The Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) is
completed. After successfully demonstrating a proof-of-concept prototype
in 1939, Atanasoff received funds to build the full-scale machine.
Built at Iowa State College (now University), the ABC was designed and
built by Professor John Vincent Atanasoff and graduate student Cliff
Berry between 1939 and 1942. The ABC was at the center of a patent
dispute relating to the invention of the computer, which was resolved in
1973 when it was shown that ENIAC co-designer John Mauchly had come to
examine the ABC shortly after it became functional.
The legal
result was a landmark: Atanasoff was declared the originator of several
basic computer ideas, but the computer as a concept was declared
un-patentable and thus was freely open to all. This result has been
referred to as the "dis-invention of the computer." A full-scale
reconstruction of the ABC was completed in 1997 and proved that the ABC
machine functioned as Atanasoff had claimed.
Source: - www.computerhistory.org
