Subscription Center
Sep 21, 2009 03:57 PM | 25
.jpg)
Martin Campbell-Kelly’s September article on the origins of computing traces the history of machine computation from Charles Babbage, the 18th century British mathematician, through the 20th century. Yet according to many of our readers, we made a critical omission.
John Hauptman, a professor of physics at Iowa State University, writes:
The first person to build and operate an electronic digital computer was a physics professor, as correctly noted in your excellent article “Dr. Atanasoff’s Computer,” Scientific American, August 1988 [not online]. Atanasoff’s first computer was a 12-bit 2-word machine running at 60Hz wall-plug frequency and could add and subtract binary numbers stored in a regenerative memory using a logic unit built with seven triode tubes. This was 1937. There was no war, no Pearl Harbor, just a theoretical physicist trying to solve problems in quantum mechanics with his students at Iowa State College in Ames, Iowa.
Edward B. Watters of Newberg, Oregon, points to a legal decision that also calls into question the traditional story—namely, that the first digital computer was the ENIAC, a machine built in 1945 by J. Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly of the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania:
In one of the longest cases, almost five years, in the history of the U.S. Federal Courts, Honeywell v. Sperry Rand , U.S. District Judge Earl R. Larson concluded in the verdict, published on October 19, 1973, that the Eckert and Mauchly patent for the ENIAC was invalid. Judge Larson declared that Eckert and Mauchly “did not themselves first invent the [ENIAC] automatic electronic digital computer, but instead derived that subject matter from one Dr. John Vincent Atanasoff.”
We asked Campbell-Kelly, a professor of computer science at the University of Warwick in England and the author (along with William Aspray) of Computer: A History of the Information Machine, for his views on the Atanasoff controversy. He replies:
Computer historians are cautious about asserting priorities to inventors. I did not state that Eckert and Mauchly invented the electronic computer, but rather that they invented a particular computer, the ENIAC. I also said that “computing entered the electronic age with the ENIAC” which is true in the sense of a practical computing instrument of fairly broad application.
There were several electronic computing developments during World War II, both preceding and contemporaneous with the ENIAC, of which the Atanasoff machine was one—others included the NCR code-breaking machines, the Zuse Z4 computer in Germany, and the Colossus code breaking computer in the U.K. In a short article I could not acknowledge them all.
Atanasoff’s machine was a little-known computer that was restricted to a narrow class of problem, was not programmable, and was never fully functional. Atanasoff discontinued development in 1942. The Atanasoff computer was virtually unknown until 1971 when it was uncovered in a patent suit brought by Honeywell against Sperry Rand to invalidate the ENIAC patent. During the trial it was revealed that Mauchly had visited Atanasoff and saw his computer in June 1941. What he learned from this visit cannot be known, but the design of the ENIAC bore no resemblance to the Atanasoff computer. Mauchly himself claimed that he took away “no ideas whatsoever.” Although the judge gave priority of invention to Atanasoff, this was a legal judgment that surprised many historians.
In the article, Campbell-Kelly goes on to emphasize that the most important innovation—and one generally overlooked by casual observers—was the development of the stored-program computer concept by John von Neumann and collaborators in 1945. He writes that “this layout, or architecture, makes it possible to change the computer’s program without altering the physical structure of the machine. Moreover, a program could manipulate its own instructions. This feature … would confer a powerful flexibility that forms the very heart of computer science.”
What do you think? Should Eckert and Mauchly continue to receive credit for inventing the first electronic computer? Or Atanasoff? Or have von Neumann’s contributions to computing theory been overlooked in favor of less important but more tangible physical machines?
Tags:
magazine,
history,
computing,
technology
More News Blog:
Next: Decline in financial skills suggests Alzheimer's is less than a year away
Previous: How torture may inhibit accurate confessions
See what we're tweeting about
JenLucPiquant There's a derelict atom smasher nestled in the middle of suburban Washington DC: The old Atomic Physics Observatory http://t.co/miQLXUluD3
FlyingTrilobite Nice message from @karenstintz http://t.co/3ueYZTJ7Sr #topoli
BecCrew http://t.co/76H6gAEotK
Deadline: Jul 30 2013
Reward: $100,000 USD
The Seeker desires a method for producing pseudoephedrine products in such a way that it will be extremely difficult for clandestine che
Deadline: Jul 25 2013
Reward: Varies
This challenge provides an opportunity for Solvers to build a web-based or mobile “app” to explore data relationships in scholarly conte
Powered By: 
YES! Send me a free issue of Scientific American with no obligation to continue the subscription. If I like it, I will be billed for the one-year subscription.
25 Comments
Add CommentIt has been historically held locally that the design for the first computer was written on a cocktail napkin in a Rock Island, Illinois bar while Dr. Atanasoff was having lunch.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe would hate to have to give up that distinction.
Another omission: I recall an article in Sci Am a few years ago concerning a gear-like object found on the sea floor near a Greek island. Upon examining it with imaging tools that penetrated the accretions covering the object, it was found to be a device for calculating recurring astronomic events, such as moon phase, eclipses, and the like. This was certainly the first analog computer, a couple thousand years before the analytic engine of Babbage.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe first computer wasn't digital, it was analog. The earliest one I know of is the Antikythera mechanism ( which isn't to say it's the earliest one we have by any means. )
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs for programmable digital computers, I'd say you should be looking at mechanisms like player pianos for prior art. The rolls are arguably programs; paper tape in the most basic sense; and the machine's ability to engage many bits at a time for various sums, differences and shifts of discrete vibratory modes is comparable in many ways. Storage of, and combination with, previous states is managed with control of damping.
This is just one thing that comes to mind. Personally, I don't think the invention of the computer - digital or analog - is as clear cut as some would like us to believe.
???
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGermany 1938 - Konrad Zuse Z1
Germany 1941 - Konrad Zuse Z3
As with 'man's first powered flight' unfortunately it is the one who is the loudest that gets the award (USA Again).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/pearse1.html
As with 'mans first powered flight' it is he who shouts the loudest, who gets the qudos! Again that was the US of A!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/pearse1.html
As with 'mans first powered flight', it's he who shouts the loudest who gets the award. Again it is the US of A.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/pearse1.html
The whole question of who was first is only of interest to clerks in a patents office. It is clear that modern computers developed from a whole range of sources, as is true of most things. Great minds think alike, and many people have had great ideas that they have had no way of realising, only to see their inventions appear elsewhere. Even Edison got most of his inventions from his staff. And so even inventors do not really benefit from their ideas, but just their employers who can afford the patents.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhere is the definition of what is considered a "computer" ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo mention of Alan Turing?
Posidonius of Rhodes created the first calculating device, the Antikythera device, which has been shown to have remarkable mathematical properties.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe first complex mathematical calculating device was the Antikythera mechanism, purportedly built by Posidonius of Rhodes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWas a guy named Bambridge and mostly his female assistant back in the 1800's the first real computer? I think he called it a computing engine.
To my mind, the ability to be programmed is what distinguishes a computer from every other electronic device. While this characteristic is now blurring the line, this is only a recent development (primarily due to the inclusion of MPU's in a device's design). If it cannot be programmed (without a significant change to the device), it's not a computer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSecond, it is my opinion that if a device hasn't been constructed and proven to be functional, it hasn't been invented. Until that milestone is reached, it can only be said to be conceived.
How about the Jaquard loom where perforated cardboard defined the desigs woven by the machine in the 18th century, more or less!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Jaquard programable loom where designs are determined bya perforated board and the player piano. These although not electronic are programable computers!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs with most new advances of technology, it is, as the article clearly shows, difficult to pinpoint a single 'invention' to credit. The evolving of the digital computer, as I see it, the result of a will and intention powerd by WW2 and based on the work of scientists as Von Neuman, Alan Turing and many more. The Colossus vas in deed a programmable computer altough purpose built. The ENIAC vas probably the first 'comersial' unit, as many og its predesessors were coverd by deep secracy at its time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll together - no one was really first - it was, and is, part of a coninnious evolvment that has yet to see its limits!
A couple of folks have mentioned the Antikythera mechanism (speculatively attributed to Posidonius of Rhodes). Certainly an amazing and surprising machine for its age, whether to call this a computer or not is debatable. It is worth noting that, in the late 18th century, when machines very similar to the Antikythera mechanism were finally constructed in western Europe, they were not counted as computing devices though the concept of a computing device was understood and the word "computer" was already in use (it applied to people -- human computers). While these "orreries" in the 18th century simulated the motion of the planets, they did not "compute" to any useful degree. Further, when Babbage started work on his analog computer a few decades later, no one suggested that the earlier orreries had beaten him to the punch. Calling the Antikythera machine a "computer" is equally problematic. Of course, if one insists on caling the Antikythera machine a computer, a reasonable compromise would be to refer to all orreries as "computers" too. Any and all mechanical contrivances which simulate planetary motion or any other phenomenon could be called "computers". But all of that dilutes the meaning of the word.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFinally, for those who brought up the Antikythera device, this article was NOT talking about the first computer. Mechanical and electro-mechanical computers certainly came first. Sophisticated electro-mechanical computers were found on nearly every US submarine during the Second World War, just to name one example. The question at hand is just this: does the Atanasoff machine count as the first true ELECTRONIC computer.
really? wow i didnt even now this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIS THIS ALL TRUE?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWILL SOMEONE GIVE ME "ACURATE" INFORMATION ON COMPUTERS?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSO WHERE WAS IT INVENTED
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJEEZ IF IDIDNT NOW ANY BETTER ID THINK U WERE LYIN
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisanswer me
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTruth be told, John Vincent Atanasoff, he was the first to build the electronic digital computer-- the Atanasoff-Berry Computer. Digitalization is the shuttle that moved man so far in a short period.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJacquard loom is programmable. The path that leads to the modern computer should be sought out in the electronic-digital-looms, if you will.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this