Research Catalog
The man who invented the computer : the biography of John Atanasoff, digital pioneer
- Title
- The man who invented the computer : the biography of John Atanasoff, digital pioneer / Jane Smiley.
- Author
- Smiley, Jane.
- Publication
- New York : Doubleday, c2010.
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| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Available - Can be used on site. Please visit New York Public Library - Schwarzman Building M2 to submit a request in person. | Text | Use in library | JBE 12-243 | Schwarzman Building M2 - General Research Room 315 |
Details
- Description
- 246 p., [8] p. of plates : ill.; 25 cm.
- Summary
- One night in the late 1930s, in a bar on the Illinois-Iowa border, John Vincent Atanasoff, a professor of physics at Iowa State University, after a frustrating day performing tedious mathematical calculations in his lab, hit on the idea that the binary number system and electronic switches, combined with an array of capacitors on a moving drum to serve as memory, could yield a computing machine that would make his life easier. Then he went back and built the machine. It worked, but he never patented the device, and the developers of the far-better-known ENIAC almost certainly stole critical ideas from him. But in 1973 a court declared that the patent on that Sperry Rand device was invalid, opening the gates to the computer revolution. Biographer Jane Smiley makes the race to develop digital computing as gripping as a real-life techno-thriller.--From publisher description.
- Subjects
- Electronic digital computers > History > 20th century
- College teachers > Iowa > Biography
- Intellectual property > United States > History > 20th century
- Physicists > Iowa > Biography
- Patents > United States > History > 20th century
- Atanasoff, John V (John Vincent)
- Sperry Rand Corporation History > 20th century
- Computer scientists > United States > Biography
- Inventors > United States > Biography
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 221-232) and index.
- Call Number
- JBE 12-243
- ISBN
- 0385527136
- 9780385527132
- LCCN
- 2010018887
- OCLC
- 502029794
- Author
- Smiley, Jane.
- Title
- The man who invented the computer : the biography of John Atanasoff, digital pioneer / Jane Smiley.
- Imprint
- New York : Doubleday, c2010.
- Edition
- 1st ed.
- Bibliography
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 221-232) and index.
- Research Call Number
- JBE 12-243