Von Neumann architecture

High school (ages 12+)
Science & Technology

Name:

Date:

Step 1 · Read the article

Open the article and read it at the level above. Then answer the questions below in your own words.

https://smallwhale.org/articles/von-neumann-architecture

Write what each word means, using the article.

Do not copy the article. Write two things you learned, the way you would explain them to a friend.

Answers below are taken from the article’s stored facts, so they match what the student read.

1. What is the computer architecture model?Von Neumann architecture
2. What is the key publication?First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC (1945)
3. Why did the Von Neumann architecture change computers?It made computers easier to program and more flexible, so people could change what a computer does by loading new programs instead of rewiring.
4. How does a Von Neumann computer run a program?It follows a fetch‑decode‑execute cycle: it gets an instruction, figures out what to do, runs it, and stores the result.

Stored Program Concept: The principle that computer instructions are stored in memory and treated as data.
Von Neumann Bottleneck: The performance limitation arising from the shared bus for instruction and data transfers.
Harvard Architecture: A computer architecture with physically separate storage and signal pathways for instructions and data.