A year later John Von Neumann responded with a complete logical design for a machine to be called the EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer). In his paper was embedded the idea of a "stored program." He suggested that instructions for the computer -- previously entered on punched paper tape, or by plugboards -- could be stored in the computer's electronic memory as numbers and treated exactly the same as numerical data.

For the first time the logical choices of program sequences could be made inside the machine, and instructions could be modified by the computer as it went along.