Slightly outdated...but whatever...
About John Atanasov.
John Atanasov (who was a bulgarian in origin, living in USA). He, along with Clifford Berry invented the first electric computer, where "electric" i mean it was assembled from electronical parts, instead of mechanical. Thus the first "real" computer in the world was invented.
Their computer wasn't like the the ones we have in our homes, in the terms of power, performance and flexibility.
But the arhitecture of their computer was absolutely the same - John Von Neumann's, which stated that instructions had to be fed in on an a static source (like the modern memory storages, instead of paper tape, or by rearranging hundreds of removable plug wires into a special pattern on a panel, like an old telephone switchboard). Von Neumann also recommended replacing the decimal number system with binary inside the computer, which is particularly suited to the computer as it can be represented easily using electrical charge.
I suppose every computers-interrested person should know these facts...:thumbup: