John Vincent Atanasoff

John Vincent Atanasoff (October 4, 1903 – June 15, 1995) was an American physicist and inventor, best known for inventing the first electronic digital computer.

Atanasoff invented the first electronic digital computer in the 1930s at Iowa State College. Challenges to his claim were resolved in 1973 when the Honeywell v. Sperry Rand lawsuit ruled that Atanasoff was the inventor of the computer. His special-purpose machine has come to be called the Atanasoff–Berry Computer.

Early life and education

Atanasoff, of Bulgarian, French and Irish ancestry, was born on October 4, 1903 in Hamilton, New York to an electrical engineer and a school teacher. Atanasoff's father, Ivan Atanasoff was born in 1876 in the village of Boyadzhik, close to Yambol, Bulgaria. While Ivan was still an infant, Ivan's own father was killed by Ottoman soldiers after the Bulgarian April Uprising. In 1889, Ivan Atanasov immigrated to the United States with his uncle. Atanasoff's mother, Iva Lucena Purdy, was a teacher of mathematics.