CHAPTER 2 : COMPUTER SYSTEMS

CHAPTER 2 : COMPUTER SYSTEMS

The principle of the modern computer was proposed by Alan Turing, in his seminal 1936 paper,^[34] On Computable Numbers. Turing proposed a simple device that he called "Universal Computing machine" that is later known as a Universal Turing machine. He proved that such machine is capable of computing anything that is computable by executing instructions (program) stored on tape, allowing the machine to be programmable.

The fundamental concept of Turing's design is stored program, where all instruction for computing is stored in the memory.

Von Neumann acknowledged that the central concept of the modern computer was due to this paper.^[35] Turing machines are to this day a central object of study in theory of computation. Except for the limitations imposed by their finite memory stores, modern computers are said to be Turing-complete, which is to say, they have algorithm execution capability equivalent to a universal Turing machine.