Von Neumann architecture

1. Introduction

In the early days of computing (1940s), computers were built to carry out a very specific task, for example breaking secret wartime codes. But if the computer then had to do another job, it literally had to be completely re-wired by hand. This could take weeks. There was no such thing as a 'software update' in those days!

Mr Von Neumann was a scientist who had an idea of how to create a computer that was far easier to change, this is known as the Von Neumann architecture.

Von Neumann architecture is where both the data and the software that are currently being used are stored in computer memory (RAM).

It is also known as a 'stored program' computer

With this architecture, the task a computer is working on can be changed by simply loading a different program into memory.