"The Bulgarian - the father of the electronic computer" is how John Vincent Atanasoff, born on October 4, 1903 in Hamilton, USA, was known in his father’s homeland. Born to a Bulgarian father and Irish mother, the innovator's professional career began at Iowa State College as a mathematics and physics professor. 

The American physicist, mathematician and electrical engineer is the inventor of a model of an electronic digital computer with regenerative capacitor memory, composed of multiple computing modules and performing logical operations with binary numbers. His collaborator was Clifford Berry. Due to the United States entering World War II, their project remained incomplete and the prototype was lost, but the development remained known as the Atanasoff-Berry computer.  

On June 15, 1995, at the age of 91, John Atanasov passed away from this world, but will forever remain in Bulgarians' minds as the inventor of the electronic computer.   

Read more about the scientist's life in this publication from the collection of Radio Bulgaria: 

• John Atanasoff: from the binary system to the first computer