Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer
The edvac ( EDVAC ) is a by J. Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly (both from the ENIAC group) constructed computers from the late 40s . The decisive innovation of the EDVAC compared to earlier calculating machines like the ENIAC or the ASCC was to treat the commands of the program like the data to be processed, to encode them in binary form and to process them in the internal memory. This concept is known today as Von Neumann architecture and was first described in an internal paper by John von Neumann during the development of the EDVAC (“First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC”). Compared to programs on an external punched tape, it enabled much faster processing.
The EDVAC was continuously developed until 1960. After all, it was possible to operate it reliably for up to 20 hours a day.
See also
- Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator , the successor model.
Web links
- John von Neumann : First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC . (PDF; 421 kB) 1945 (English)