> The big name in early computer architecture was Von Neumann, who laid out the basic architecture of the stored-program binary digital computer, which is what

> The big name in early computer architecture was Von Neumann, who laid out the basic architecture of the stored-program binary digital computer, which is what we use today. (Read the report on the EDVAC; it's a classic on computer architecture. The one thing he missed was the need for index registers.) This is incorrect. Von Neumann wrote the report, and it was circulated with only his name. As a result the architecture is attributed to him, despite the fact that Eckert and Mauchly came up with it and wrote about it a few years before Von Neumann was even part of the project. > The reality of early computing was that electronic arithmetic was worked out well before WWII. James W. Bryce of IBM was working on an electronic multiplier in 1934, ... Turing's famous paper was published in 1936. Calculation machinery should be attributed to Babbage, and Turings contribution went beyond simpler fixed function machines. Here's Frankle's words on the topic: "I know that in or about 1943 or '44 von Neumann was well aware of the fundamental importance of Turing's paper of 1936… Von Neumann introduced me to that paper and at his urging I studied it with care. Many people have acclaimed von Neumann as the "father of the computer" (in a modern sense of the term) but I am sure that he would never have made that mistake himself. He might well be called the midwife, perhaps, but he firmly emphasized to me, and to others I am sure, that the fundamental conception is owing to Turing— in so far as not anticipated by Babbage… Both Turing and von Neumann, of course, also made substantial contributions to the "reduction to practice" of these concepts but I would not regard these as comparable in importance with the introduction and explication of the concept of a computer able to store in its memory its program of activities and of modifying that program in the course of these activities." Turing absolutely deserves the acclaim he receives, and it has nothing to do with him being "a poster child for the gay movement". I'll have to stop at this point to avoid crossing hnews policies re personally directed comments.