Computer Architecture: The Pioneers Of John Von Neumann Architecture

Throughout the annals of history, there have been countless number of pioneers and inventors of computer technology, but the one that has had the most lasting impact has been John von Neumann. Through his discoveries and reports, von Neumann established his eminent von Neumann architecture that laid the foundation for computer architecture that is still in use today on modern machines. In the majority of computers today, we use the foundation of the von Neumann architecture by using the fetch-decode-execute cycle that he wrote about in the First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC (Reed, 2011, p. 107). Compared with other pioneers, such as Alan Turing, J. Presper Eckert, and Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, their contributions pale in comparison to the

Presper Eckert was the designer of one of the earliest computers that utilized John von Neumann’s “stored-program” architecture, the EDVAC (Reed, 2011, p. 106). Without John von Neumann, Eckert’s computer would not have gained the success that it did with that specific architecture. The EDVAC was the first computer to utilize von Neumann’s architecture, which also resulted in focusing more on the programming aspect of a computer rather than the wiring. We can definitively say that, compared with Eckert’s contribution, John von Neumann’s contribution is the reason we have “programmable” computers in the first place. His contribution made programming a lot more important, which is one of the most important aspects of computers in our present day lives. Similarly, we can also take Grace Hopper’s contribution into account. She is credited with the development of some of the first high-level programming languages that are used in computers today, one of them known as COBOL (Reed, 2011, p. 109). However, her contribution would not have been possible had von Neumann not created his model. It is because of von Neumann’s model that high level programming became a bigger focus of computers. These inventors and pioneers could finally focus on how to make a computer more efficient by developing programming languages instead of focusing on manual wiring of switches and cables. This also verifies that von Neumann’s contribution single-handedly lead to various other

Not only did his architecture pave the way for our personal computers, but the foundation of his technological discovery is based in the majority of embedded systems, such as cars, smart TVs, and even smart homes. Although he is not the only one who made an impact on our world of computers, he is by far the one who had the greatest impact by allowing us the freedom to focus on making computers more efficient and agile. The computers of today are less error prone and do not require the manual setup that they did back before von Neumann created his architecture. His model allows many of us to enjoy computers for tasks other than computation. We can focus on designing, developing, and creating amazing things through a machine that utilizes his foundation. The fetch-decode-execute and “stored-program” principle in memory allows many of us access to information that we would not have easily had back during his time period. His impact has been one of the greatest on our present day lives, especially lives which revolve around