fwiw I looked up this paper because I was reading Brian Kernighan book, Understanding the Digital World (2017), and he quotes the first line of this paper in the first chapter of his book, and several times throughout his book (which is written as a layperson's guide to computers and the Internet).
This is how Kernighan describes the paper:
> The basic organization—with a processor, storage for instructions and data, and input and output devices—has been standard since the 1940s. It’s often called the von Neumann architecture , after John von Neumann, who described it in the 1946 paper quoted above. Though there is still debate over whether von Neumann gets too much credit for work done by others, the paper is so clear and insightful that it is well worth reading even today. For example, the quotation at the beginning of this chapter is the first sentence of the paper. Translated into today’s terminology, the CPU provides arithmetic and control, the RAM and disk are memory storage, and the keyboard, mouse and display interact with the human operator.
> ...The architecture of a computer—what the pieces are, what they do, and how they are connected to each other—has not changed since the 1940s. If von Neumann were to come back and examine one of today’s computers, I conjecture that he would be stunned by modern hardware but would find the architecture completely familiar.
> We consequently plan on a fully automatic electronic storage facility of about 4,000 numbers of 40 binary digits each... We believe that this memory capacity exceeds the capacity required for most problems that one deals with at present by a factor of about 10.
"160kb should be enough for anyone" but with a refreshing dollop of humility
Indeed. Considering that the "problems that one deals with at present" were generally calculations of ballistic trajectory for war materiel, this was an entirely accurate statement. As the cost and complexity increase rather rapidly as storage increases, there was inverse incentive to build a system bigger than one "needs". Like building a pedestrian bridge that could support 50 tonnes of weight. But yes, judged by today's standards it's an amusing scale, similar to reading newspaper articles about the menace of early automobiles "hurtling down the roadway at dizzying speeds" of 50 miles per hour. In a hundred years, people will have the same chuckle at our "TB of data" and "high-res images" -- What? No volumetric full-color holograms?
> But yes, judged by today's standards it's an amusing scale...
I don't really find it that amusing tbh -- after all, such a memory "organs" filled large buildings for quite a long stretch. I'm most curious to see the exponential growth -- 160kb in 1946 becomes 640kB in the early 80s, and today my desktop has 64GB of RAM and 1TB SSD and HDD each.
just fact-checked myself, and was reminded that the quote associated with billg is apocryphal
Dr. Fred Brooks mentioned this paper yesterday as the most important paper written in computer science during his "A Personal History of Computing" lecture at UNC.
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 21.9 ms ] threadThis is how Kernighan describes the paper:
> The basic organization—with a processor, storage for instructions and data, and input and output devices—has been standard since the 1940s. It’s often called the von Neumann architecture , after John von Neumann, who described it in the 1946 paper quoted above. Though there is still debate over whether von Neumann gets too much credit for work done by others, the paper is so clear and insightful that it is well worth reading even today. For example, the quotation at the beginning of this chapter is the first sentence of the paper. Translated into today’s terminology, the CPU provides arithmetic and control, the RAM and disk are memory storage, and the keyboard, mouse and display interact with the human operator.
> ...The architecture of a computer—what the pieces are, what they do, and how they are connected to each other—has not changed since the 1940s. If von Neumann were to come back and examine one of today’s computers, I conjecture that he would be stunned by modern hardware but would find the architecture completely familiar.
"160kb should be enough for anyone" but with a refreshing dollop of humility
I don't really find it that amusing tbh -- after all, such a memory "organs" filled large buildings for quite a long stretch. I'm most curious to see the exponential growth -- 160kb in 1946 becomes 640kB in the early 80s, and today my desktop has 64GB of RAM and 1TB SSD and HDD each.
just fact-checked myself, and was reminded that the quote associated with billg is apocryphal