A History of Modern Computing, pp. 27-57, 1940s-1950s (1)

Read one of the following papers and describe how its key ideas have influenced computing today. Connect these ideas to specific parts of the paper you read. Document your report with at least three sources other than the paper you choose to write about.

John von Neumann, "First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC," (Moore School of Electrical Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, U. S. Army Contract No. W-670-ORD-4926, 1945 Jun 30). Transcription by Michael Godfrey available online at http://qss.stanford.edu/~godfrey/vonNeumann/vnedvac.pdf (Information Systems Lab, Stanford University, accessed 2004 Sep 15).

Vannevar Bush, "As We May Think," Atlantic Monthly 176, no. 1 (1945 Jul), 101-108. Also available online at http://www.w3.org/History/1945/vbush/ (World Wide Web Consortium, accessed 2004 Oct 4).

Alan M. Turing, "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" Mind: A Quarterly Review of Psychology and Philosophy, vol. 49, no. 236 (1950), 433-460. Also available online at http://www.turingarchive.org/browse.php/B/9 (King's College, University of Cambridge, accessed 2004 Sep 25).

Notes

1. Paul E. Ceruzzi, A History of Modern Computing, 2nd ed. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003).