Papers of John von Neumann on Computing and Computer Theory

by John von Neumann

Introduction by Arthur W. Burks

Edited by William Aspray and Arthur W. Burks

Hardcover

640 pp.,

Hardcover
9780262220309
Published: October 27, 1986
Publisher: The MIT Press

$65.00

Out of print

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This volume brings together for the first time John von Neumann's long-out-of-print articles on computer architecture, programming, large-scale computing, and automata theory.

This volume brings together for the first time John von Neumann's long-out-of-print articles on computer architecture, programming, large-scale computing, and automata theory. A number of significant papers in these areas that were not included in the multivolume John von Neumann. Collected Works (1963) have now been reprinted here. These pioneering articles - written between the mid-1940s and the mid-1950s - are of enduring value not only to computer historians but to computer scientists at the vanguard of current research. Most of today's computers are still constructed in accordance with the "von Neumann architecture," and his technique of flow charting remains basic in the domain. Papers of John von Neumann on Computers and Computer Theory is volume 12 in the Charles Babbage Institute Reprint Series for the History of Computing.

William Aspray is Bill and Lewis Suit Professor of Information Technologies in the School of Information at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the coeditor of Women and Information Technology: Research on Underrepresentation (2006) and The Internet and American Business (2008), both published by the MIT Press.

Aspray's book is a rich source of well-researched historical information.
Arthur W. Burks, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Michigan

Although I was living in my father's house and having dinner with him nearly every night during the decade following World War II, it was not until I read Aspray's comprehensive and insightful account that I fully understood the significance of what he and his colleagues were doing or the role he played in ushering in the computerized world in which we live and work today.
Marina v.N. Whitman, Vice President & Group Executive, General Motors Corporation

Although 'von Neumann architecture' is a familiar phrase, few people remember the breadth of von Neumann's imprint on early comuting. In this impressive, well-researched synthesis, Bill Aspray traces that imprint in computer design, computer applications, information theory, and von Neumann's consulting with business and government.
David K. Allison, Curator of Computers, Information & Society, Smithsonian Institution

William Aspray has written the most interesting and detailed work that I have seen on John von Neumann and the origins of modern computing.
Dr. Cuthbert C. Hurd, Visiting Scholar in Computer Science, Stanford U.