Talk:Atanasoff–Berry computer

message: Did the article (or device) recently get attention somewhere? It's been vandalized more in the last day than ever before. —Ben Brockert (42) UE News 03:03, Jan 12, 2005 (UTC)
Probably these simpletons come to wikipedia, see search string, type in the first thing that comes to their mind...abc...and then see computer. :) --Gunter 12:04, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent vandalism 

message: A few paragraphs from an article called ABC_Computer seemed non-redundant so I merged them here, and got rid of the duplicate article. --Wtshymanski 22:54, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merged in ABC_Computer 

message: I wonder whether the reference to "Research Corporation of America" really means RCA (Radio Corporation of America) of David Sarnoff fame. Ancheta Wis 08:55, 21 July 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: It does not.  Research Corporation was (and is) a nonprofit based in New York, New York, and they gave $5,000 (in a grant approved March 1941) to help complete the machine.  Samuel Caldwell helped evaluate the ABC for the proposed grant in his visit of January 6, 1941.  I have edited the article slightly for clarity. Robert K S 08:40, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  RCA 

message: I just noticed that the ABC diagram, which is claimed to be PD as a work of the US government, actually seems to belong to Iowa State University.  If that's the case the copyright status should be changed and the image may need to be removed/replaced.  Does anybody have more information on the image's copyright status? -- uberpenguin 21:39, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Anything made by the federal government is in the public domain.  However, ISU works are not that of the federal government so it is tagged incorrectly. Cburnett 01:48, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The picture is from the scalable computing lab at ISU, a joint venture of ISU and the US Department of Energy...what that means as for PD...I have no idea. Bassgoonist 14:03, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

text: "Ames Laboratory is a government-owned, contractor-operated research facility of the U.S. Department of Energy that is run by Iowa State University." from http://www.ameslab.gov/final/About/Aboutindex.htm Bassgoonist 14:05, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Diagram 

message: I think there may be missing words in the following sentence, which doesn't seem to be grammatically complete.
"Much of Atanasoff's work was not widely known until rediscovered in the 1960s, and conflicting claims about the first instance of an electronic computer." Adrian Robson 09:11, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Missing words 

message: The article says: " The machine, initiated in 1937, was capable of solving up to 29 simultaneous linear equations and was successfully tested before the project was abandoned in 1942..."
A reader could interpret this as meaning that it was first tested as a fully working machine in 1942. Does anyone have any sources that indicate whether this is correct, or was it in working condition earlier than 1942? Adrian Robson 11:31, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The operational dates are not well documented. The Mollenhoff book says that the prototype which could add and subtract up to 8 digits was finished in the fall of 1939 (p. 47), and the full machine was built over the next two years.  A 35 page illustrated description of the ABC was submitted around August, 1940 as part of a request for further funding, with a copy sent to a Chicago patent attorney (p. 49). A newspaper article in January 1941 described the "electrical computing machine" and said it would take about a year to complete (p. 51). The machine was functional, but it's I/O device used sparks to punch intermediate results on cards, and was somewhat ureliable.  A $5,330 grant for continued development was received from the Research Corporation on March 24, 1941 (p. 52). The ABC was sufficiently complete in June 1941 for John Mauchly to spend four days examining and discussing the ABC with Atanasoff.  When Mauchly returned to Pennsylvania, he was enthusiastic and wrote in a second letter in September, "Is there any objection, from your point of view, to my building some sort of computer which incorporates some of the features of your machine?" and "[If] I got the Moore School interested in having something of the sort, would the way be open for us to build an "Atanasoff Calculator" (a la Bush analyzer) here?" (p. 59) Atanasoff replied that they needed to remain circumspect until a patent application was filed. --Blainster 20:40, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Many thanks for these details. And the article is much clearer about development progress after the changes you made. Adrian Robson 22:14, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

text: The breadboard is tested Oct. 1939-Jan 1940. The dating is very obtuse and confusing. However, the important bit is the question "when an idea becomes a patent?" The answer of this question is given by judge Larson in the chapter of the decision "Public Use" The criteria is that the device is ready for patenting on the date it is reduced to practice i.e. the testing is over. From this date on you have 1 year to patent. After this one year if the device is in public use or on sale the patent is invalid. That is the case with ENIAC. Atanasoff is working on his patent spring-summer 1942, actually the truth is Berry is writing (as everything else) the patent spring-summer 1942. This is irrelevant because Dickinson and Mumma filed their electronic calculating machines two years before that. If we ignore ENIAC assume it did not exist, then the Atatasoff invention is covered by Dickinson (IBM), Desch, Mumma (NCR) and Samuel B. Williams (Bell Labs.) in the part "first electronic". The historians of the computing are very enthusiastic with the Atanasoff romance of the underdog. Brain Randell states in the introduction of his book "The origins of digital computers: Selected Papers" p. VIII "Perhaps the most obvious inadequacy of the bibliography is that the patent literature is almost entirely unrepresented. Some of the difficulties that this literature causes to other than trained patent specialists are well llustrated by the following sentence from the U. K. version of the historic ENIAC patent ...." So, in short Atanasoff is not the first ... this obvious from the decision of judge Larson http://www.ushistory.org/more/eniac/intro.htmVebar (talk) 19:02, 23 February 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Test date 

message: The main problem with this article on the "Atanasoff–Berry Computer" is that it was not really a computer in the modern sense. It was just a calculator. One could not program it.  On the other hand, those who claim it was a computer must also include the old calculators of the 1600s, 1700s etc. This would affect many Wikipedia articles. Science History 12:11, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that, to conform to Wikipedia’s requirement of adopting a neutral point of view, your point should be covered in this article. There is no doubt that, by the 1950s, the vast majority of informed people would have regarded programmability as being a pre-requisite of being a computer, whatever the terminology used by the judge in the Honeywell v. Sperry Rand case in 1973. I tried to adjust the balance by inserting after “Conceived in 1937, the machine was not programmable, being designed only to solve linear algebraic equations.” a sentence which read “In the view of some, this makes it a calculator rather than a true computer.” but this was immediately reversed on the ground that "This snippet of weasel POV is unmotivated in the lead. A fuller explanation, properly sourced, might be appropriate later in the article." What do others think? TedColes (talk) 10:54, 9 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Not a Computer 

message: I don't understand this sentence:
: "Intermediate results were written onto paper sheets by electrostatically modifying the resistance at 1500 locations to represent 30 of the 50 bit numbers (one equation). Each sheet could be written or read in one second."
* Are these "paper sheets" part of the drum memory, or are they a completely separate data storage device?
* Was "paper sheet" storage ever used in any other machine?
* Is "paper sheet" storage notable enough to have a Wikipedia article about it?
--75.19.73.101 (talk) 06:02, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Welcome to the topic!  A novel system was devised whereby high voltage arcs produced by writer electrodes would burn into a dielectric (Strathmore No. 2 paper cards--thicker than ordinary paper, thinner than punch cards).  The burn marks (or absence of them) could then be read by lower voltage electrodes.  This part of the ABC was unrelated to the capacitor drum.  Paper sheet storage was used in plenty of other machines, but as electromechanically punched cards or scrolls of paper tape.  The dielectric system was the Achilles' heel of the ABC and never really worked.  Since there are no other examples of this kind of storage, a separate article about it is not warranted.  Cheers, Robert K S (talk) 07:54, 17 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  electrostatic paper memory 

message: "The system weighed more than seven hundred pounds (320 kg).and was 800 square feet (74 m2) in all. It contained approximately 1 mile (1.6 km) of wire, 280 dual-triode vacuum tubes, 31 thyratrons, and was about the size of a desk."
Can someone explain to me how something the size of a desk is 800 square feet? I'm assuming this is a typo, but I don't want to make the call.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.185.89.222 (talk) 21:36, 8 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Must have been a really big desk, or confusion with ENIAC.  I've taken out the square feet. (Notice the hallmark of Wikipedia unit conversions: no-one ever checks that the numbers are right before converting to/from metric.)  --Wtshymanski (talk) 16:03, 7 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: Dimensions of the computer

message: Digitalization is the main breakthrough in computing, and is what makes computers to-day what they are. Programmable non- and semi-digital devices existed even before and during his invention, but achieved little. Please, stop debasing Atanasoff's major contribution to human development.
--Eurotrash-flash 21:52, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: Whatever your opinion, if the sentance is part of an attributed quotation, to remove it mis-represents the authors of that quotation. You need a much better reason, linked by citation to a good quality source.--TedColes (talk) 22:57, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: To: TedCole / It is my fault I have overlooked that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Eurotrash-flash (talk • contribs) 23:09, 5 November 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: The extent to which the many contributors to the advancement of electronic computing fed off each others' ideas is difficult to establish. There were a lot of different things going on in parallel, and it is not particularly helpful to claim 'firsts'. The ABC was undoubtedly an important achievement, but the above YouTube pieces contain serious errors, and omissions of developments that took place outside the US. --TedColes (talk) 10:20, 6 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: A digital computer not a Jacquard loom

message: The bot that gives inflation-adjusted value of ABC reads $0.52 million.  Can't this be converted to $520,ooo --- a much more readable form?Kdammers (talk) 17:31, 12 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  number 

message: The article used to but no longer mentions that it was designed to solve 29 Simultaneous Equations as is mentioned in the August, 1988 issue of Scientific American feature article on the A.B.C.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 184.89.185.219 (talk) 17:13, 3 February 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  There needs to be a mention of the number of equations it was built for... 

message: I really don't think this is sufficiently relevant to the topic of this article, see WP:IRRELEVANT. --TedColes (talk) 07:21, 10 May 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  " (the same year of the first theoretical paper [[A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits]])" 

message: The article claims "The machine was, however, the first to implement three critical ideas that are still part of every modern computer:
#Using binary digits to represent all numbers and data.
#Performing all calculations using electronics rather than wheels, ratchets, or mechanical switches.
#Organizing a system in which computation and memory are separated."
However, it seems 1 and 3 were already done by the Z1, and the second was done by the Z2, which can be dated to 1938, and 1940, respectively.
I will replace it with:
"The machine was, however, the first
#Using vacuum tubes, rather than wheels, ratchets, mechanical switches, or telephone relays allowing for much faster clock speeds
#Using capacitors for memory, rather than mechanical components
"  — Preceding unsigned comment added by MegaZeroX7 (talk • contribs) 00:36, 31 August 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  "The first to..."