Wikinventia — Atlas of discoveries and inventions · Industrial Age

Stored-program architecture — John von Neumann

1945 AD · Transmission: Global
ComputingSystemNorth American

In June 1945 John von Neumann circulated the "First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC," a document describing a computer architecture where program and data share the same memory. This principle — the stored program — is the fundamental difference between a fixed calculator and a reprogrammable computer: instead of rewiring the machine to change its function, it is enough to load a new program into memory. Von Neumann architecture defines the structural pattern followed by practically all modern processors: arithmetic-logic unit, control unit, memory, and input/output system. Turing had theoretically formalized the concept; von Neumann translated it into engineering specification.

InstitutionMoore School of Electrical Engineering / Institute for Advanced Study
Historical regionPhiladelphia / Princeton, United States
Primary sourcevon Neumann, J. — "First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC" (Moore School of Electrical Engineering, June 1945)
Secondary sourceEckert, J.P. & Mauchly, J. — contributions to the EDVAC design documented in internal correspondence, 1944–1945
Original languageEnglish
View this entry in the interactive atlas → View in graph →