On September 2, 1943, John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry of Iowa State College filed a patent for the world’s first electronic computer, the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC). The patent was granted on October 19, 1948.

The ABC was a digital computer, meaning that it could only handle information in the form of on/off signals, or bits. It used vacuum tubes to perform calculations, and could store data on drums.

The ABC was not the first computer in the world, but it was the first to be designed specifically for computing. The first computers were actually mechanical devices, like the Difference Engine …