Computer architecture: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 20:07, 25 August 2024

Revision as of 00:18, 16 September 2024

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Subsequently, Brooks, a Stretch designer, opened Chapter 2 of a book called ''Planning a Computer System: Project Stretch'' by stating, "Computer architecture, like other architecture, is the art of determining the needs of the user of a structure and then designing to meet those needs as effectively as possible within economic and technological constraints."<ref>{{Cite book |title= Planning a Computer System|last=Buchholz |first=Werner|year=1962|pages=5}}</ref>

Brooks went on to help develop the [[IBM System/360]] (now called the [[IBM zSeries]]) line of computers, in which "architecture" became a noun defining "what the user needs to know".<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/system360/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120403020049/http://www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history/ibm100/us/en/icons/system360/|url-status=dead|archive-date=April 3, 2012|title=System 360, From Computers to Computer Systems|website=IBM100|date=7 March 2012|access-date=11 May 2017}}</ref> The System/360 line was succeeded by several compatible lines of computers, including the current [[IBM Z]] line. Later, computer users came to use the term in many less explicit ways.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Hellige|first1=Hans Dieter|title=Geschichten der Informatik: Visionen, Paradigmen, Leitmotive|chapter=Die Genese von Wissenschaftskonzeptionen der Computerarchitektur: Vom "system of organs" zum Schichtmodell des Designraums| pages=411–472|year=2004}}</ref>

The earliest computer architectures were designed on paper and then directly built into the final hardware form.<ref>ACE underwent seven paper designs in one year, before a prototype was initiated in 1948. [B. J. Copeland (Ed.), "Alan Turing's Automatic Computing Engine", OUP, 2005, p. 57]</ref>