That's a fair point --- I'm certainly stretching to try to extend 'configurable' into 'stored programs'. I do still think that the shift to storing instructions

That's a fair point --- I'm certainly stretching to try to extend 'configurable' into 'stored programs'. I do still think that the shift to storing instructions in electronic memory (once said memories became available) was less revolutionary than evolutionary. Von Neumann's innovation (or at least the idea he was first to systematically describe) of treating instructions and data as the same type of thing was probably a little more of a leap, but I think all the implications of that weren't realized until later.