Touring and von Neumann – “the long way to the digital computer”

This text is about Alan Touring and John von Neumann. These has played an enormous role in the evolution end development of computation, artificial intelligent and cyberspace. The basics of threes work are Turing’s Touring Machine and von Neumann’s Design for Computers.

The Touring machine is a creation of logic and mathematics. It can also be seen as a game. With games we enter another world, the game world. The only thing that means something is the rules of the game. We must play and follow the rules of the game. As games, the Turing Machine is what is described in the book, -a logically self-contained world. The machine consists of two parts:

• A finite set of rules

• A tape of unlimited length where changeable information can be stored.

With the Turing Machine the only way the player can take initiative is through the input. With this machine Touring draw up the lines for today’s digital commuters.

Von Neumann’s computer builds on the principles of the Touring machine.
In Von Neumann’s computer the programs and data are stored in the same way, as strings of binary digits. That which makes von Neumann’s stored program-computer so powerful is the logical unity. It made the computer versatile, new programs can easily be loaded into the machine, and each program makes the computer into a new machine. In other words, new setts of problems, requires new setts of “computers”.
With the von Neumann’s computer logic and electronics is put together.