"A digital computer can usually be regarded as consisting of three parts: (i) Store. (ii) Executive unit. (iii) Control. ...The executive unit is the part which carries out the various individual operations involved in a calculation. ...It is the duty of the control to see that...[the table of] instructions are obeyed correctly and in the right order. ...A typical instruction might say—"Add the number stored in position 6809 to that in 4302 and put the result back into the latter storage position." Needless to say it would not occur in the machine expressed in English. It would more likely be coded in a form such as 6809430217. Here 17 says which of various possible operations [add] is to be performed on the two numbers. ...It will be noticed that the instruction takes up 10 digits and so forms one packet of information..."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Computer scientists from the United KingdomPhilosophers from EnglandAcademics from the United KingdomPeople from LondonCryptographers
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Imported from EN Wikiquote
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alan_Turing
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Related Quotes
"Let us now assume, for the sake of argument, that these machines are a genuine possibility, and look at the consequen…"
"The "scanned symbol" is the only one of which the machine is... "directly aware". However, by altering its m-configur…"
"Mathematical reasoning may be regarded rather schematically as the exercise of a combination of two facilities, which…"
"Instruction tables will have to be made up by mathematicians with computing experience and perhaps a certain puzzle-s…"
"A man provided with paper, pencil, and rubber, and subject to strict discipline, is in effect a universal machine."
"There is a remarkably close parallel between the problems of the physicist and those of the cryptographer. The system…"
"This is only a foretaste of what is to come, and only the shadow of what is going to be. We have to have some experie…"
"Science is a differential equation. Religion is a boundary condition."
"The Exclusion Principle is laid down purely for the benefit of the electrons themselves, who might be corrupted (and …"
"The "computable" numbers may be described briefly as the real numbers whose expressions as a decimal are calculable b…"