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One computer was first but another got credit, creating generations of hard feelings that officials of two universities say they're finally striving to soothe.
It has been half a century since John Atanasoff and research assistant Clifford Berry built the Atanasoff-Berry computer (ABC) at Iowa State University, where researchers are now trying to build a replica. The original was forgotten and cut up for parts.
Meanwhile, officials at the University of Pennsylvania want to switch on part of the much better known ENIAC goliath early next year in celebrations marking the impact of the computer.
But neither side is tweaking the other.
"We want to make it clear, this is not dueling replicas," said Delwyn Bluhm of the Ames Lab at Iowa State.
"We're trying to work it out with them. These are two tremendous inventions. It just happens that the Atanasoff machine was slightly first.
THEREIN LIES the controversy.
Atanasoff only recently received recognition for a machine using vacuum tubes that could solve equations containing 29 variables.
Finished in 1942, it was left behind when Atanasoff was called to the war effort.
The machine was the first to separate processing from memory and to use the binary number system in electronic computing, according to researcher Allan Mackintosh in a 1988 article for Scientific American.
But for decades, credit for inventing the computer went to the Penn team of the late John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, who built the room-sized ENIAC - the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer - funded by the military and finished in 1945.
It was used to calculate trajectories for artillery shells and was useful until the late 1950s. Most of it is now displayed at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C.
The rest, a 20-foot bank of tubes, is displayed at Penn and is the centerpiece of a celebration planned in February.
Atanasoff's contribution to the mix came to light by legal accident.
The former Sperry Rand Corp. bought the ENIAC patent and started charging royalties.
Honeywell Inc., refused to pay and challenged the patent in 1967.
The trial in Minneapolis showed that the ENIAC was derived from information Atanasoff had shared with Mauchly in the early 1940s, and that Mauchly had seen the ABC in action.
On Oct., 19, 1973, federal judge Earl Larson ruled the patent was invalid. Sperry did not appeal.
Iowa State, smarting from the mistake of not pursuing a patent itself, has done its best to honor Atanasoff, now 90 and ailing. He lives in the Washington, D.C. area. Using donations totaling about $250,000, the school has decided to build a working replica of his machine.
"It's important that one of the most important intellectual developments of mankind occurred here, in the middle of a cornfield, not on one of the coasts. I think Iowans can take pride in that," said George Strawn, director of ISU's computation center.
Both during the trial and after, Mauchly said he did not learn anything of significance from Atanasoff.
But Steve Brown, assistant dean for external affairs at Penn and coordinator of the ENIAC celebration, said it's time to put the dispute to rest.
"We say right out that the ENIAC was built on the shoulders of giants; that's how advances are made in science," he said.
"The court case created some horrendous bad feelings; we'd like to get beyond that. We'd like to recognize the Atanasoff contribution."
He and Bluhm have exchanged telephone calls to share information although no formal plans have been made.
Brown said that of Feb. 14, 1996, assuming the Smithsonian gives permission, the university's portion of ENIAC will be switched on and commanded to add.
The machine is a backdrop for a celebration marking half a century of change caused by the computer.
REBUILDING THE Atanasoff machine will be difficult, since key parts are hard to come by. Researchers still don't know how the machine displayed results - anyone who saw the original is asked to contact Bluhm - and they can't find a card-punching device that Atanasoff used to feed the machine its problems.
While olive branches are being extended by both sides, Atanasoff backers still feel snubbed.
"I snidely said at the last planning session, if (Pennsylvania officials) really want to be authentic, they should steal the idea for building a replica and then not give us credit," ISU scientist John Gustafson said.
By: Leonard Richard
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