Content-return: allowed Date: Thu, 09 Nov 2000 08:55:22 -0800 From: "Cox, Stuart FOR:EX" Subject: RE: Trivia To: "'opendos AT delorie DOT com'" Message-id: MIME-version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2650.21) Content-type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by delorie.com id LAA07077 Reply-To: opendos AT delorie DOT com You gentlepeople omit the whole programmable calculator lines that HP and TI fought so hard over beginning in the early to mid '70s. The HP65 was card programmable. It stored its programs on mag cards about 1/2" X 2 1/2". Every engineer who did field work with complicated calculations had to have one of these things. It was followed by the TI55? that stored more, was less reliable, was faster and less accurate. HP then brought out the HP67/HP97 handheld/desktop pair that was countered by the TI59. The same IMHO holds true in a comparison between these model sets. HP then gave us the HP41. It had 4 ports to which could be fitted combinations of memory, ROM, serial I/O, parallel I/O, tape drives, disk drives, printers, CRT display, an IBM PC and on and on. It was still portable and, in the main, battery powered with a sleep mode and auto turn off/on under external control. While CP/M, Apple and that upstart IBM played around getting started, the handheld powerhouses calculated the serious math. 2 cents. Stuart Cox Map Generalization Technician, not Resources Inventory Branch ······················································ Phone: (250)387-5529 FAX: (250)356-9430 email Stuart DOT Cox AT gems1 DOT gov DOT bc DOT ca Check out the RIB Website at: http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/resinv/homepage.htm -----Original Message----- From: Patrick Moran [mailto:pmoran22 AT yahoo DOT com] Sent: Thursday, November 09, 2000 3:29 AM To: opendos AT delorie DOT com Subject: Re: Trivia ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert W Moss" To: Sent: Wednesday, November 08, 2000 10:46 PM Subject: Re: Trivia > Joe, > I guess I will have to apologize to you. > There have a few dozen others called the first, but, > > YES, the first personal computer was published in > Radio Electronics in 1950 and 1951. It was only a > schematic and you had to find all the parts to build > it. The cost was variously quoted as "Under $1,000", > "about $600", and "about $300". > > I didn't get too many takers so I guess most of the people > on the list are not interested in trivia or surfing the net. > > It was NOT: > IBM PC - 1981, IBM Datamaster - 1981, IBM 5120 - 1980, > IBM 5110 - 1978, Apple ][? - 1976/1977, IBM 5100 - 1975, > Altair - 1975, Mark 8 - 1974, Scelbi-8H - 1973, HP 65 - 1973, > Xerox Alto - 1973, Micral - 1973, Intel SIM 4 - 1972, > HP 9830 - 1972, Kenback-1 - 1971, IMLACK PDS-1 - 1970, > Arkay CT-650 - 1969, Paperclip Computer - 1967, > Honeywell Kitchen Computer - 1966, DEC PDP-8 - 1965, > Minivac 601 - 1961, Heathkit EC-1 - 1959, GENIAC - 1955, Some of these in the list do not even qualify as a personal computer as they were expensive and some are huge. I think that a PC should be a desktop system that can fit on a desk or your kitchen table.. You also stated that it must be programable and run a program. The Heathkit PC-1 was an analog computer. It had 30 some tubes in it. I wanted to buy one but was out of my price range, then when I could afford to buy one, they no longer made them. Heath was bought out by Zenith and Zenith dropped many of the Heath products and mostly used the PC computer side of things and discontinued selling kits. What a shame. I put together many Heathkit kits. I still have a dual trace Oscilloscope I built in about 1975 and it still works. The first Heathkit I built was a CB radio in 1963/64 for my highschool electronics class project. [TRIVIA] What kit products did Heath start his company with (Shortly after WWII.) This may be a killer to find the answer to if you do not already know the answer. Interesting note and something I have been wanting to check back on, but keep forgetting. There was a project going on a few years ago to produce the ENIAC computer on a chip that would replicate the original ENIAC. It is designed to be used just like the original including the flipping of switches to enter the code. I would like to get one of these computers if it has/will been/be completed. > What it WAS: > The SIMON. By Edmund Berkley. > > The plans and story were published in > Radio Electronics Magazine, in 1950-1951. > By 1959 there were 400 plans sold. > The average cost to build one at that time > was said to be about $300. This also was probably an analog computer. Analog computers should not qualify as they were not based of the stored program concept. Almost all computers of that era were analog. There were a few exceptions. The digital types back then took up whole buildings. That would hardly qualify as a personal computer! IBM claims that they had the first one back in 1963 as it was a single user computer, but that would only qualify if you had megbucks and used your entire basement or garuage for it! It was the IBM 610 Auto-Point Computer in 1957, but this machine was not based on the stored program concept and it cost $55,000! The original post staed this: Remember, it must be small, inexpensive, simple, digital, automatic, programmable and accessible, i.e. to those who are not millionaires. (Hint: It was a microcomputer, and it was available before the Altair 8800 - some surfing required The reason I posted sevral models for my answer was because of the term microcomputer. My question is what does micro mean? Something that will fit on a deck or kitchen table? Does it have to use a microprocesor? Or does it have to use micro-electronics? Depending on the answer to the question, I listed several that would qualify, one for each category. So this computer you wrote about above, does not qualify. If we used IBM's example of what they state was the first personal computer it would have to be the first digital computer using stored programs ever build by: * Virtual Museum of Computing _________________________________________________________________ John V. Atanasoff: Obituary June 1995 _________________________________________________________________ John V. Atanasoff, 91, who invented the first electronic computer in 1939 and later saw others take credit for his discovery, died of a stroke June 15 at his home in Monrovia, Md. Dr. Atanasoff, whose pioneering work ultimately was acknowledged during lengthy patent litigation in the 1970s, never made money off his invention, which was the first computer to separate data processing from memory. It heads the family tree of today's personal computers and mainframes. Two other scientists, J. Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly, drew on Dr. Atanasoff's research. In the mid-1940s, they were the first to patent a digital computing device, which they called the ENIAC (electronic numerical integrator and computer). They said they had worked out the concept over ice cream and coffee in a Philadelphia restaurant. For many years, they were acclaimed as the fathers of modern computing. But a court battle 20 years ago between two corporate giants, Honeywell and Sperry Rand, directed the spotlight to Dr. Atanasoff. He said the idea in fact, had come to him over bourbon and water in a roadhouse in Illinois in 1937. He was out on a drive from Iowa State University, in Ames, where he taught mathematics and physics, and had stopped to think about the computing devices he had been working on since 1935. He needed a machine that could do the complex mathematical work he and his graduate students had been trying on desk calculators. He and two others at Iowa State already had build an analog calculator called a laplaciometer, which analyzed the geometry of surfaces. It was that evening in the tavern, he said, that the possibility of regenerative memory and the concept of logic circuits came to him. The machine he envisioned was different from anything conceived before. It would be electronically operated and would use base-two (binary) numbers instead of the traditional base-10 numbers. It would have condensers fro memory and a regenerative process to preclude loss of memory from electrical failures. It would use direct logical action for computing rather than the counting system used in analog processes. Within months, he and a talented graduate student, Clifford Berry, had developed a crude prototype of an electronic computer. Although it used a mechanical clock system, the computing was electronic. It had two rotating drums containing capacitors, which held the electrical charge for the memory. Data were entered using punch cards. For the first time, vacuum tubes were used in computing. The project, which cost $1,000, was detailed in a 35-page manuscript, and university lawyers sent a copy to a patent lawyer. The next year, Mauchly, a physicist at Ursinus College, near Philadelphia, whom Dr. Atanasoff had met at a conference, came to see Dr. Atanasoff's work. Mauchly stayed several days at the Atanasoff home, where he was briefed extensively about the computer project and saw it demonstrated. He left with papers describing its design. That same year, Dr. Atanasoff tried to interest Remington Rand in his invention, saying he believed it could lead to a "computing machine which will perform all the operations of the standard tabulators and many more at much higher speeds," but the company turned him down. Years later, it would eagerly seek his assistance. Dr. Atanasoff had hoped to file a patent for his computer, but he was called away to Washington at the start of World War II to do physics research for the Navy. And there were complications with Iowa State, which held rights to his work but had discontinued efforts to secure a patent. By the time the computer industry was off and running, Dr. Atanasoff was involved with other areas of defense research and out of touch with computer development. The Iowa State prototype had been dismantled while he was away working for the Navy. But he had kept his research papers. He later said he "wasn't possessed with the idea I had invented the first computing machine. If I had knovn the things I had in my machine, I would have kept going on it." The Atanasoff prototype finally was recognized as the father of modern computing when, in a patent infringement case Sperry Rand brought against Honeywell, a federal judge voided Sperry Rand's patent on the ENIAC, saying it had been derived from Dr. Atanasoff's invention. It was "akin to finding a new father of electricity to replace Thomas Edison," said a writer on the computer industry. The decision made news in the industry, but Dr. Atanasoff, by this time retired, continued to live in relative obscurity in Frederick County. Later, in 1988, two books about his work were published: "The First Electronic Computer: The Atanasoff Story," by Alice R. Burns and Arthur W. Burns, and "Atanasoff, Forgotten Father of the Computer," by Clark R. Mollenhoff. Other articles were published in the Annals of the History of Computing, Scientific American and Physics Today. In 1990, President George Bush acknowledged Dr. Atanasoff's pioneering work by awarding him the National Medal of Technology. John Vincent Atanasoff was born in Hamilton, N.Y. He was an electrical engineering graduate of the University of Florida and received a master's degree in mathematics from Iowa State University, where he taught for 15 years. He received a doctorate in physics from the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Atanasoff left Iowa State in the early 1940s to become director of the underwater acoustics program at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory at White Oak, now the Naval Surface Weapons Center, where he worked largely with mines, mine countermeasures and depth charges. He participated in the atomic weapons tests at Bikini Atoll after World War II and became chief scientist for the Army Field Forces, at Fort Monroe, Va., in 1949. He returned to the ordnance laboratory after two years to be director of the Navy Fuze programs, and in 1952 he began his own company, Ordnance Engineering Corp. That company was sold to Aerojet Engineering Corp. in 1956, and Dr. Atanasoff was named a vice president. After he retired in 1961, he was a consultant and continued to work in computer education for young people. He also developed a phonetic alphabet for computers. His honors included the Navy's Distinguished Civilian Service Award, five honorary doctorates, the Computer Pioneer Medal of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the Holley Medal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Distinguished Achievement Citation of Iowa State University. He was a member of the Iowa Inventors Hall of Fame. Dr. Atanasoff, whose father was born in Bulgaria, also was awarded Bulgaria's highest science award and was a member of the Bulgarian Academy of Science. He was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa, Pi Mu Epsilon and Tau Beta Pi honorary societies and the Cosmos Club. Dr. Atanasoff's marriage to Lura Meeks Atanasoff ended in divorce. Survivors include his wife, Alice Crosby Atanasoff of Monrovia; three children from his first marriage, Elsie A. Whistler of Rockville, Joanne A. Gathers of Mission Viejo, Calif., and John V. Atanasoff II of Boulder, Colo.; four sisters; three brothers; 10 grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren. See also (New) biography. _________________________________________________________________ Atanas Parashkevov, June 1995. Forwarded by Jay Yantchev. Formatted for the World Wide Web and hyperlinks added by Jonathan Bowen. * Virtual Museum of Computing _________________________________________________________________ John V. Atanasoff: Obituary June 1995 _________________________________________________________________ John V. Atanasoff, 91, who invented the first electronic computer in 1939 and later saw others take credit for his discovery, died of a stroke June 15 at his home in Monrovia, Md. Dr. Atanasoff, whose pioneering work ultimately was acknowledged during lengthy patent litigation in the 1970s, never made money off his invention, which was the first computer to separate data processing from memory. It heads the family tree of today's personal computers and mainframes. Two other scientists, J. Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly, drew on Dr. Atanasoff's research. In the mid-1940s, they were the first to patent a digital computing device, which they called the ENIAC (electronic numerical integrator and computer). They said they had worked out the concept over ice cream and coffee in a Philadelphia restaurant. For many years, they were acclaimed as the fathers of modern computing. But a court battle 20 years ago between two corporate giants, Honeywell and Sperry Rand, directed the spotlight to Dr. Atanasoff. He said the idea in fact, had come to him over bourbon and water in a roadhouse in Illinois in 1937. He was out on a drive from Iowa State University, in Ames, where he taught mathematics and physics, and had stopped to think about the computing devices he had been working on since 1935. He needed a machine that could do the complex mathematical work he and his graduate students had been trying on desk calculators. He and two others at Iowa State already had build an analog calculator called a laplaciometer, which analyzed the geometry of surfaces. It was that evening in the tavern, he said, that the possibility of regenerative memory and the concept of logic circuits came to him. The machine he envisioned was different from anything conceived before. It would be electronically operated and would use base-two (binary) numbers instead of the traditional base-10 numbers. It would have condensers fro memory and a regenerative process to preclude loss of memory from electrical failures. It would use direct logical action for computing rather than the counting system used in analog processes. Within months, he and a talented graduate student, Clifford Berry, had developed a crude prototype of an electronic computer. Although it used a mechanical clock system, the computing was electronic. It had two rotating drums containing capacitors, which held the electrical charge for the memory. Data were entered using punch cards. For the first time, vacuum tubes were used in computing. The project, which cost $1,000, was detailed in a 35-page manuscript, and university lawyers sent a copy to a patent lawyer. The next year, Mauchly, a physicist at Ursinus College, near Philadelphia, whom Dr. Atanasoff had met at a conference, came to see Dr. Atanasoff's work. Mauchly stayed several days at the Atanasoff home, where he was briefed extensively about the computer project and saw it demonstrated. He left with papers describing its design. That same year, Dr. Atanasoff tried to interest Remington Rand in his invention, saying he believed it could lead to a "computing machine which will perform all the operations of the standard tabulators and many more at much higher speeds," but the company turned him down. Years later, it would eagerly seek his assistance. Dr. Atanasoff had hoped to file a patent for his computer, but he was called away to Washington at the start of World War II to do physics research for the Navy. And there were complications with Iowa State, which held rights to his work but had discontinued efforts to secure a patent. By the time the computer industry was off and running, Dr. Atanasoff was involved with other areas of defense research and out of touch with computer development. The Iowa State prototype had been dismantled while he was away working for the Navy. But he had kept his research papers. He later said he "wasn't possessed with the idea I had invented the first computing machine. If I had knovn the things I had in my machine, I would have kept going on it." The Atanasoff prototype finally was recognized as the father of modern computing when, in a patent infringement case Sperry Rand brought against Honeywell, a federal judge voided Sperry Rand's patent on the ENIAC, saying it had been derived from Dr. Atanasoff's invention. It was "akin to finding a new father of electricity to replace Thomas Edison," said a writer on the computer industry. The decision made news in the industry, but Dr. Atanasoff, by this time retired, continued to live in relative obscurity in Frederick County. Later, in 1988, two books about his work were published: "The First Electronic Computer: The Atanasoff Story," by Alice R. Burns and Arthur W. Burns, and "Atanasoff, Forgotten Father of the Computer," by Clark R. Mollenhoff. Other articles were published in the Annals of the History of Computing, Scientific American and Physics Today. In 1990, President George Bush acknowledged Dr. Atanasoff's pioneering work by awarding him the National Medal of Technology. John Vincent Atanasoff was born in Hamilton, N.Y. He was an electrical engineering graduate of the University of Florida and received a master's degree in mathematics from Iowa State University, where he taught for 15 years. He received a doctorate in physics from the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Atanasoff left Iowa State in the early 1940s to become director of the underwater acoustics program at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory at White Oak, now the Naval Surface Weapons Center, where he worked largely with mines, mine countermeasures and depth charges. He participated in the atomic weapons tests at Bikini Atoll after World War II and became chief scientist for the Army Field Forces, at Fort Monroe, Va., in 1949. He returned to the ordnance laboratory after two years to be director of the Navy Fuze programs, and in 1952 he began his own company, Ordnance Engineering Corp. That company was sold to Aerojet Engineering Corp. in 1956, and Dr. Atanasoff was named a vice president. After he retired in 1961, he was a consultant and continued to work in computer education for young people. He also developed a phonetic alphabet for computers. His honors included the Navy's Distinguished Civilian Service Award, five honorary doctorates, the Computer Pioneer Medal of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the Holley Medal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Distinguished Achievement Citation of Iowa State University. He was a member of the Iowa Inventors Hall of Fame. Dr. Atanasoff, whose father was born in Bulgaria, also was awarded Bulgaria's highest science award and was a member of the Bulgarian Academy of Science. He was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa, Pi Mu Epsilon and Tau Beta Pi honorary societies and the Cosmos Club. Dr. Atanasoff's marriage to Lura Meeks Atanasoff ended in divorce. Survivors include his wife, Alice Crosby Atanasoff of Monrovia; three children from his first marriage, Elsie A. Whistler of Rockville, Joanne A. Gathers of Mission Viejo, Calif., and John V. Atanasoff II of Boulder, Colo.; four sisters; three brothers; 10 grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren. See also (New) biography. _________________________________________________________________ Atanas Parashkevov, June 1995. Forwarded by Jay Yantchev. Formatted for the World Wide Web and hyperlinks added by Jonathan Bowen. * Virtual Museum of Computing _________________________________________________________________ John V. Atanasoff: Obituary June 1995 _________________________________________________________________ John V. Atanasoff, 91, who invented the first electronic computer in 1939 and later saw others take credit for his discovery, died of a stroke June 15 at his home in Monrovia, Md. Dr. Atanasoff, whose pioneering work ultimately was acknowledged during lengthy patent litigation in the 1970s, never made money off his invention, which was the first computer to separate data processing from memory. It heads the family tree of today's personal computers and mainframes. Two other scientists, J. Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly, drew on Dr. Atanasoff's research. In the mid-1940s, they were the first to patent a digital computing device, which they called the ENIAC (electronic numerical integrator and computer). They said they had worked out the concept over ice cream and coffee in a Philadelphia restaurant. For many years, they were acclaimed as the fathers of modern computing. But a court battle 20 years ago between two corporate giants, Honeywell and Sperry Rand, directed the spotlight to Dr. Atanasoff. He said the idea in fact, had come to him over bourbon and water in a roadhouse in Illinois in 1937. He was out on a drive from Iowa State University, in Ames, where he taught mathematics and physics, and had stopped to think about the computing devices he had been working on since 1935. He needed a machine that could do the complex mathematical work he and his graduate students had been trying on desk calculators. He and two others at Iowa State already had build an analog calculator called a laplaciometer, which analyzed the geometry of surfaces. It was that evening in the tavern, he said, that the possibility of regenerative memory and the concept of logic circuits came to him. The machine he envisioned was different from anything conceived before. It would be electronically operated and would use base-two (binary) numbers instead of the traditional base-10 numbers. It would have condensers fro memory and a regenerative process to preclude loss of memory from electrical failures. It would use direct logical action for computing rather than the counting system used in analog processes. Within months, he and a talented graduate student, Clifford Berry, had developed a crude prototype of an electronic computer. Although it used a mechanical clock system, the computing was electronic. It had two rotating drums containing capacitors, which held the electrical charge for the memory. Data were entered using punch cards. For the first time, vacuum tubes were used in computing. The project, which cost $1,000, was detailed in a 35-page manuscript, and university lawyers sent a copy to a patent lawyer. The next year, Mauchly, a physicist at Ursinus College, near Philadelphia, whom Dr. Atanasoff had met at a conference, came to see Dr. Atanasoff's work. Mauchly stayed several days at the Atanasoff home, where he was briefed extensively about the computer project and saw it demonstrated. He left with papers describing its design. That same year, Dr. Atanasoff tried to interest Remington Rand in his invention, saying he believed it could lead to a "computing machine which will perform all the operations of the standard tabulators and many more at much higher speeds," but the company turned him down. Years later, it would eagerly seek his assistance. Dr. Atanasoff had hoped to file a patent for his computer, but he was called away to Washington at the start of World War II to do physics research for the Navy. And there were complications with Iowa State, which held rights to his work but had discontinued efforts to secure a patent. By the time the computer industry was off and running, Dr. Atanasoff was involved with other areas of defense research and out of touch with computer development. The Iowa State prototype had been dismantled while he was away working for the Navy. But he had kept his research papers. He later said he "wasn't possessed with the idea I had invented the first computing machine. If I had knovn the things I had in my machine, I would have kept going on it." The Atanasoff prototype finally was recognized as the father of modern computing when, in a patent infringement case Sperry Rand brought against Honeywell, a federal judge voided Sperry Rand's patent on the ENIAC, saying it had been derived from Dr. Atanasoff's invention. It was "akin to finding a new father of electricity to replace Thomas Edison," said a writer on the computer industry. The decision made news in the industry, but Dr. Atanasoff, by this time retired, continued to live in relative obscurity in Frederick County. Later, in 1988, two books about his work were published: "The First Electronic Computer: The Atanasoff Story," by Alice R. Burns and Arthur W. Burns, and "Atanasoff, Forgotten Father of the Computer," by Clark R. Mollenhoff. Other articles were published in the Annals of the History of Computing, Scientific American and Physics Today. In 1990, President George Bush acknowledged Dr. Atanasoff's pioneering work by awarding him the National Medal of Technology. John Vincent Atanasoff was born in Hamilton, N.Y. He was an electrical engineering graduate of the University of Florida and received a master's degree in mathematics from Iowa State University, where he taught for 15 years. He received a doctorate in physics from the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Atanasoff left Iowa State in the early 1940s to become director of the underwater acoustics program at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory at White Oak, now the Naval Surface Weapons Center, where he worked largely with mines, mine countermeasures and depth charges. He participated in the atomic weapons tests at Bikini Atoll after World War II and became chief scientist for the Army Field Forces, at Fort Monroe, Va., in 1949. He returned to the ordnance laboratory after two years to be director of the Navy Fuze programs, and in 1952 he began his own company, Ordnance Engineering Corp. That company was sold to Aerojet Engineering Corp. in 1956, and Dr. Atanasoff was named a vice president. After he retired in 1961, he was a consultant and continued to work in computer education for young people. He also developed a phonetic alphabet for computers. His honors included the Navy's Distinguished Civilian Service Award, five honorary doctorates, the Computer Pioneer Medal of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the Holley Medal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Distinguished Achievement Citation of Iowa State University. He was a member of the Iowa Inventors Hall of Fame. Dr. Atanasoff, whose father was born in Bulgaria, also was awarded Bulgaria's highest science award and was a member of the Bulgarian Academy of Science. He was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa, Pi Mu Epsilon and Tau Beta Pi honorary societies and the Cosmos Club. Dr. Atanasoff's marriage to Lura Meeks Atanasoff ended in divorce. Survivors include his wife, Alice Crosby Atanasoff of Monrovia; three children from his first marriage, Elsie A. Whistler of Rockville, Joanne A. Gathers of Mission Viejo, Calif., and John V. Atanasoff II of Boulder, Colo.; four sisters; three brothers; 10 grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren. See also (New) biography. _________________________________________________________________ Atanas Parashkevov, June 1995. Forwarded by Jay Yantchev. Formatted for the World Wide Web and hyperlinks added by Jonathan Bowen. * Virtual Museum of Computing _________________________________________________________________ John V. Atanasoff: Obituary June 1995 _________________________________________________________________ John V. Atanasoff, 91, who invented the first electronic computer in 1939 and later saw others take credit for his discovery, died of a stroke June 15 at his home in Monrovia, Md. Dr. Atanasoff, whose pioneering work ultimately was acknowledged during lengthy patent litigation in the 1970s, never made money off his invention, which was the first computer to separate data processing from memory. It heads the family tree of today's personal computers and mainframes. Two other scientists, J. Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly, drew on Dr. Atanasoff's research. In the mid-1940s, they were the first to patent a digital computing device, which they called the ENIAC (electronic numerical integrator and computer). They said they had worked out the concept over ice cream and coffee in a Philadelphia restaurant. For many years, they were acclaimed as the fathers of modern computing. But a court battle 20 years ago between two corporate giants, Honeywell and Sperry Rand, directed the spotlight to Dr. Atanasoff. He said the idea in fact, had come to him over bourbon and water in a roadhouse in Illinois in 1937. He was out on a drive from Iowa State University, in Ames, where he taught mathematics and physics, and had stopped to think about the computing devices he had been working on since 1935. He needed a machine that could do the complex mathematical work he and his graduate students had been trying on desk calculators. He and two others at Iowa State already had build an analog calculator called a laplaciometer, which analyzed the geometry of surfaces. It was that evening in the tavern, he said, that the possibility of regenerative memory and the concept of logic circuits came to him. The machine he envisioned was different from anything conceived before. It would be electronically operated and would use base-two (binary) numbers instead of the traditional base-10 numbers. It would have condensers fro memory and a regenerative process to preclude loss of memory from electrical failures. It would use direct logical action for computing rather than the counting system used in analog processes. Within months, he and a talented graduate student, Clifford Berry, had developed a crude prototype of an electronic computer. Although it used a mechanical clock system, the computing was electronic. It had two rotating drums containing capacitors, which held the electrical charge for the memory. Data were entered using punch cards. For the first time, vacuum tubes were used in computing. The project, which cost $1,000, was detailed in a 35-page manuscript, and university lawyers sent a copy to a patent lawyer. The next year, Mauchly, a physicist at Ursinus College, near Philadelphia, whom Dr. Atanasoff had met at a conference, came to see Dr. Atanasoff's work. Mauchly stayed several days at the Atanasoff home, where he was briefed extensively about the computer project and saw it demonstrated. He left with papers describing its design. That same year, Dr. Atanasoff tried to interest Remington Rand in his invention, saying he believed it could lead to a "computing machine which will perform all the operations of the standard tabulators and many more at much higher speeds," but the company turned him down. Years later, it would eagerly seek his assistance. Dr. Atanasoff had hoped to file a patent for his computer, but he was called away to Washington at the start of World War II to do physics research for the Navy. And there were complications with Iowa State, which held rights to his work but had discontinued efforts to secure a patent. By the time the computer industry was off and running, Dr. Atanasoff was involved with other areas of defense research and out of touch with computer development. The Iowa State prototype had been dismantled while he was away working for the Navy. But he had kept his research papers. He later said he "wasn't possessed with the idea I had invented the first computing machine. If I had knovn the things I had in my machine, I would have kept going on it." The Atanasoff prototype finally was recognized as the father of modern computing when, in a patent infringement case Sperry Rand brought against Honeywell, a federal judge voided Sperry Rand's patent on the ENIAC, saying it had been derived from Dr. Atanasoff's invention. It was "akin to finding a new father of electricity to replace Thomas Edison," said a writer on the computer industry. The decision made news in the industry, but Dr. Atanasoff, by this time retired, continued to live in relative obscurity in Frederick County. Later, in 1988, two books about his work were published: "The First Electronic Computer: The Atanasoff Story," by Alice R. Burns and Arthur W. Burns, and "Atanasoff, Forgotten Father of the Computer," by Clark R. Mollenhoff. Other articles were published in the Annals of the History of Computing, Scientific American and Physics Today. In 1990, President George Bush acknowledged Dr. Atanasoff's pioneering work by awarding him the National Medal of Technology. John Vincent Atanasoff was born in Hamilton, N.Y. He was an electrical engineering graduate of the University of Florida and received a master's degree in mathematics from Iowa State University, where he taught for 15 years. He received a doctorate in physics from the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Atanasoff left Iowa State in the early 1940s to become director of the underwater acoustics program at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory at White Oak, now the Naval Surface Weapons Center, where he worked largely with mines, mine countermeasures and depth charges. He participated in the atomic weapons tests at Bikini Atoll after World War II and became chief scientist for the Army Field Forces, at Fort Monroe, Va., in 1949. He returned to the ordnance laboratory after two years to be director of the Navy Fuze programs, and in 1952 he began his own company, Ordnance Engineering Corp. That company was sold to Aerojet Engineering Corp. in 1956, and Dr. Atanasoff was named a vice president. After he retired in 1961, he was a consultant and continued to work in computer education for young people. He also developed a phonetic alphabet for computers. His honors included the Navy's Distinguished Civilian Service Award, five honorary doctorates, the Computer Pioneer Medal of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the Holley Medal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Distinguished Achievement Citation of Iowa State University. He was a member of the Iowa Inventors Hall of Fame. Dr. Atanasoff, whose father was born in Bulgaria, also was awarded Bulgaria's highest science award and was a member of the Bulgarian Academy of Science. He was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa, Pi Mu Epsilon and Tau Beta Pi honorary societies and the Cosmos Club. Dr. Atanasoff's marriage to Lura Meeks Atanasoff ended in divorce. Survivors include his wife, Alice Crosby Atanasoff of Monrovia; three children from his first marriage, Elsie A. Whistler of Rockville, Joanne A. Gathers of Mission Viejo, Calif., and John V. Atanasoff II of Boulder, Colo.; four sisters; three brothers; 10 grandchildren; and seven great-grandchildren. See also (New) biography. _________________________________________________________________ Atanas Parashkevov, June 1995. Forwarded by Jay Yantchev. Formatted for the World Wide Web and hyperlinks added by Jonathan Bowen. --------------------------------------------------------------------- But then again, we could go back to about 2600BC when the Dust Abacus was invented. It was free (used dust on the ground) and could store the information until the wind blew!!!!!!!!!!! It could also have been SILICON CHIPS (if used in the sand on a beach!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) Pat __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com