Bibliograph

The man who invented the computer, the biography of John Atanasoff, digital pioneer, Jane Smiley

Type

Label

The man who invented the computer, the biography of John Atanasoff, digital pioneer, Jane Smiley

Language

eng

Bibliography note

Includes bibliographical references (pages 221-232) and index

resource.biographical

individual biography

Illustrations

platesillustrations

Index

index present

Literary Form

non fiction

Main title

The man who invented the computer

Nature of contents

bibliography

Oclc number

502029794

Responsibility statement

Jane Smiley

Sub title

the biography of John Atanasoff, digital pioneer

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

Classification