The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution

by Walter Isaacson

was necessary to switch tapes manually every time there was a call for a subroutine. Von Neumann became convinced that the only solution was to build a computer that worked at electronic speeds and could store and modify programs in an internal memory.

Thus he was primed to be part of the next big advance: the development of a stored-memory computer. So it was fortuitous that, in late August 1944, he had an encounter on the platform of the train station of the Aberdeen Proving Ground.

Captain Herman Goldstine, the Army liaison who was working with Mauchly and Eckert on the ENIAC,

“Fortunately for me von Neumann was a warm, friendly person who did his best to make people feel relaxed.”

“When it became clear to von Neumann that I was concerned with the development of an electronic computer capable of 333 multiplications per second,

“The thing that Von Neumann had, which I’ve noticed that other geniuses have, is the ability to pick out, in a particular problem, the one crucial thing that’s important.”

important attribute of commingling data and programming instructions in the same stored memory. The memory could be erasable, what we now call read-write memory.

The computer could modify its own program based on the results it was getting. To facilitate this, von Neumann came up with a variable-address program language that enabled an easy switch to substitute instructions while the program was running.

It would be binary rather than decimal, use mercury delay lines for memory, and include much, though not all, of what became known as “von Neumann architecture.”

Everyone simply called it EDVAC.

The “Draft Report” was an immensely useful document, and it guided the development of subsequent computers for at least a decade. Von Neumann’s decision to write it and allow Goldstine to distribute it reflected the openness of academic-oriented scientists, especially mathematicians, who tend to want to publish and disseminate rather than attempt to own intellectual property.

That course, largely followed by the developers of the Internet and the Web, can spur innovation through the rapid dissemination and crowdsourced improvement of ideas.

buildings. They knew that creativity came through chance encounters.

The seeds were planted for a shift in perception of electronic technology, especially among the young. It would no longer be the province only of big corporations and the military. It could also empower individuality, personal freedom, creativity, and even a bit of a rebellious spirit.

beyond

“The design of both the ARPANET and the Internet favored military values, such as survivability, flexibility, and high performance, over commercial goals, such as low cost, simplicity, or consumer appeal,”

switched! To switch or not to switch?