John Vincent Atanassov

John Vincent Atanassov

John Vincent Atanassov is an American physicist,
mathematician and electrical engineer, inventor of
one of the first electronic digital computers and the
first electronic digital binary computer, which is
built of many computing modules and works with
numbers encoded in binary octal code. Born into a
large family of Bulgarian and Irish, he has been
interested in mathematics and electrical
engineering since he was a child. He graduated in
electrical engineering, and then defended his
master's degree in mathematics and his doctoral
dissertation in theoretical physics. He began his
professional career at Iowa State College as a
professor of mathematics and physics.
The first computer
Atanasov's computer is the first
model of an electronic digital
computer with regenerative
memory. It was created as a
university project of an
innovative calculator in the
period from 1939 to 1942. The
machine was designed and
created during the work of John
Atanassov as a lecturer in the
Department of Physics at Iowa
State College.
John Atanassov laid down several new
revolutionary principles, which are
still used in computer technology
today - computational operations are
performed in an environment of
electronic components, random access
memory is implemented using
capacitors. The organization of the
computational process is carried out in
a binary system, using elements that
implement the logical functions
conjunction, disjunction and negation.
The computer has about 300
electronic lamps.
1 - mains transformer,
2 - power supply unit with stabilizer,
3 - electric motor
4 - reducer
5 - arithmetic modules (radio lamps type
6C8)
6 - thyratron block for binary punch
cards (31 thyratrons type 2A4G)
7 - binary perforation transformer

8 - binary input / output devices for recording / reading intermediate results,

9 - electromechanical converter of decimal to binary numbers,
10 and 11 - storage drums (abacus),
12 - transfer / loan drum,
13 - IBM punch card reader,
14 - decimal display,
15 - operating cycle control drum,
16 - single cycle switch,
17 - regeneration / displacement device
Thank you for your
attention!
Димитър Добрев VIII Ж