1 option
The man who invented the computer : the biography of John Atanasoff, digital pioneer / Jane Smiley.
Van Pelt Library QA76.2.A75 S64 2010
Available
- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Smiley, Jane.
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Atanasoff, John V. (John Vincent).
- Atanasoff, John V.
- Computer scientists--United States--Biography.
- Computer scientists.
- Inventors--United States--Biography.
- Inventors.
- Intellectual property.
- History.
- Patents.
- Electronic digital computers.
- College teachers.
- Physicists.
- United States.
- Iowa.
- Physicists--Iowa--Biography.
- College teachers--Iowa--Biography.
- Electronic digital computers--History--20th century.
- Sperry Rand (Corporation)--History--20th century.
- Sperry Rand (Corporation).
- Patents--United States--History--20th century.
- Intellectual property--United States--History--20th century.
- Genre:
- Biographies.
- Physical Description:
- 246 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm
- Edition:
- First edition.
- Place of Publication:
- New York : Doubleday, [2010]
- 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.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-232) and index.
- Local Notes:
- Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Edward Potts Cheyney Memorial Fund.
- ISBN:
- 9780385527132 :
- 0385527136
- OCLC:
- 502029794
- Publisher Number:
- 99939911139
The Penn Libraries is committed to describing library materials using current, accurate, and responsible language. If you discover outdated or inaccurate language, please fill out this feedback form to report it and suggest alternative language.