by Diane Heldt
Staff Writer, The Daily Tribune
August 12, 1997
John Atanasoff II, left, son of ABC computer inventor John Atanasoff, looks on as ABC team member Charles Shorb puts the replica of the computer through its paces Monday morning. The replica is a little bit smaller than the original and can be removed from the basement in Spedding Hall and transported.
Standing in a small room in the basement of Spedding Hall watching a demonstration of the nearly completed replica of the Atanasoff-Berry Computer, John V. Atanasoff II knew exactly what his father would do if he were there.
"He would be lying on his back, probably, asking for a tool. He would want to work on it," Atanasoff said. "He would certainly love to see this."
Atanasoff, who graduated from ISU in 1957 with a degree in mechanical engineering and is now chairman and chief executive of Colorado MEDtech Inc. in Boulder, visited Iowa State University on Sunday and Monday, and saw the ABC replica for the first time. The replica is a tribute to his father, John Vincent Atanasoff, who designed the first electronic digital computer at Iowa State from 1939 to 1942. He died two years ago.
"I'm really excited and pleased with these activities. The replica demonstrates and can actually accomplish a great deal," said Atanasoff, who has been in contact with the ABC replica team during the course of the three-year project. "It involved some really unique principles--it's electronic, uses binary language, regenerative memory and parallel computing. All of those are fundamental elements of most computer systems today. It was far out and advanced from what most people were doing at that time."
Atanasoff said he remembers coming with his father to the basement of the Physics Building as a child and playing while his dad worked on the computer.
"I can recall he spent a great deal of time every evening in the basement in the Physics Building, and on the weekends as well, so if I wanted to see my father, I would go with him to the Physics Building," he said. "I can recall some of the activities there, and this visit brings those memories back vividly."
Atanasoff said he remembers the original Atanasoff-Berry Computer as being a big black machine that made a dull noise. "I can remember a lot of scratching and people working vigorously on it," he said.
The ABC replica, which weighs 800 pounds, is a bit smaller than the actual ABC, so that it can fit out of the door of the lab room. But otherwise, it is as close to the actual ABCas researchers could make it.
"It's amazing that he did what he did with what he had back in the 1940s. This was just decades ahead of its time," said Charles Shorb, a graduate student in computer science who has been working on the replica.
Iowa State scientists began the replica project, through donations and gifts, three years ago as a tribute to computer pioneers Atanasoff and Clifford Berry, who during 1939 and 1942 designed and built the world's first electronic digital computer at ISU.
Atanasoff's idea was to develop a machine to automatically solve simultaneous linear equations with 20 to 30 unknowns. This would permit his graduate physics students to more rapidly solve complex mathematical equations. Berry was a graduate student when he helped Atanasoff develop the ABC.
Iowa State officials announced Monday that the replica will be unveiled nationally on October 8 at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The replica will then return to Iowa, where officials hope to take it on a tour of the state, and later show it in museums across the nation.
"We believe it's important for the nation at large, and the world for that matter, to have an introduction to the ABC replica, because it was the true start of the computer age," said Joel Snow, director of the Institute for Physical Research and Technology at ISU.
Unveiling the ABC replica to the national public and media, and then taking it on a tour of the country, will help set the record straight about the history of the first electronic digital computer, Atanasoff said. For many years, the makers of the ENIAC at Penn State claimed it was the first electronic digital computer. A court ruled that Iowa State's ABC was the first.
"I'm glad it's Iowa State's intent to take this around the country so people really see what was accomplished here ... two or three years before systems like ENIAC were developed," Atanasoff said. "The makers of ENIAC really stood on the shoulders of my dad and Iowa State and inappropriately took advantage of the situation, and I think we should set the record straight."