Skip to main content

Stored-program architecture

Several developers of ENIAC, recognizing its flaws, came up with a far more flexible and elegant design, which came to be known as the "stored-program architecture" or von Neumann architecture. This design was first formally described by John von Neumann in the paper First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC, distributed in 1945. A number of projects to develop computers based on the stored-program architecture commenced around this time, the first of which was completed in 1948 at the University of Manchester in England, the Manchester Small-Scale Experimental Machine (SSEM or "Baby"). The Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC), completed a year after the SSEM at Cambridge University, was the first practical, non-experimental implementation of the stored-program design and was put to use immediately for research work at the university. Shortly thereafter, the machine originally described by von Neumann's paper—EDVAC—was completed but did not see full-time use for an additional two years.
Nearly all modern computers implement some form of the stored-program architecture, making it the single trait by which the word "computer" is now defined. While the technologies used in computers have changed dramatically since the first electronic, general-purpose computers of the 1940s, most still use the von Neumann architecture.
Die of an Intel 80486DX2 microprocessor (actual size: 12×6.75 mm) in its packaging
Beginning in the 1950s, Soviet scientists Sergei Sobolev and Nikolay Brusentsov conducted research on ternary computers, devices that operated on a base three numbering system of −1, 0, and 1 rather than the conventional binary numbering system upon which most computers are based. They designed the Setun, a functional ternary computer, at Moscow State University. The device was put into limited production in the Soviet Union, but supplanted by the more common binary architecture.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Pointers in C

Pointers are an extremely powerful programming tool. They can make some things much easier, help improve your program's efficiency, and even allow you to handle unlimited amounts of data. For example, using pointers is one way to have a function modify a variable passed to it. It is also possible to use pointers to dynamically allocate memory, which means that you can write programs that can handle nearly unlimited amounts of data on the fly--you don't need to know, when you write the program, how much memory you need. Wow, that's kind of cool. Actually, it's very cool, as we'll see in some of the next tutorials. For now, let's just get a basic handle on what pointers are and how you use them. What are pointers? Why should you care? Pointers are aptly name: they "point" to locations in memory. Think of a row of safety deposit boxes of various sizes at a local bank. Each safety deposit box will have a number associated with it so that you ca...
30 comments
Read more

Types of Computer Networks(LAN,MAN,WAN)

Types of Computer Networks Computer networks are categorized according to: How they are organized physically. The way they are used. The distance over which they operate. Three main types of computer networks are as follows: LAN   (Local Area Network) WAN (Wide Area Network) MAN ( Metropolitan-Area Network) LAN (Local Area Network) LAN is the most common type of network . LAN stands for Local area Network . It covers a small area. Most LANs are used to connect computers in a single building or group of buildings. Hundreds or thousands of computer maybe connected through LAN. Typical LANs can be found in industrial plants, office buildings, and college or university campuses. LANs are capable of transmitting data at very fast rate. Data transmission speeds of LAN are 1 to 100 megabits per second. It is much faster than data transmission over a telephone line. LAN can transmit data in a limited distance. There is also a limit on the number of...
9 comments
Read more

Ring topologies

Ring topologies are similar to bus topologies, except they transmit in one direction only from station to station. Typically, a ring architecture will use separate physical ports and wires for transmit and receive. Token Ring is one example of a network technology that uses a ring topology.
7 comments
Read more