Systems

Atanasoff Berry Computer

uh-TAN-uh-soff, for inventor John Vincent Atanasoff's surname.

Also Known As ABC

Early Computer

Citation Formats

General Reference

Computing Atlas. "Atanasoff Berry Computer." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://computing.interactiveatlas.org/systems/atanasoff-berry-computer.

APA Style

Computing Atlas. (n.d.). Atanasoff Berry Computer. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://computing.interactiveatlas.org/systems/atanasoff-berry-computer

BibTeX

@misc{computingatlas-atanasoff-berry-computer,
  author = {Computing Atlas},
  title = {Atanasoff Berry Computer},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://computing.interactiveatlas.org/systems/atanasoff-berry-computer},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

The Atanasoff Berry computer, the ABC, was the first automatic electronic digital computer. Conceived in 1937, it was built at Iowa State College by the mathematics and physics professor John Vincent Atanasoff with the help of graduate student Clifford Berry. It was not programmable, which distinguishes it from more general machines of its era, and in the 1973 decision of Honeywell v. Sperry Rand a federal judge found that Eckert and Mauchly did not themselves first invent the automatic electronic digital computer but derived that subject matter from Atanasoff, the finding at the center of computing's great priority dispute.

Facts

Disputed

Significance

The first automatic electronic digital computer, with priority backed by the 1973 Honeywell v. Sperry Rand finding; historians debate the title because the machine was neither programmable nor Turing complete. 1

The 1973 court finding is a matter of public record; the historians' debate over whether a non programmable machine can hold the title is equally on the record. Both are stated rather than smoothed over.

Year

1937 1

The year the machine was conceived; it was built in the following years at Iowa State College.

Cross-Tradition Connections