John Vincent Atanasoff

John Vincent Atanasoff
Atanasoff, in the 1990s.
Born	(1903-10-04)October 4, 1903 Hamilton, New York, U.S.
Died	June 15, 1995(1995-06-15) (aged 91) Frederick, Maryland, U.S.
Citizenship	American
Fields	Physics
Doctoral advisor	J. H. V. Vleck
Known for	Atanasoff–Berry Computer
Notable awards	Order of Saints Cyril and Methodius, First Class

John Vincent Atanasoff (October 4, 1903 – June 15, 1995) was an American physicist and inventor, best known for being credited with 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.

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 father later became an electrical engineer, whereas his mother, Iva Lucena Purdy, was a teacher of mathematics. Young Atanasoff's ambitions and intellectual pursuits were in part influenced by his parents, whose interests in the natural and applied sciences cultivated in him a sense of critical curiosity and confidence.

Atanasoff was raised in Brewster, Florida. At the age of nine he learned to use a slide rule, followed shortly by the study of logarithms, and subsequently completed high school at Mulberry High School in two years. In 1925, Atanasoff received his bachelor of science degree in electrical engineering from the University of Florida, graduating with straight A's.