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On 02/10/2015 11:42 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote: Atanasoff and Berry did a GREAT job, but it wasn't actually a "computer" by the Turing definition. It took instructions from cards and executed them as they were read on the card reader. I think it may have had some ability to suppress instructions on some condition, but couldn't actually do a branch. Then, after completing the calculation the built it for, the university junked it and all that was left were some drawings in a few binders. They published NOTHING about the machine itself, and it was largely unknown for DECADES! They probably could have advanced some areas of computing if they had published the technical details of their machine. It was pretty obvious that if they had actually needed a stored program computer with branching ability, they were sharp enough they could have built such a machine, but they just didn't need it for the class of equations they were solving. So, as far as I'm concerned, Atanasoff and Berry are a VERY interesting footnote in early computing, but didn't actually contribute directly to the development of computers. Atanasoff sure upset some people when he testified in the Honeywell vs. Sperry Rand suit. Now, my freshman adviser at Washington University was William Papian, the grad student who worked with Jay Forrester on coincident current core memory! Wow, talk about something that REALLY affected the development of computers! Jon