lee University in 1988. An experienced reporter, Mollenhoff related in detail the story of Atanasoff's "development of those basic concepts of the automatic electronic digital computer that are present in virtually all modern computers today," of the spurious claims of Mauchly and Eckert that had previously denied Atanasoff credit for inventing and constructing "the world's first electronic digital computer," and of the belated recognition of the computer as Atanasoff's invention not only by the court but also by numerous academic and other institutions.
Following construction of the ENIAC, Atanasoff's concepts were rapidly elaborated into the modern version of a computer. The EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer) was constructed at the University of Pennsylvania on the basis of ideas first outlined in a paper by von Neumann at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. In the EDVAC, the externally stored programs of the ENIAC were converted to internal instructions that were treated in the same manner as numerical data and stored in the computer's electronic memory, thus permitting modification of the computer programs as readily as of the data. The EDVAC was not completed until 1950, but a computer of similar design was completed in 1949 at Cambridge University in England.
Transistors, devices for amplifying, controlling and generating electrical signals, were invented in 1947 and incorporated into computers by the late 1950s. As transistors were smaller than vacuum tubes, more reliable and used less power, they produced computers that were smaller, more efficient, faster and cooler. Thus began the second generation of computers.
The third generation arrived in the late 1960s and 1970s when electronic components were further miniaturized by the development of integrated circuits-solid-state devices incorporating hundreds of transistors, diodes, and resistors on a single silicon chip. The fourth generation came in the 1980s with the development of chips that contained hundreds of thousands of transistors on a single small chip with the promise of 10 million transistors per chip in the near future.
In the 1980s the best computer memory chips could store 4 megabytes-4 million bits of information. In the 1990s the most advanced chips can store 256 megabytes, with one gigabyte-one billion bits of information-promised as available capacity before the end of this decade-enough capacity on one little chip to store more than 10 complete works of William Shakespeare.
As a sophisticated mathematician, Atanasoff was aware that his invention that employed binary mathematical language and Boolean algebraic logic and syntax was capable of many applications beyond the solving of complex mathematical formulas. But neither Atanasoff nor any of his contemporaries could have anticipated the ubiquitous use of computers in the last decade of the century. In 1945, Vannevar Bush (Cosmos Club: 1938-57), then science adviser to the president, speculated about "a future device for individual use ... in which an individual stores all his books, records and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory."
In 1995, Nicholas Negroponte, professor of media technology at MIT wrote:
Computing is not about computers any more. It is about living.... We have seen computers move out of giant air- conditioned rooms into closets, then onto desktops, and now into our laps and pockets. But this is not the end.... Like a force of nature, the digital age cannot be denied or stopped.... The information superhighway may be mostly hype today, but it is an understatement about tomorrow. It will exist beyond people's wildest predictions.... We are not waiting on any invention. It is here. It is now. It is almost genetic in its nature, in that each generation will become more digital than the preceding one.
Fortune magazine's John Huey reports that American industry now spends more on computers and related communications equipment than on all other capital equipment combined.
Those prolific prophets of futurism, Alvin and Heidi Toffler, wrote that the first great wave of social change was the Agricultural Revolution, the second wave was the Industrial Revolution, and the third wave is the Information Revolution, which we are now experiencing. The first was symbolized by the hoe, the second by the assembly line and the third by the computer.
There is another historical analogy. In the 15th century Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type, which revolutionized communication and has been the foundation of our civilization since then. The Tofflers boldly assert that the computer and its digital language will create "a new civilization." Digital technology is becoming a universal medium of information recording, retrieving, reasoning, learning and communicating. As the culture of the 20th century has been based on the 15th century invention of Gutenberg, the culture of the 21st century will surely be based upon the 20th century invention of John Atanasoff.
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