[generalizations]

I didn't know that memcomputing had already been solved. That's fantastic news...here's hoping it doesn't remain ridiculously expensive.

I take issue with this line, however.

> Both MemComputing and quantum computers are physics-based approaches to computation. That is, they set aside many of the foundations of traditional computer science and rethink computation from the ground up. For example, they don’t follow the von Neumann architecture, the computing framework that separates the processing unit from the memory unit, which is employed by all of today’s computers.

From what I recall of Von Neumann, his titular architecture was the 'first draft' of what he was going for, and we've been stuck with it before he could figure out version two. He based his design on the notion of cellular automaton, where of course the processing units are not separated from the memory units.

Rather, from what I recall, the Architecture we've been stuck with was just his best attempt at emulating what's here called memcomputing, but with the limited engineering resources at his disposal. If he hadn't died, I think he would have been trying to do proper memcomputing in the second draft. Only took us the better part of a century to catch up!

[bdamm]

I view the von Neumann architecture as more of a reference. When you get down to it, there's so much hardware trickery at play that it isn't easy to cleanly say that any specific computer fits precisely into what Von Neumann was describing. Consider multi-layer caches, CPUs that execute directly out of RAM, mapped IO, or even micro machine code design where the instruction set of the CPU is really an emulated layer on top of a deeper processor, and it's really hard to reconcile these modern machines as a Von Neumann architecture. I'd say that computer design has taken all the pragmatic approaches available. We have had wholesale architecture reboots every ten years or so. Even modern x86 doesn't resemble the original all that much.

However, as a conceptual bundle to teach aspiring computer science students about hardware? It's great!

Requiring that our software be able to simulate a Turing machine has probably held us back more, although that basic abstraction did get us to this point so in no way am I besmirching the work of Dr. Turing.

[kwooding]

Ever since my PhD work (where I worked with some pretty obscure computing architectures), the phrase “Von Neumann Architecture” makes think immediately of D H Lehmer’s quote [1] on working with ENIAC:

> Can we use the high speed computer to do the sieve process? This was a highly parallel machine, before von Neumann spoiled it.

[1]: https://history.computer.org/pioneers/lehmer.html

[x-shadowban]

Neat. It makes me wonder if there is work on mechanical computers at around the atomic scale.

[hn_throawlles]

yes, but they call that synthetic biology.

[bdamm]

Quantum computers.

[hn_throawlles]

that's sub-atomic scale? because particles? which are subatomic?

hmmmmm....