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Both program instructions and data are stored as identically coded symbols in the same randomly accessible main memory. The only way the machine knows whether it should decode the symbol obtained from memory as a program instruction or as data is which one it was looking for at the time the symbol was read.

This is in contrast to a Harvard computer, where program instructions and data are stored as totally differently coded symbols in completely separate often incompatibly implemented memories.

Each has its own advantages and disadvantages, and because of these even though almost all modern computers act as if they were purely Von Neumann computers, most are typically implemented as some blend of Von Neumann and Harvard features selected to best optimize performance while carefully hiding the Harvard features of the implementation from all programmers and users except the few programmers writing the very lowest levels of system code that must setup and manage those features.

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11y ago

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