History of Computer IV

[WR1334]

In our last thread we came to know about first electric programmable computer.
Now we are gonna see about the Birth of Digital Computer yep..First Digital Computer.
This computer was named as ABC abbrevation of Atanasoff Berry Computer.
This was started by a professor John Vincent Atanasoff and a graduate student Cliff Berry in the year of 1937 continued 1942.
Now we can know about the two brains of ABC.
John Vinvent Atanasoff:
Born: October 4,1903
Died: June 15,1995 aged 91.
He is an American physicist and Inventor.


At Lowa State he reached the use of Monroe Calculators and IBM tabulators and in 1936 he invented an Analog Calculator for solving and analyzing surface geometry! Analog calculator pic is below

Now we can see about the another Braine of this computer is
Clifford Berry:
Born: April 19,1918
Died: October 30,1963 aged 45!!!
he was an American Inventor and in 1939 Atanasoff asked him that he could recommend a graduate student in electrical engineering to assist him in his computer machine.


The above is the pic of Clifford Berry

ABC:

Atanasoff Berry Computer was the first digital computing device which was conceived in 1937 and this machine was not programmable.
John vincent left the work for World War II assignments work and the machine was discontinued.
again it was continued and ABC innovations are

• Parallel Processing,
  
• Regenerative capacitor memory
  
• Binary arithmetic
  
• Electronic Computation
  
• Separation of memory
  
• Computing functions
  

The machine is the first to implement 3 superb ideas which is still part of Modern Computers.
1.Binary digits to represent all data
2.Performing calculations using electronics
3.Memory and Computation are separated to organize a system
The picture of ABC:


ABC circuit pic is below:


The memory is Drums and each had 1600 capacitors and they are organized in 32 bands of 50 and speed of 30 additions and subtraction/second!!!

The First User of Digital Computer was George W.Snedecor, the head of Lowa State's Statistics Department and his picture is below



On october 19,1973 US Federal Judge Earl R.Larson signed that the ENIAC patent by Eckert and Mauchly was invalid and the named Atanasoff the INVENTOR OF FIRST DIGITAL COMPUTER. The picture of Judge below:

[Srini]

.. Superb post... +1 Repute added.. and Analog Calculator photo is missing....

[WR1334]

Thanks and Analog calc pic is updated!! :-)