The Burks's book mentions Konrad Zuse and his programmable, floating-point
binary Z-3, George Stibitz and the Bell Labs Model II - V; also Mark I of
IBM and others. These are labeled electro-mechanical computers and the
Burks say that they were well established by the mid-1930's when Atanasoff
was doing his work.
The Burks then go on to declare Atanasoff used the continuous electronic
technology of the times; they distinguish between analog and digital mode;
they declare that Atanasoff was part of chain of development with
electro-mechanical computing technology first and the electronic computer
technology being Atanasoff's contribution.
Chapter 5 called Atanasoff Place in History covers these points and more.
The Burks state that the ENIAC was not the first electronic computer. They
write that it was Atanasoff who started the computer revolution.
My own judgement is that Atanasoff gets 5 stars out of 5; other maybe are
deserving too. I wish he were still around so I could tell him about GIMPS
(Dr. Atanasoff was a PC user, not a MAC user).
I also give Atanasoff 5 stars for NOT PATENTING anything. Cripes, can you
image where we'd be if we had to ask permission to improve someone else's
patent?
At 10:11 PM 11/28/99 -0500, Jud McCranie wrote:
>At 07:31 PM 11/28/99 -0500, Vincent J. Mooney Jr. wrote:
> > Pleasse tell us what there is to disagree with.
>
>This is off-topic, but there was prior work on the Mark I, in Germany by
>Zuse, and in England on the code breaking project. There is no clear
>inventor of the computer in the eyes of most historians. Much of the
>controversy is covered in chapter 8 of "ENIAC" by Scott McCartney and other
>books such as ""Portraits in Silicon". Iowa State University seems
>overzealous in promoting Atanasoff.
>
>+--------------------------------------------------------+
>| Jud McCranie |
>| |
>| 137*2^197783+1 is prime! (59,541 digits, 11/11/99) |
>+--------------------------------------------------------+
>
>
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