Engineering and technology notes

Atanasoff–Berry computer

The Atanasoff–Berry computer (ABC) was the first automatic electronic digital computer, an early electronic digital computing device that has remained somewhat obscure. The ABC’s priority is debated among historians of computer technology, because it was neitherprogrammable, nor Turing-complete.

Conceived in 1937, the machine was built byIowa State College mathematics and physics professor John Vincent Atanasoff with the help of graduate student Clifford Berry. It was designed only to solve systems of linear equations and was successfully tested in 1942. However, its intermediate result storage mechanism, a paper card writer/reader, was not perfected, and when John Vincent Atanasoff left Iowa State College for World War II assignments, work on the machine was discontinued.[2] The ABC pioneered important elements of modern computing, including binary arithmetic and electronic switching elements, but its special-purpose nature and lack of a changeable, stored program distinguish it from modern computers. The computer was designated an IEEE Milestone in 1990.

Atanasoff and Berry’s computer work was not widely known until it was rediscovered in the 1960s, amidst conflicting claims about the first instance of an electronic computer. At that timeENIAC, that had been created by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, was considered to be the first computer in the modern sense, but in 1973 a U.S. District Court invalidated the ENIAC patent and concluded that the ENIAC inventors had derived the subject matter of the electronic digital computer from Atanasoff (see Patent dispute). When, in the mid-1970s, the secrecy surrounding the British World War II development of the Colossus computers that pre-dated ENIAC, was lifted and Colossus was described at a conference in Los Alamos, New Mexico in June 1976, John Mauchly and Konrad Zuse were reported to have been astonished.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atanasoff%E2%80%93Berry_computer

John Vincent Atanasoff

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.

John Vincent Atanasoff
John Atanasov.gif

Atanasoff, in the 1990s.

Born October 4, 1903
HamiltonNew York, U.S.
Died June 15, 1995 (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

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.[1][2][3][4] His special-purpose machine has come to be called the Atanasoff–Berry Computer.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Vincent_Atanasoff

Z3 (computer)

Z3 (computer)

Zuse Z3 replica on display at Deutsches Museum in Munich

The Z3 was an electromechanical computer designed by Konrad Zuse. It was the world’s first working programmable, fully automatic digital computer.[1] The Z3 was built with 2,000 relays, implementing a 22-bit word length that operated at a clock frequency of about 5–10 Hz.[2]Program code[3] and constant data were stored on punched film.

The Z3 was completed in Berlin in 1941. The German Aircraft Research Institute used it to perform statistical analyses of wing flutter.[4]Zuse asked the German government for funding to replace the relays with fully electronic switches, but funding was denied during World War II since such development was deemed “not war-important”.[5]:148 The original Z3 was destroyed in 1943 during an Allied bombardment of Berlin. The Z3 was originally called V3 (Versuchsmodell 3 or Experimental Model 3) but was renamed to not be confused with Germany’s V-weapons.[6] A fully functioning replica was built in the 1960s by Zuse’s company, Zuse KG, and is on permanent display at Deutsches Museum in Munich. The Z3 was demonstrated in 1998 to be, in principle, Turing-complete.[7][8] However, because it lacked conditional branching, the Z3 only meets this definition by speculatively computing all possible outcomes of a calculation.

Thanks to this machine and its predecessors, Konrad Zuse is often regarded as the inventor of the computer.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z3_(computer)

Konrad Zuse

Konrad Zuse (German: [ˈkɔnʁat ˈtsuːzə]; 22 June 1910 – 18 December 1995) was a German civil engineer, inventor and computer pioneer. His greatest achievement was the world’s first programmable computer; the functional program-controlled Turing-complete Z3 became operational in May 1941. Thanks to this machine and its predecessors, Zuse has often been regarded as the inventor of the modern computer.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Konrad_Zuse

ESP32

ESP32 is a series of low cost, low power system on a chip microcontrollers with integrated Wi-Fi & dual-mode Bluetooth. The ESP32 series employs a Tensilica Xtensa LX6 microprocessor in both dual-core and single-core variations. ESP32 is created and developed by Espressif Systems, a Shanghai-based Chinese company, and is manufactured by TSMC using their 40 nm process.[2] It is a successor to the ESP8266 microcontroller.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESP32