The First Five Kilobytes are the Hardest

Alan Turing's one-dimensional model of universal computation of 1936 led directly to John von Neumann's two-dimensional implementation of 1946. The Electronic Computer Project at the Institute for Advanced Study jump-started the digital revolution by bringing engineers into the den of the mathematicians, rather than by bringing mathematicians into a den of engineers. The resulting 32 x 32 x 40-bit electrostatic memory, accessible at the speed of light rather than the speed of sound, spawned the ever-expanding address matrix in which we are now immersed.

Speaker: George Dyson