Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of articles that focus on the people behind the names of Iowa State’s buildings.

Atanasoff Hall, located between Coover Hall and Parks Library, is named for John Vincent Atanasoff, former Iowa State student and associate professor, who is known as the father of the computer.

Atanasoff died June 15, 1995, of a stroke at his home in Monravia, Md., at age 91. He invented the first electronic digital computer but did not receive recognition for his work until more than 30 years after he built it.

The prototype computer was built by Atanasoff when he was an associate professor with the help of graduate student Clifford Berry.

The machine, completed in 1939, was the first to use base-two (binary) numbers rather than the traditional base-10 numbers. It used a mechanical clock system, two rotating drums containing capacitors for the memory, vacuum tubes and punched cards for data entry.

Atanasoff conceptualized the machine during a long winter drive. He drove from Ames to Illinois to calm his nerves and stopped at a road house for a couple bourbons, where he conceived the possibility of regenerative memory and logic circuits.

The computer was his solution to simplify the complex mathematical work he and his graduate students were doing.

Atanasoff wanted to patent his machine, and university lawyers sent a copy to a patent lawyer, but the computer was never patented.

In 1942, Atanasoff moved to Washington to do physics for the Navy during World War II. Although he was offered chairmanship of the ISU physics department, he never returned to ISU or to teaching.

His interest turned away from the computer he invented. Neither he nor ISU officials pursued a patent.

In 1945, John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert Jr., who were not affiliated with ISU, built the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) and patented it. Four years earlier, Mauchly had visited Atanasoff and examined his computer, using many of Atanasoff’s ideas in his own creation. For decades, the ENIAC was recognized as the first computer.

Then, on Oct. 19, 1973, federal judge Earl R. Larson voided the patents for the ENIAC, ruling Atanasoff’s research was the source of the fundamental concepts for modern computers.

Atanasoff never made any money from his revolutionary invention. However, he holds about 20 patents. Another of his inventions was the laplaciometer, which he built at ISU in 1935 to analyze the geometry of surfaces.

In 1990, U.S. President George Bush presented Atanasoff with the National Medal of Technology in recognition of his work.

He also received the Navy’s Distinguished Service Award, five honorary doctorates, the Computer Pioneer Medal of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, the Holley Medal of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Distinguished Achievement Citation of Iowa State University.

Atanasoff was born on Oct. 4, 1903, in Hamilton, N.Y. His father was an electrical engineer from Bulgaria.

When Atanasoff was about 14 or 15 years old, he decided he wanted to become a theoretical physicist.

Atanasoff earned his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Florida in 1925.

He completed his master’s degree the following year at ISU, majoring in math and minoring in physics.

In March 1929, he entered the University of Wisconsin to do his doctoral studies in theoretical physics, which he completed in 1930.

He then returned to ISU to teach for 15 years as an associate professor. In June 1926, Atanasoff married Lura Meeks. They had three children, Elsie, Joanne and John V. Atanasoff II, who visited ISU this summer. After Atanasoff moved to Washington to work, however, he and Lura grew apart and they were divorced in 1949.

Shortly after, he married Alice Crosby, a woman from Webster City, who also worked in Washington during the war. In 1952, Atanasoff started his own research and development company, Ordinance Engineering Corporation. He sold the company four years later to Aerojet Engineering Corporation and served as vice president thereafter until he retired in 1961.

Atanasoff’s original computer was disassembled in 1948, and most of the parts were discarded except the drum, which was put on display in the Smithsonian in 1989.

It was returned to ISU when an Ames Laboratory team started researching to build three working replicas of Atanasoff’s original computer. The project turned out to be so costly and time-consuming (due to a lack of complete plans and few photographs) that only one was actually constructed.

The replica has now been displayed at several events, including a special history exhibit at the Supercomputing ’96 conference in Pittsburgh, Pa. last Nov. 17-22.

Sources: Burks, Alice and Arthur. The First Electronic Computer: The Atanasoff Story. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1988.

Levy, Claudia. “Obituaries: John V. Atanasoff Dies at Age 91 Invented First Electronic Computer,” The Washington Post, June 19, 1995.

Mollenhoff, Clark. Atanasoff: Forgotten Father of the Computer. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1988.

O’Donnell, Thomas. “Computer model to go on display,” Des Moines Register, Nov. 18, 1996.

O’Donnell, Thomas. “Medical Techs to look into early computer,” Des Moines Register, March 26, 1996.