Origins & Computability · 1945
First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC (stored-program architecture)
Von Neumann's report set out an architecture in which a computer's instructions are stored in the same memory as its data, letting a single machine be reprogrammed without rewiring.
Editorial record
Plain-language summary
The draft described a design with a central arithmetic unit, a control unit, and a shared memory holding both program and data, communicating over common paths. Because instructions live in modifiable memory, the same hardware can run any program just by loading different contents. This 'stored-program' organization became the template for essentially all subsequent general-purpose computers.
Knowledge graph
Relationships
Descendants
GeneralizesEvidence: Strongly supported
On Computable Numbers (Turing Machine)
Universal machine realized as stored-program computer
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Depends onEvidence: Strongly supported
A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits
Digital logic underlies the computer
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EnablesEvidence: Strongly supported
Enigma / Bletchley Park codebreaking (Bombe / Colossus)
Wartime computing (Colossus) feeds stored-program machine
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EnablesEvidence: Strongly supported
The Manhattan Project / Los Alamos (big-science template)
Manhattan Project computing feeds von Neumann's work
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Source record
Provenance
- Record ID
- O-006
- Record created
- 2026-07-13
- Last reviewed
- 2026-07-14
- Record version
- 2
Citation caveat: Citation metadata is approximate and marked unverified in the source dataset.