Understanding General-Purpose Computers
Understanding General-Purpose Computers
BACK AT THE dawn of mechanical computation, computers were “special-purpose.” One computer would solve one kind of mathematical problem, and if you had a different problem, you’d build a different computer. But during World War II, thanks to the government-funded advancements made by such scientific luminaries as Alan Turing and John von Neumann, a new kind of computer came into existence: the “general-purpose” digital computer.