Reconsidering the Stored-Program Concept

The first in a three-part series in IEEE Annals, this article gives a historical explanation of the endemic confusion surrounding the stored-program concept. The authors suggest the adoption of more precisely defined alternatives to capture specific aspects of the new approach to computing associated with the 1945 work of von Neumann and his collaborators. The second article, "Engineering--The Miracle of the ENIAC: Implementing the Modern Code Paradigm,"\´ examines the conversion of ENIAC to use the modern code paradigm identified in this article. The third, "Los Alamos Bets on ENIAC: Nuclear Monte Carlo Simulations, 1947-1948,"\´ examines in detail the first program written in the new paradigm to be executed.