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Stored Program
A stored-program computer is a computer that stores program instructions in electronically, electromagnetically, or optically accessible memory. This contrasts with systems that stored the program instructions with plugboards or similar mechanisms. The definition is often extended with the requirement that the treatment of programs and data in memory be interchangeable or uniform. Description In principle, stored-program computers have been designed with various architectural characteristics. A computer with a von Neumann architecture stores program data and instruction data in the same memory, while a computer with a Harvard architecture has separate memories for storing program and data. However, the term ''stored-program computer'' is sometimes used as a synonym for the von Neumann architecture. Jack Copeland considers that it is "historically inappropriate, to refer to electronic stored-program digital computers as 'von Neumann machines. Hennessy and Patterson wrote tha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer
A computer is a machine that can be Computer programming, programmed to automatically Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (''computation''). Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as Computer program, ''programs'', which enable computers to perform a wide range of tasks. The term computer system may refer to a nominally complete computer that includes the Computer hardware, hardware, operating system, software, and peripheral equipment needed and used for full operation; or to a group of computers that are linked and function together, such as a computer network or computer cluster. A broad range of Programmable logic controller, industrial and Consumer electronics, consumer products use computers as control systems, including simple special-purpose devices like microwave ovens and remote controls, and factory devices like industrial robots. Computers are at the core of general-purpose devices ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
EDSAC
The Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC) was an early British computer. Inspired by John von Neumann's seminal ''First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC'', the machine was constructed by Maurice Wilkes and his team at the University of Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory in England to provide a service to the university. EDSAC was the second electronic digital stored-program computer, after the Manchester Mark 1, to go into regular service. Later the project was supported by J. Lyons and Co., J. Lyons & Co. Ltd., intending to develop a commercially applied computer and resulting in Lyons' development of the LEO (computer), LEO I, based on the EDSAC design. Work on EDSAC started during 1947, and it ran its first programs on 6 May 1949, when it calculated a table of square numbers and a list of prime numbers. EDSAC was finally shut down on 11 July 1958, having been superseded by EDSAC 2, which remained in use until 1965. Project and plan The concept ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
First Draft Of A Report On The EDVAC
The ''First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC'' (commonly shortened to ''First Draft'') is an incomplete 101-page document written by John von Neumann and distributed on June 30, 1945 by Herman Goldstine, security officer on the classified ENIAC project. It contains the first published description of the logical design of a computer using the stored-program concept, which has come to be known as the von Neumann architecture; the name has become controversial due to von Neumann's failure to name other contributors. History Von Neumann wrote the report by hand while commuting by train to Los Alamos, New Mexico and mailed the handwritten notes back to Philadelphia. Goldstine had the report typed and duplicated. While the date on the typed report is June 30, 24 copies of the ''First Draft'' were distributed to persons closely connected with the EDVAC project five days earlier on June 25. Interest in the report caused it to be sent all over the world; Maurice Wilkes of Cambridge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
EDVAC
EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer) was one of the earliest electronic computers. It was built by Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. Along with ORDVAC, it was a successor to the ENIAC. Unlike ENIAC, it was binary rather than decimal, and was designed to be a stored-program computer. ENIAC inventors, John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, proposed the EDVAC's construction in August 1945. A contract to build the new computer was signed in April 1946 with an initial budget of US$100,000. EDVAC was delivered to the Ballistic Research Laboratory in 1949. The Ballistic Research Laboratory became a part of the US Army Research Laboratory in 1952. Functionally, EDVAC was a binary serial computer with automatic addition, subtraction, multiplication, programmed division and automatic checking with an ultrasonic serial memory having a capacity of 1,024 44-bit words. EDVAC's average addition time was 864 microseconds and it ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator
The Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC) was an early British computer. Inspired by John von Neumann's seminal ''First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC'', the machine was constructed by Maurice Wilkes and his team at the University of Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory in England to provide a service to the university. EDSAC was the second electronic digital stored-program computer, after the Manchester Mark 1, to go into regular service. Later the project was supported by J. Lyons & Co. Ltd., intending to develop a commercially applied computer and resulting in Lyons' development of the LEO I, based on the EDSAC design. Work on EDSAC started during 1947, and it ran its first programs on 6 May 1949, when it calculated a table of square numbers and a list of prime numbers. EDSAC was finally shut down on 11 July 1958, having been superseded by EDSAC 2, which remained in use until 1965. Project and plan The conception of the EDSAC I can be trac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Drum Memory
Drum memory was a magnetic data storage device invented by Gustav Tauschek in 1932 in Austria. Drums were widely used in the 1950s and into the 1960s as computer memory. Many early computers, called drum computers or drum machines, used drum memory as the main working memory of the computer. Some drums were also used as Auxiliary memory, secondary storage as for example various IBM_drum_storage, IBM drum storage drives and the UNIVAC FASTRAND series of drums. Drums were displaced as primary computer memory by magnetic core memory, which offered a better balance of size, speed, cost, reliability and potential for further improvements. Drums were then replaced by hard disk drives for secondary storage, which were both less expensive and offered denser storage. The manufacturing of drums ceased in the 1970s. Technical design A drum memory or drum storage unit contained a large metal cylinder, coated on the outside surface with a ferromagnetic recording material. It could be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Birkbeck, University Of London
Birkbeck, University of London (formally Birkbeck College, University of London), is a Public university, public research university located in London, England, and a constituent college, member institution of the University of London. Established in 1823 as the London Mechanics' Institute by its founder Joseph Clinton Robertson and its supporters George Birkbeck, Jeremy Bentham, John Hobhouse, 1st Baron Broughton, J. C. Hobhouse and Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux, Henry Brougham, Birkbeck is one of the few universities to specialise in evening higher education in the United Kingdom. Birkbeck's main building is in Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden in Central London. Birkbeck offers more than 200 undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. Birkbeck's academic activities are organised into five constituent faculties, which are subdivided into nineteen departments. The university is a member of academic organisations such as the Association of Commonwealth U ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kathleen Booth
Kathleen Hylda Valerie Booth ( Britten, 9 July 1922 – 29 September 2022) was a British computer scientist and mathematician who wrote the first assembly language and designed the assembler and autocode for the first computer systems at Birkbeck College, University of London. She helped design three different machines including the ARC ( Automatic Relay Calculator), SEC ( Simple Electronic Computer), and APE(X)C. Early life and education Kathleen Britten was born in Stourbridge, Worcestershire, England, on 9 July 1922. She obtained a BSc in mathematics from Royal Holloway, University of London, in 1944 and went on to get a PhD in Applied Mathematics in 1950 from King's College London. She married her colleague Andrew Donald Booth in 1950 and had two children. Career Kathleen Booth worked at Birkbeck College, 1946–62.. She travelled to the United States as Andrew Booth's research assistant in 1947, visiting with John von Neumann at Princeton University. While at Princeton ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrew Donald Booth
Andrew Donald Booth (11 February 1918 – 29 November 2009)Andrew Booth: scientist who invented the magnetic storage device '''', 12 January 2010. was a British electrical engineer, physicist and computer scientist, who was an early developer of the magnetic drum memory for s. He is known for [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
APEXC
The APE(X)C, or All Purpose Electronic (X) Computer series was designed by Andrew Donald Booth at Birkbeck, University of London, Birkbeck College, London in the early 1950s. His work on the APE(X)C series was sponsored by the British Rayon Research Association.Early British computers, Simon Hugh Lavington 1980 Although the naming conventions are slightly unclear, it seems the first model belonged to the BRRA.History of Computing:Learning from the Past, Arthur Tatnall Springer, 2010 According to Booth, the X stood for X-company. One of the series was also known as the APE(X)C or All Purpose Electronic X-Ray Computer and was sited at Birkbeck. Background From 1943 on, Booth started working on the determination of crystal structures using X-ray diffraction data. The computations involved were extremely tedious and there was ample incentive for automating the process. He developed an analogue computer to compute the reciprocal spacings of the diffraction pattern. ARC and SEC Booth ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ENIAC
ENIAC (; Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was the first Computer programming, programmable, Electronics, electronic, general-purpose digital computer, completed in 1945. Other computers had some of these features, but ENIAC was the first to have them all. It was Turing-complete and able to solve "a large class of numerical problems" through reprogramming. ENIAC was designed by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert to calculate artillery external ballistics, firing tables for the United States Army's Ballistic Research Laboratory (which later became a part of the United States Army Research Laboratory, Army Research Laboratory). However, its first program was a study of the feasibility of the thermonuclear weapon. ENIAC was completed in 1945 and first put to work for practical purposes on December 10, 1945.* ENIAC was formally dedicated at the University of Pennsylvania on February 15, 1946, having cost $487,000 (), and called a "Giant Brain" by the press. It had ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Electromechanical
Electromechanics combine processes and procedures drawn from electrical engineering and mechanical engineering. Electromechanics focus on the interaction of electrical and mechanical systems as a whole and how the two systems interact with each other. This process is especially prominent in systems such as those of DC or AC rotating electrical machines which can be designed and operated to generate power from a mechanical process ( generator) or used to power a mechanical effect ( motor). Electrical engineering in this context also encompasses electronics engineering. Electromechanical devices are ones which have both electrical and mechanical processes. Strictly speaking, a manually operated switch is an electromechanical component due to the mechanical movement causing an electrical output. Though this is true, the term is usually understood to refer to devices which involve an electrical signal to create mechanical movement, or vice versa mechanical movement to create an ele ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
