The First Five Kilobytes Are the Hardest By George Dyson

TAGNW Presents:

Local historian George Dyson dives into the history of computing. Alan Turing’s one-dimensional model of universal computation of 1936 led directly to John von Neumann’s five-kilobyte, two-dimensional implementation of 1946. The resulting ever-expanding address matrix remains a monument to the ingenuity of the small group of engineers who achieved the physical realization of these ideas--and a reminder that they also envisioned computational paths that have yet to be explored.

GEORGE DYSON, a resident of Bellingham since 1989, is an independent historian whose subjects have included the Aleutian kayak (Baidarka, 1986), a natural history of artificial intelligence (Darwin Among the Machines, 1997), a path not taken into space (Project Orion, 2002), the origins of the digital universe (Turing’s Cathedral, 2012), and why analog computing is destined to regain control (Analogia, 2020).

Host or Publisher Technology Alliance Group for NW WA (TAGNW)