
Atanasoff–Berry Computer (2011) - jpelecanos
http://jva.cs.iastate.edu/operation.php
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sqrt17
Anyone discussion of the (non-programmable, electronic) Atanasoff-Berry
Computer will eventually segue into mentions of Zuse's (programmable,
electromechanic) Z3, Babbage's (programmable, fully mechanic, only realized
later on) Analytical Engine as well as Eckart and Mauchly's (programmable,
electronic) ENIAC, which all were the first computer for some definition of
computer.

The (electronic, programmable) chips that are in almost any device from the
washing machine to the watch today are a product of a long series of
inventions reaching from logic and arithmetic over the first automatons and
calculation machines of the 1600s to more complex machines of the 1800s over
to the development of electronics through tubes, transistors and integrated
circuits of the 1900s.

And today they are a universal part of everyday life that nonetheless depends
on large material flows across dozens of countries that would be in danger in
any large-scale event like a World War (like the two world wars that have
happened in the 20th century, and where anyone who has seen and survived that
kind of large-scale war is rather old now).

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yeldarb
As an ISU alum and an Iowa resident I’ve always been dumbfounded that we don’t
highlight our state’s place in the history of computing more.

I would totally be in favor of changing the state motto from “fields of
opportunity” to “birthplace of the digital computer” and putting it on all the
“welcome to iowa” signs on the highways, etc.

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HillaryBriss
I'd never heard of the ABC computer before. The Iowa State website seems to
have reached the conclusion that Mauchly ripped off Atansoff and Berry.

Every invention, every discovery, emerges from a context, a culture, a society
of thinkers. How can credit ever be properly assigned?

~~~
webwanderings
I forgot the name but there's a book on the history of this computer. It's a
good read. This is apparently a historically controversial topic.

~~~
abecedarius
If you mean
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003F3FJKA/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003F3FJKA/),
I agree it's interesting -- on an interesting topic by an excellent writer --
but you have to allow quite a lot for the author's poor understanding of
computers.

