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The first documented computer architecture was in the correspondence between Charles Babbage and Ada Lovelace, describing the analytical engine.While building the computer Z1 in 1936, Konrad Zuse described in two patent applications for his future projects that machine instructions could be stored in the same storage used for data, i.e., the stored-program concept.
Charles Babbage KH FRS (/ ˈ b æ b ɪ dʒ /; 26 December 1791 – 18 October 1871) was an English polymath. [1] A mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer, Babbage originated the concept of a digital programmable computer.
A von Neumann architecture scheme. The von Neumann architecture—also known as the von Neumann model or Princeton architecture—is a computer architecture based on the First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC, [1] written by John von Neumann in 1945, describing designs discussed with John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert at the University of Pennsylvania's Moore School of Electrical Engineering.
An instruction set architecture (ISA) is an abstract model of a computer, also referred to as computer architecture.A realization of an ISA is called an implementation.An ISA permits multiple implementations that may vary in performance, physical size, and monetary cost (among other things); because the ISA serves as the interface between software and hardware.
The analytical engine was a proposed digital mechanical general-purpose computer designed by English mathematician and computer pioneer Charles Babbage. [2] [3] It was first described in 1837 as the successor to Babbage's Difference Engine, which was a design for a simpler mechanical calculator.
In 1946, a model for computer architecture was introduced and became known as Von Neumann architecture. Since 1950, the von Neumann model provided uniformity in subsequent computer designs. The von Neumann architecture was considered innovative as it introduced an idea of allowing machine instructions and data to share memory space. [64]
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. [5] [6] However, the term stored-program computer is sometimes used as a synonym for the von Neumann architecture.
A different model of computer use was foreshadowed by the way in which early, pre-commercial, experimental computers were used, where one user had exclusive use of a processor. [36] Some of the first computers that might be called "personal" were early minicomputers such as the LINC and PDP-8 , and later on VAX and larger minicomputers from ...