It was put forward by the Hungarian-born American mathematician von Neumann in 1946. The program itself is treated as data, and the program and the data processed by the program are stored in the same way. This is the way to cure the "prodigy" Eniac amnesia. According to this principle, von Neumann and his colleagues designed a complete prototype of a modern computer, and determined five components and basic working methods of a computer with stored programs.

This design idea of von Neumann is regarded as a milestone in the history of computer development, which marks the real beginning of the computer era. Although computer technology has developed rapidly, "stored program principle" is still the basic working principle of computers.

From the day the computer was born, this principle determined the main ways people used computers-writing programs and running programs. Scientists have been working hard to improve the automation level of programming, improve the user interface and provide various development tools, environments and platforms.

Its purpose is to make it easier for people to use computers without or with little programming, because computer programming is a complicated mental work after all. However, no matter how the user develops and uses the interface, the principle of stored programs has not changed, and it is still the basis for us to understand the functions and characteristics of computer systems.

EDSAC was built in May, 1949. It is the first electronic computer in the world that truly realizes the internal storage program, which embodies the ideas of von Neumann and others, and is also the real prototype and model of all computers later.

Extended data

The stored program principle is also called "von Neumann principle" (proposed by 1946). A design principle of storing programs in computer memory like data. After the program is stored in memory, the computer can automatically switch from one instruction to another. Modern electronic computers are designed according to this principle.

1. Send programs and data into memory through input and output devices.

General memory is divided into many storage units, each of which has an address number, so that programs and data are stored in a certain order, and the memory is also divided into several areas, such as a data area dedicated to storing programs and data.

2, the execution of the program, must start from the first instruction, after an instruction execution.

Generally, it is executed from small to large in the order of storing address numbers, and the execution order is changed when encountering conditional branch instructions.

Every time an instruction is executed, there are three steps: the first step is to send the instruction from the memory to the decoder, which is called instruction fetch; Secondly, the decoder decomposes the instruction into operation codes and operands, and generates various corresponding control signals to send to various electrical components; The third step is to perform the corresponding operation. This process is controlled by electronic circuit, thus realizing automatic and continuous operation.