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John Vincent Atanasoff Papers

The Special Collections Department houses the papers of John Vincent Atanasoff, inventor of the digital computer. Atanasoff (1903-1995) received his M.S. (1926) in Mathematics from Iowa State College (University) and received his Ph.D. (1930) in Theoretical Physics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He returned to Iowa State in 1930 as Assistant Professor in mathematics and physics and was promoted to Associate Professor (1936). Atanasoff began developing concepts for an electronic computing machine in 1937. It was shortly thereafter that he, along with graduate student Clifford Berry, started work on the world's first electronic digital computer. The computer would later be named the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC). In addition to Atanasoff's biographical information, correspondence, and invention and research files, the collection includes materials regading the case of Honeywell, Inc. v. Sperry-Randas and the development of the ABC Computer

For more information about this collection, please see the finding aid.