Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer

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Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer

Also known as: EDVAC

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Last updated

June 17, 2026

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The Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer, or EDVAC, was a significant development in early computing. It was a type of stored-program computer, meaning it could store instructions in its memory to perform various tasks. This concept was notably advanced by John von Neumann and others, allowing computers to be more flexible and powerful than previous machines that relied on fixed wiring or punched tape for programming. EDVAC was operational around 1949, shortly after the first stored-program computer, the Manchester Mark I, in England.123

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digital computer
Development of the digital computer
…alterable memory was implemented in EDVAC (electronic discrete variable automatic computer).
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…alterable memory was implemented in EDVAC (electronic discrete variable automatic computer).
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computer
Bigger brains
…School for ENIAC’s successor, the Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer, or EDVAC. (Planning for EDVAC also set the stage for an ensuing patent fight; see BTW: Computer patent wars.) ENIAC was hampered, as all previous electronic computers had been, by the need to use one vacuum tube to store each…
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…School for ENIAC’s successor, the Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer, or EDVAC. (Planning for EDVAC also set the stage for an ensuing patent fight; see BTW: Computer patent wars.) ENIAC was hampered, as all previous electronic computers had been, by the need to use one vacuum tube to store each…
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stored-program computer
…shortly before the Americans built EDVAC, both operational in 1949.
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…shortly before the Americans built EDVAC, both operational in 1949.
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Maurice Wilkes
…Discrete Variable Automatic Computer (EDVAC), in which both the data and the programs that would manipulate the data would be stored within EDVAC’s memory. This stored-program computer was an advance upon previous machines such as the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), in which the program instructions were determined…
Read More
…Discrete Variable Automatic Computer (EDVAC), in which both the data and the programs that would manipulate the data would be stored within EDVAC’s memory. This stored-program computer was an advance upon previous machines such as the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), in which the program instructions were determined…
Read More