Talk:John Vincent Atanasoff

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Contents 1 Zuse 2 Dates of Life 3 Nonprogrammable versus electronic 4 George Stibitz references needed 5 American-Bulgarian 6 Odd Points of Interest 7 Atanasoff and the NOL Computer 8 Alteration to Opening Paragraph

[edit] Zuse

and no mentioning at all of Konrad Zuse ? first functional tape-stored-program-controlled computer (Z3) in 1941

[edit] Dates of Life

I added the dates of birth and death back into the first paragraph even through these are now available in the info box as well. Formatting similar to Albert Einstein. The info box is a very nice touch though. Good work!

• Ok. I was formatting similar to Douglas Adams. I think they look fine in both places. --Ben Brockert < 01:50, Dec 28, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Nonprogrammable versus electronic

How about non-programmable, electronic, digital computer? That's what it was. The reason the ENIAC is still regarded as the first computer is because it's the first programmable (well Turing complete, to be precise) computer. Atanasoff did impressive, significant work, but the sweeping generalization first electronic digital computer ought to be modified with non-programmable or turing-complete in order to be most accurate and NPOV'ed. The sweeping statement sounds like something the John Atanasoff website might claim in their zeal to promote their man.

In any case, I love the info box (as I said before), but there is no need to revert Icairns change to reflect more factual accuracy. I have merged both of your changes. This makes the claim as simple as possible, but no simpler. There is no desire for an edit/revert war here, however. I'm just an outside observer just trying to be in the spirit of NPOV.

Happy editing.

-SocratesJedi 02:18, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Or alternatively, we could just use no capation or just a caption like "John Atanasoff in XXXX" like Albert Einstein's formatting (as I quoted above earlier). That might be an elegant way to deal with it and just let them read the article's text for a brief summary of the ABC-ENIAC dispute? I think it's a good solution. Thoughts? -SocratesJedi 02:23, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I would claim that "electronic digital computer" is not overreaching, but accurate as a basic description. ENIAC, the machine most often cited in place of the ABC, was programmable in only the most rudimentary sense, requiring re-wiring to re-program. It didn't use a stored (paper tape) program like the Harvard Mark I relay logic computer, for example. And ENIAC used decimal rather than the more versatile ABC binary design. But I would agree that the more detailed description certainly should be in the text for clarity. --Blainster 05:39, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The distinction between the ENIAC and the ABC I thought I had learned while helping rewrite this is that of the Turing completeness of the ENIAC while the ABC seems more specific to solving Diff Eq's, wasn't it? I'm actually slightly concerned that the textbox is a bit too wordy right now, but I'm happy to leave it as it is until someone finds a better or more elegant solution to le problem de textbox. Anyway, if you have better ideas, be bold. -SocratesJedi | Talk 07:01, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The anonymous February 8 2005 "multiple additions" was me. Thought I was logged in. I moved the 'non-programmable' bit to a subordinate place for now--Blainster 10:19, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

→ Seems the primary contributor has a real issue with Mauchly/Eckert? Probably not appropriate for NPOV -- after all, Atanasoff's machine was never even fully functional (which is why no patent), and the final ENIAC was dramatically different from the ABC. Atanasoff never even stepped up to make claims until the Honeywell lawyers cajoled him. Because this article is about him, his accomplishments should be championed, but not exaggerated. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Juela (talk • contribs) 06:42, August 14, 2006 (UTC)

This thread is over one year old. Your points have been addressed in this and associated articles on ENIAC and the ABC. --Blainster 16:36, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] George Stibitz references needed

Since we have something about the ENIAC controversy over the first person to actually build a computer, perhaps we should also have something about the controversy involving George Stibitz too? He designed a calculator that worked via relay switches which based on my preliminary research was built almost a full two years before Atanasoff released the ABC. I'll update this myself in a day or so (no time now), but if you're interested please do it yourself! I found information initially at: [1] ... So. Knock yourself out. -SocratesJedi | Talk 03:47, 23 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] American-Bulgarian

Perhaps you can explain why the country order is in this sequence. Anyway, Atanasoff was born in the USA, so I redacted that term and put a note about his Bulgarian father in the awards section where it explains the attention from Bulgaria. --Blainster 11:19, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

VMORO has reverted to Bulgarian-American without explanation. In the USA people born there are not usually regarded as hyphenated, unless there is a particular cultural context. That use is normally for immigrants (otherwise we would all be hyphenates!). This is not a big deal with me, and I see that he is frequently into revert wars elsewhere, so I will let it rest. --Blainster 22:41, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Odd Points of Interest

1) Did anyone read the bio of Nobel laureate Kary Mullis, who described his invention of the PCR reaction while cruising the Pacific Coast highway? Well John Atanasoff thought up his computer design in an incredibly similar fashion. Frustrated by his inability to solve the computer puzzles, he hopped in his car and drove absently drove ~200 miles in a frigid cold night from Ames past the Illinois border to a roadhouse. Here he stopped and once inside everything crystallized: the binary logic circuits, the regenerative refreshing of capacitor memory, etc. He realized that digital circuits were less affected by voltage fluctuations (errors) than analog circuits would be.

2) During John Mauchly's testimony at the patent trial, he cited his invention of a railway flasher as evidence that he had previously thought about a binary logic device!

Would either of these stories (from the Mollenhoff bio of Atanasoff) be of interest here? --Blainster 11:19, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Certianly interesting to me. Since they have cites, they would be good additions to the article. —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 04:00, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, just be sure to add the book under references if you add those stories. -SocratesJedi | Talk 04:08, 10 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The Burks references make much of the railroad flasher. It was one of several extant Mauchly constructions presented at trial as the only remaining evidences of Mauchly's contemporary thinking about digital circuits; this and the other devices from the 1930s exist today (and still work!). Mauchly did not claim to have "invented" this device as Blainster writes above. Flip-flops and counter circuits were both widely known prior art in digital electronics in 1940 (having been invented starting in 1919): it is prima facie inaccurate to state that John Mauchly was unaware of digital electronics principles prior to meeting Atanasoff, and such was not the ruling of Judge Larson in Honeywell v. Sperry Rand. Robert K S 06:09, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Atanasoff and the NOL Computer

The popular biographies have glossed over some interesting parts of A's activities during the war. Von Neumann got him to head a project to build another computer, for NOL. Mauchly was actually a consultant to this project, and the information definitely flowed from Mauchly, not to him. The hardware lead on the project, Calvin Mooers, tells the story in the Annals. So I question the existing sentence in the wiki: " Mauchly visited Atanasoff multiple times in Washington during 1943 and discussed Atanasoff's computing theories, but did not mention that he was working on a computer project himself. Mauchly's own government work, he said, was too highly secret to reveal." Atanasoff had top security clearance.

1. "The Computer Project at the Naval Ordnance Laboratory," IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 51-67, April-June, 2001. (details Atanasoff's well-funded but unsuccessful second computer project in 1945-1946)

________

So I've updated the page to include the NOL computer.

Calvin Mooers goes into depth about A and M. He describes why they never built anything at NOL in 1945. Atanasoff was basically evading making any decisions on what type of computer to make. Apparently the engineers would ask for a decision and he would deliberately change the subject (Sometimes to the topic of making goat cheese, he recalls). A. never talked about his ABC to the staff at NOL, saying it was out-dated. I tend to agree. Von Neumann was not happy when he found out that Mooers had deserted the project. He pulled the plug.

Meanwhile, in reading about Atanasoff, I've learned that he was a very prolific inventor and had dozens of patents (just not any in computers.) For example in 1937 he invented a way to measure the viscosity of eggs without breaking them - using a pendulum. Should this be in the Wiki? --Zebbie 15:35, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alteration to Opening Paragraph

I do not agree that Atanasoff can be considered the father of the electronic digital computer in any real sense - if you consult sources other than Burks, the arguments against may become clear. I will reference my moderation to the opening paragraph in a couple of days when I have the necessary books to hand.--Deknyff 17:46, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Clearly there is some difference of opinion, primarily with regard to whether the definition of the term "computer" requires programability, or did sixty years ago. But there are plenty of references other than Burks to support the assertion, from both detailed sources (Mollenhoff) and general references (World Almanac and Encarta). --Blainster 21:14, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I found and corrected a number of problems with the opening paragraph. In no sense was Atanasoff a "prominent computer scientist" in his lifetime, despite his invention of the first electronic digital computer at Iowa State and his brief tenure as head of an unsuccessful computer construction project for the Naval Ordnance Laboratory during World War II. The occupation "computer scientist" can't have been said to have existed in the mid-1940s; both Atanasoff and Mauchly are better described as physicists, which more accurately portrays their breadth of interests, researches, educations, employment positions, and job titles. With regards to the above remark, I agree with Blainster that there are additional sources that may refer to Atanasoff with the honorific "father of the computer"--but these sources may not hold to the standard of objectivity and neutrality we'd like to preserve in Wikipedia; the term "widely" presents problems I won't get into. Suffice it to say that more accurate and encyclopedic would be to cite the Honeywell v. Sperry Rand decision, wikilink to it, and use the judge's own language. Finally, no human can be the "father" of a computer in any literal sense. Would Clifford Berry be the "mother"? Robert K S 05:53, 5 August 2006 (UTC)