Editing The Von Neumann Architecture (section)

== <span style="color: #FFFFFF;">Understanding</span> ==
The Von Neumann architecture is understood through '''Flexibility''' and '''Traffic'''.

'''1. The "Software" Revolution (Stored-Program)''':
Before Von Neumann, "Programming" was "Plumbing."
* If you wanted the computer to do something new, you had to "Pull out cables" and "Flip switches."
* Von Neumann realized that a "Program" is just a "List of numbers."
* By storing that list in the same memory as the data, you could "Change the machine's personality" in a millisecond.
* This is why you can "Close a Game" and "Open a Word Doc" without touching the hardware.

'''2. The Heartbeat (The Cycle)''':
A computer only does "One tiny thing" at a time.
* It "Fetches" instruction #1.
* It "Decodes" it: "Ah, this means ADD."
* It "Executes" it: "2 + 2 = 4."
* It "Fetches" instruction #2.
* It does this **Billions of times per second** (Giga-Hertz). Speed is the "Magic" that makes a collection of "Tiny steps" look like "Intelligence."

'''3. The "Bottleneck" (The Limit)''':
The CPU is a "Ferrari" stuck in "Traffic."
* The CPU can process data at 4.0 GHz.
* But the "Bus" (the wires to the memory) can only move data at a fraction of that speed.
* This means the CPU spends most of its life "Waiting" for data to arrive. Modern computing is the quest to "Widening the road" or "Putting memory inside the CPU" (Cache).

'''The 'EDVAC' Report (1945)'''': The paper where Von Neumann described this design. Interestingly, he was only the "Editor" of the ideas of many people (like Eckert and Mauchly), but because his name was on the "First Draft," the architecture is named after him.
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