Between 1939 and 1942, John Vincent Atanasoff and his assistant, Clifford E. Berry created the world’s first electronic digital computer, the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC). At the time, Atanasoff was a former Iowa State professor of Physics and Mathematics, and Berry was a graduate student in Electrical Engineering. They built the computer at Iowa State University from 1937 to 1942. While it was smaller than other computers of the time period, it was also the first to use capacitors for storage, as in current RAM, and was capable of performing 30 simultaneous operations. Unfortunately, it was neglected and eventually disassembled for parts. However, in 1994, a team from Iowa State University began to rebuild the computer and finished it in 1997.
