1. Von Neumann architecture
In the early days of computing (1940s), computers were built to carry out a very specific task - breaking secret wartime codes, for example. But if the computer then had to do another job, it literally had to be completely re-wired by hand. This could take weeks. There was no such thing as a 'software update' in those days!
Mr Von Neumann was a scientist who had an idea of how to create a computer that was far easier to change, this is known as the Von Neumann architecture.
In Von Neumann architecture, both the data and the program being run are stored in memory.
It is also known as a 'stored program' computer
With this architecture, if a computer needs to run a different program, it can do so simply by loading the new program into memory.
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