Abstract
Historians agree that the stored program concept was formulated in 1945 and that its adoption was the most important single step in the development of modern computing. But the “concept” has never been properly defined, and its complex history has left it overloaded with different meanings. The paper surveys its use and development and attempts to separate it into three distinct aspects, each with its own history and each amenable to more precise definition.
This paper draws extensively on ideas and analysis developed during my ongoing collaboration with Mark Priestley and Crispin Rope on a project exploring the ENIAC’s 1948 conversion to a new programming method and its use for the first computerized Monte Carlo calculations. In particular the definitions given of the ”modern programming paradigm” were formulated during discussion with Priestley.
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Haigh, T. (2013). ‘Stored Program Concept’ Considered Harmful: History and Historiography. In: Bonizzoni, P., Brattka, V., Löwe, B. (eds) The Nature of Computation. Logic, Algorithms, Applications. CiE 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 7921. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39053-1_28
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-39053-1_28
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