Editing Atanasoff–Berry computer (section)

==Overview==
Conceived in 1937, the machine was built by [[Iowa State University|Iowa State College]] mathematics and physics professor [[John Vincent Atanasoff]] with the help of graduate student [[Clifford Berry]]. It was designed only to solve systems of [[linear equation]]s and was successfully tested in 1942. However, its intermediate result storage mechanism, a paper card writer/reader, was not perfected, and when John Vincent Atanasoff left Iowa State College for World War II assignments, work on the machine was discontinued.<ref name = Copeland2006>{{Citation | last = Copeland | first = Jack | year = 2006 | title = Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Park's Codebreaking Computers | location = Oxford | publisher = [[Oxford University Press]] | pages = 101–115 | isbn = 0-19-284055-X }}</ref> The ABC pioneered important elements of modern computing, including [[binary arithmetic]] and [[Electronics|electronic switching]] elements, {{sfn|Campbell-Kelly|Aspray|1996|p=84}} but its special-purpose nature and lack of a changeable, [[stored program]] distinguish it from modern computers. The computer was designated an [[List of IEEE milestones|IEEE Milestone]] in 1990.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Milestones:Atanasoff-Berry_Computer,_1939 |title=Milestones:Atanasoff-Berry Computer, 1939 |work=IEEE Global History Network |publisher=IEEE |access-date=3 August 2011}}</ref>

Atanasoff and Berry's computer work was not widely known until it was rediscovered in the 1960s, amid [[#Patent dispute|patent disputes]] over the first instance of an electronic computer. At that time [[ENIAC]], that had been created by [[John Mauchly]] and [[J. Presper Eckert]],<ref>John Presper Eckert Jr. and John W. Mauchly, Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, {{US Patent|3,120,606}}, filed 26 June 1947, issued 4 February 1964, and invalidated 19 October 1973 after court ruling on [[Honeywell v. Sperry Rand]].</ref> was considered to be the first computer in the modern sense,{{citation needed|date=May 2020|reason=The claim seems unsound since ENIAC was not software programmable, which is a crucial feature of modern computers first implemented in the Manchester Baby of 1948, and then the Manchester Mark 1 of 1949}} but in 1973 a U.S. District Court invalidated the ENIAC patent and concluded that the ENIAC inventors had derived the subject matter of the electronic digital computer from Atanasoff. When, in the mid-1970s, the secrecy surrounding the British World War II development of the [[Colossus computer]]s that pre-dated ENIAC, was lifted<ref>[[Brian Randell|Randell, Brian]], ''Colossus: Godfather of the Computer'', 1977 (reprinted in ''The Origins of Digital Computers: Selected Papers'', [[Springer Science+Business Media|Springer-Verlag]], New York, 1982)</ref><ref>{{Citation | last = Randell | first = Brian | author-link = Brian Randell | editor-last = Metropolis | editor-first = N. | editor-link = Nicholas Metropolis | editor2-last = Howlett | editor2-first = J. | editor2-link = Jack Howlett | editor3-last = Rota | editor3-first = Gian-Carlo | editor3-link = Gian-Carlo Rota | title = A History of Computing in the Twentieth Century | chapter = The Colossus | pages = [https://archive.org/details/historyofcomputi0000inte/page/47 47–92] | year = 1980 | chapter-url = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/publications/books/papers/133.pdf | isbn = 978-0124916500 | access-date = 2016-09-19 | url = https://archive.org/details/historyofcomputi0000inte/page/47 }}</ref> and Colossus was described at a conference in [[Los Alamos, New Mexico]], in June 1976, John Mauchly and [[Konrad Zuse]] were reported to have been astonished.<ref>{{Citation |last=Bemer |first=Bob |author-link=Bob Bemer |title=Colossus – World War II Computer: The First Word Processor |url=http://www.bobbemer.com/COLOSSUS.HTM |access-date = 2020-07-16 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20000819125051/http://www.bobbemer.com/COLOSSUS.HTM |archive-date=2000-08-19 |url-status=dead}} Report of the announcement of Colossus at the International Research Conference on the History of Computing, in Los Alamos, New Mexico, that began on 10 June 1976</ref>