In 1937, the first digital computer, built at Iowa State University by John V. Atanasoff and Clifford Berry, introduced the ideas of binary arithmetic, regenerative memory, and logic circuits. The Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC) was the world’s first electronic digital computer.

Atanasoff, a former Iowa State professor of physics and mathematics, and Berry, a former physics graduate student and electrical engineering undergraduate, built the computer at Iowa State University from 1937 to 1942.

These ideas were communicated from Atanasoff to John Mauchly, who used them in the design of the better-known ENIAC built several years later.