Clark Mollenhoff's "Atanasoff, Forgotten Father of the Computer" is the first full-scale examination of the Atanasoff Berry Computer invented by John Vincent Atanasoff at Iowa State College in the late 1930s and built by Atanasoff and Graduate Assistant Clifford E. Berry in the early 1940s. Prior research on the Atanasoff Computer has concentrated on the machine itself, the first electronic digital computer, but Mollenhoff goes beyond the engineering achievement to establish the academic environment in which Atanasoff and Berry worked.
The author documents the odd relationship between Atanasoff and John Mauchly, a Philadelphia engineer who is credited in most histories as the inventor of the first computer. Mollenhoff shows which ideas were Atanasoff's and which of these ideas were "borrowed" by Mauchly for use in the latter's ENIAC computer. The author also explains how Mauchly exploited Atanasoff's engineering genius and personal trust in the pursuit of his own professional ambitions. Mollenhoff recounts this fully documented story of the theivery of Atanasoff's ideas and of the open court battle of the computer giants that finally though belatedly gives John V. Atanasoff his proper recognition.
This is a first-rate account of the key engineering breakthrough of the century . It is thorough, fair-minded, and highly readable, and Mollenhoff's experience shows in the organization of his materials and in his skill as a storyteller. Mollenhoff is a lawyer as well as a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter, and his sensitivity to the ethical and legal issues of this story are apparent throughout. "Atanasoff, Forgotten Father of the Computer" will appeal to a broad audience of general readers as well as to scientists and engineers.
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