John Vincent Atanasoff, American physicist and academic, invented the Atanasoff–Berry computer (died 1995)

John Vincent Atanasoff was an American physicist and inventor credited with inventing the first electronic digital computer. Atanasoff invented the first electronic digital computer in the 1930s at Iowa State College. Challenges to his claim were resolved in 1973 when the Honeywell v. Sperry Rand lawsuit ruled that Atanasoff was the inventor of the computer. His special-purpose machine has come to be called the Atanasoff–Berry Computer.

The Atanasoff–Berry computer (ABC) was the first automatic electronic digital computer. The device was limited by the technology of the day. The ABC's priority is debated among historians of computer technology, because it was neither programmable, nor Turing-complete. Conventionally, the ABC would be considered the first electronic ALU – which is integrated into every modern processor's design.