The father of modern computers suspected Experts asked the media to correct 30-year public case

Who is the father of modern computer? It was the computer called ENIAC (ENIAC) that was heavily invested by the military, or the first computer named "ABC" invented by John Atanasov in Iowa.

Today, the Chinese IT community At the invitation of csdn and Zhongguancun Institute of innovation and research, John santanasov came to China to clarify a historical suspense to the media: His Father John Atanasoff ), is the real father of modern electronic computers.

According to Mr. Atanasov, in the winter of 1937, he was a professor of physics at the Iowa State University. Two years of thinking has taken place to solve the complex problem of equation calculation in his daily work, the basic principles and structure of electronic computers were designed in the modern sense. In 1939, in cooperation with cleford Berry, with $650 in university research funding, a complete prototype of ABC was developed. However, in October 1941, mocori spent five days in the atanazov family and took this opportunity to "steal" the findings and ideas of the study, later, he created ENIAC together with ektor and applied for a patent. It is known as "the father of modern computing machines ".

At that time, Atanasov was not aware that his invention would affect human history and possibly a huge economy. He did not apply for patent protection for himself. In 1942, he applied for service from the naval forces and had no time to take care of the matter. The University of Iowa did not pay much attention to the invention, and the graduate students in the Department removed ABC to take advantage of the 300 vacuum e-tubes on the computer that were very scarce during the war. Today, the ABC lab at the University of Iowa is just a replica.

According to little Atanasov, Honeywell, as the plaintiff in 1967, asked him to act as a witness and sued randmale and mocori for plagiarizing him with his ideas and making profits. After six years of litigation and 135 trials, the Minnesota District Court of America issued a formal decision on October 19, 1973 to overturn and revoke a patent that was supposed to expire on 1984. The decision said: "The basic idea of modern computers is from john vincent atenov."

No further appeal was made by both parties. The second day after the Court pronounced the verdict, the news and reports on the incident were overwhelmed by media speculation about the political scandal "Water Gate event.

Little Atanasov told Netease that the reason why Netease reposted history thirty years later is to restore the truth of history. "After winning the case in that year, on the one hand, the US media reports on the Water Gate incident have diluted people's impression on the incident. On the other hand, many large computer companies hired public relations companies to spend money to promote the first computer in 1945. My father was 80 years old, he has no energy or money to keep entangled with those media and companies."

Professor Zhang kezhao, Director of the Department of Computer Science at Iowa State University, Professor at Tsinghua University, and Yuan chuankuan, dean of Zhongguancun Innovation Research Institute, have been working hard to clarify this "historical misunderstanding", said Yuan chuankuan, we hope that we can save the truth to the fullest extent.

Zhang kezhao said that the reason why the old story is repeated is that we need to respect history, and it is entirely out of "righteousness" rather than "profit". In the future, a fund will be established. Yes, raise a special fund to reward those inventors and later scholars. Text/Zhang jingke

Source: Netease Technology Report