Original_To:  IN%"dab@moxie.oswego.EDU"
Original_cc:  BITNET%"acm-l@ohstvma",IN%"smith@sctc.com", PKLAMMER
Newsgroups: comp.org.acm
Date:         Fri, 10 Apr 1992 15:41:00 MDT
              <ACM-L@OHSTVMA.BITNET>
From:         Pete Klammer CU-Denver 303/233-9485 <PKLAMMER@CUDENVER.BITNET>
Subject:      RE: PBS show is NOT historically correct!

I for one am not surprised that a large computer company might allow a
presentation of history slip out that omitted that company's past sins.
But you haven't seen nothin' yet: big-company predation is REALLY ramping up
over software patents -- and you may soon find yourself unable to sell
any programming without paying royalties to the biggies that will own them.
Please learn about, and join, the League for Programming Freedom!

Now, history:
================================================================
The  Academic American Encyclopedia, published by
Grolier Electronic Publishing, Inc.
(Data copyright Grolier, Inc.)
TITLE(s): Atanasoff, John V.
  {a-tuhn-a'-sawf^
  Physicist John Vincent Atanasoff, b.  Hamilton, N.Y., Oct.  4, 1903, has
 been claimed to be the inventor of basic digital techniques used in the first
 electronic digital COMPUTER, ENIAC, developed in the 1940s by John Presper
 ECKERT and John William MAUCHLY.
   The claim remains disputed.  Atanasoff earned a Ph.D.  from the
 University of Wisconsin in 1930 and taught at Iowa State College before
 serving with the Naval Ordnance Laboratory during World War II and thereafter
 entering industry.  At Iowa he built a crude, vacuum-tube computing device
 and showed it to interested persons, including Mauchly, but failed to market
 it.  In a 1971 lawsuit brought against the  holders of the Eckert-Mauchly
 patent, a rival electronics firm sought to establish Atanasoff's priority in
 the field;  the patent was declared invalid in 1973.
  Bibliography:  Burks, A.  R.  and A.  W., The First Electronic Computer
 (1987).
TITLE(s): computer
  [...]
  HISTORY OF COMPUTERS
  [...]
  Electronic Digital Computers
  [...]
  The outbreak of World War II produced a desperate need for computing
 capability, especially for the military.  New weapons systems were produced
 for which trajectory tables and other essential data were lacking.  In 1942,
 John P.  ECKERT, John W. MAUCHLY, and their associates at the Moore School of
 Electrical Engineering of the University of Pennsylvania decided to build a
 high-speed electronic computer to do the job.  This machine  became known as
 ENIAC, for "Electrical Numerical Integrator And Calculator" (see ENIAC). [...]
  [...]  ENIAC is generally acknowledged to
 be the first successful high-speed electronic digital computer (EDC) and was
 productively used from 1946 to 1955.  A controversy developed in 1971,
 however, over the patentability of ENIAC's basic digital concepts, the claim
 being made that another U.S. physicist, John V.  ATANASOFF, had already used
 the same ideas  in a simpler vacuum-tube device he built in the 1930s while
 at Iowa State College.  In 1973 the court found in favor of the company using
 the Atanasoff claim.
================================================================
AUTHOR(s):       Mackintosh, Allan R.
TITLE(s):        Dr. Atanasoff's Computer.
Summary:         It was nothing less than the first electronic digital
                   computer. In 1937 John V. Atanasoff developed fundamental
                   concepts of the modern computer: electronic switches,
                   logical manipulation of binary numbers and "regeneration"
                   of memory to keep data from disappearing. By 1942 he had a
                   computer that worked, but World War II prevented further
                   development.
In:   Scientific american.  AUG 01 1988 v 259 n 2  Page: 90
================================================================
AUTHOR(s):       Slater, Robert
TITLE(s):        Who Invented The Computer?: Physicist John V. Atanasoff is
                   profiled in a new book excerpt.
In:   Computers in physics.    NOV 01 1987 v 1 n 1  Page: 44
================================================================
AUTHOR(s):       Burks, Alice R.
                 Burks, Arthur W.
TITLE(s):        The first electronic computer
                 by Alice R. Burks and Arthur W. Burks
                 387 pages
Pub. date:       1988
Pub. name:       Michigan
                 $30.00
ISBN:            0-472-10090-4
Reviewed in:     Choice, vol. 26 no.2
                 1988oct
Reviewer:        Christianson, Eric H.
Reviewer affil:  University of Kentucky
Subjects:        Atanasoff, John V.
Includes:        bibliography
LC Card Number:  87-25547
================================================================
AUTHOR(s):       Mollenhoff, Clark R.
TITLE(s):        Atanasoff
                 274 pages
Pub. date:       1988
Pub. name:       Iowa State
                 $24.95
ISBN:            0-8138-0032-3
Reviewed in:     Choice, vol. 26 no.2
                 1988oct
Review:          Mollenhoff, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and lawyer,
                   provides themost comprehensive account of Honeywell, Inc.
                   v. Sperry Rand, Corp., et al. (1967-73) that resulted in,
                   among other things, the recognition of Atanasoff as the
                   proper inventor of the world's first digital computer.  The
                   court found that between 1937 and 1940, Iowa State College
                   professor Atanasoff and graduate student Clifford Berry
                   designed, built, and demonstrated the device.  In 1940,
                   University of Pennsylvania engineering professor John
                   Mauchly spent several days visiting Atanasoff and studying,
                   working on, and using the ABC computer. Many years later,
                   Mauchly developed the ENIAC, the computer that was until
                   1973 thought to be the first of its kind.  Mauchly had lied
                   about what he had learned at that meeting.  His ENIAC
                   became a closely guarded government and Sperry Rand patent
                   secret.  Not for many years did Atanasoff, and Honeywell,
                   learn of the fraud.  The corporation and the true inventor
                   had joined forces to establish priority and to challenge
                   Sperry Rand's high patent rights fees.  With a solid, brief
                   bibliography and a useful index, this fascinating book can
                   be more generally recommended than A.R. Burks and A.W.
                   Burks's The First Electronic Computer:  The Atanasoff
                   Story.  As faculty members in the Department of Electrical
                   Engineering and Computer Science at the University of
                   Michigan, the authors of this valuable book are quite
                   knowledgeable about their subjects, both personnel and
                   machines.  The Burks were astounded to discover that
                   Mauchly, one of their former mentors at the University of
                   Pennsylvania, had stolen ideas from Atanasoff and his
                   graduate student Berry about their 1940 ABC computer at
                   Iowa State.  The Burks point out that in spite of the
                   fraud, Mauchly's ENIAC was a better computer than the ABC
                   prototype.  With a large appendix devoted to the logic and
                   mechanisms of electronic switching, the technical
                   orientation of this book suggests the necessity of a more
                   prepared reader than would be required for reading
                   Mollenhoff's Atanasoff.
Reviewer:        Christianson, Eric H.
Reviewer affil:  University of Kentucky
Subjects:        Atanasoff, John V.
Includes:        bibliography
Subjects:        Electronic data processing/Biography
Choice review #  26-0910
LC Card Number:  87-35261
================================================================

Peter F. Klammer, CCP, ACM, IEEE, HKN, TBP, LPF       CU-Denver EE Class of '93
(303)233-9485 FAX(303)556-4822   /'^`\   Founding Member, CU-Denver Student ACM
11221 West 27th Place       -=+<[{*|*}]>+=-            PKLAMMER@CUDENVER.bitnet
Lakewood, Colorado 80215         `\v/'      pklammer@cudnvr.Denver.Colorado.EDU