The first computer was the ENIAC, right? Wait, no? If you're ready to be schooled—by Pulitzer winning A Thousand Acres author Jane Smiley, no less—check out this Wired interview that gives credit where it's due: Iowa.
It may seem a little incongruous that Smiley's current project, The Man Who Invented the Computer, is a biography of John Vincent Atanasoff, who began assembly of his desk-sized computer at Iowa State University in the late 1930s. But then you remember two things: one, that Smiley attended and taught at Iowa State for two decades, and that geek stories have every bit as much wonder and passion to them as King Lear ever did. [Wired; Photo credit: Alessandra Sanguinetti]
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