The Precursors 
     by Richard L. Whitney                       
     John von Neumann

     John von Neumann (pronounced Noy-man), born in Budapest, Hungary, of 
     German parents, was one of the most gifted mathematicians of this 
     century. His contributions have enriched the fields of quantum 
     physics, meteorology, pure and applied mathematics, game theory and 
     computer science. 

     As a young man he showed an early bent for mathematics, earning his 
     Doctorate in Mathematics from the University of Budapest at 22 and 
     becoming a lecturer at the University of Berlin just two years later.  
     It was a singular honor for one so young.

     In 1930 he emigrated to the United states and became a Professor of 
     Mathematical Physics at Princeton University.  During this period he 
     formulated the science of quantum mechanics (Mathematical Foundations 
     of Quantum Mechanics, 1932) and was one of the founders of the 
     theory of games.  His seminal work on the subject, The Theory of 
     Games and Economic Behavior, was co-authored with economist Oskar 
     Morgenstern in 1944.  In it he elaborated on the "minimax" theorem 
     first postulated by him in 1928.

     He was independently wealthy and enjoyed the company of high society 
     as well as that of academia.  An elegant dresser, and generally a 
     personable, well liked individual, he had a fantastic reputation for
     mental computation which he often used to amaze his friends and 
     colleagues.

     During the Second World War he was in great demand as a consultant 
     to various research groups engaged in the war effort. In 1944 he was 
     introduced to Lt. Herman Goldstine who headed a group that was 
     charged with laboriously creating firing and bombing tables for the 
     Army.  As part of this effort, Goldstine's group was constructing 
     ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), one of 
     America's first computers.  This monster was 80 feet long, eighteen 
     feet high, had over 17,000 vacuum tubes, worked in decimal, not 
     binary, was equipped with a 20 word by 10 digit ram memory and a 
     450 word read-only memory! It worked in parallel and could perform 
     5,000 additions or 300 multiplications per second.

     EDVAC

     Even before ENIAC was complete Goldstine's group was planning its 
     successor, (EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Computer). John von 
     Neumann joined in these discussions and made important contributions 
     to the project.  He wrote a widely circulated paper entitled First 
     Draft of a Report on the EDVAC which embodied the 5 principal 
     components upon which the design of all modern computers rests, 
     namely: (1) an Arithmetic Logic Unit, (2) a Central Control Unit, 
     (3) an internal random access Memory Unit, (4) an Input Unit, and 
     (5) an Output Unit.  He also stated the need for binary, serial 
     operation and included some borrowed concepts, e.g. conditional
     branching, i.e. jump instructions (Ada Byron) and stored programs 
     (Alan Turing).  These elements came to be known collectively to 
     computer scientists as "von Neumann architecture" and devices that 
     used them were "von Neumann machines."

     References

     Augarten, Stan, Bit By Bit: An Illustrated History of
     Computers, Ticknor & Fields, New York 1984.
     
     Encyclopedia Britannica, Micropaedia, vol 12, p. 429,
     15th ed. Chicago, Illinois. 1987.

     Understanding Computers: Computer Basics, Time-
     Life Books. Alexandria, Virginia. 1985. 

     "von Neumann, John." Encyclopedia Americana,
     1989. vol 28, p. 232

     Wigner, Eugene P. Collier's Encyclopedia, vol 23, p.
     200, MacMillan Publishing Co, New York. 1987.