Von Neumann Architecture

from Google

"The von Neumann architecture—also known as the von Neumann model or Princeton architecture—is a computer architecture based on a 1945 description by Hungarian-American mathematician and physicist John von Neumann and others in the First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC."

Just finished a blog post that tries to raise awareness to the general public that the very weird intriguing architecture of some prominent buildings in Seattle may have something to do with Japanese traditional architectural elements which post ended with the (in)famous kuji-in grid. The other day i plainly wrote something about von Neumann architecture, and having all these three things in my recent memory a fresh idea occurred. What if...

But first, an introduction to von Neumann architecture. Not reading anything, from my understanding only. It is based on a matrix or a grid of binary data deemed as memory. Intersection of each row with the columns represents data (or instruction, read bellow). Rows are called addresses. The columns exist physically as an equal number of wires (usually 64) which can carry each binary information, that is 0 or 1 materialized as 0 volts and 5 volts, called data bus, while the rows which are much more numerous (4 billions) can be activated by a similar or half size (width) address bus (usually 32 wires at current time) that carry again binary information which is not applied directly to the matrix but decoded and so it can activate (for read or write) only one row (address) out of 4 billions at a time (4 Gigs, 64 bits, sizes most common). At the intersection of each row and column there is a small electronic circuit called a cell that can memorize last voltage applied to it and yield that voltage when the row is activated.

Both buses end in the processor (CPU, Central Processing Unit).

Data is read or written in memory by the processor by simply formulating an address (a combination of zeros and ones on the address bus) and then supplying or retrieving the combination of resulting zeroes and ones on data bus. This type of memory or the working memory of any computer is called RAM (Random Access Memory, quite a confusing acronym which actually means that RAM memory can either (randomly) be written or read).

Now the most confusing part. Programs themselves represent a succession of binary numbers written in RAM memory line after line or address after address that can be decoded by CPU as instructions (machine code) or data. As per Von Neumann architecture we have thus in computer's memory both instructions and data to be processed using the instructions. The CPU knows which is which by sequence only. That is after it first reads an instruction, that instruction tells the processor what follows and if it's data, how long. RAM memory is volatile. It means that at startup of the computer there's nothing in it. A certain program has to be loaded by the CPU line by line from a more permanent memory (disk, SSID), and then processor starts reading sequentially that program from the very beginning executing instructions and using data.

Processors are much more complicated than this "external" architecture but what is important is that if they read an instruction, a certain number of circuits inside the processor are activated and execute that instruction which most of the time involves processing data on the addresses following that instruction.

Here is from Wikipedia a working schematic of a 4 bits wide memory with 4 addresses coded on a 2 bit bus. All RAM memories are similar except for size. Each cell can memorize a voltage of either 0 or 5 volts (actually ranges around those voltages) that is applied to. There is also a selector for read or write that i did not talk about.

All circuits inside a CPU that are activated by instructions are made by so called gates. That is small circuits with a few transistors each with two inputs and one output that are capable of executing instructions equivalent to basic binary operations like addition, multiplying, etc. again by processing voltages of 0 or 5 volts. (AND gate, OR gate, etc.). Because operations are binary they are also called logical operations (with only two possible outputs, 5 volts for true or 1 or 0 volts for false or 0).

Here is an AND gate schematic using two transistors in switching mode.


And 4 basic gates symbols and tables of truth

All these things are well known to computer engineers and everybody who took some electronics in a technical college like myself. What prompted me to write this is the analogy with the kuji-in grid from ninjutsu, the concept of mind gate also in ninjutsu and gate as an architectural unit in the landscape of Japan. Could those have been the source of inspiration for von Neumann?

We all heard nowadays of the word transistor. Very few outside the body of specialists know what it means. I guess fewer these days where everybody is more on social networks than following hobbies and are more enthusiastic about numbers, speed and size then the actual working principle.

We may have heard that newer computer processors have more and more transistors (while speed somehow got stuck @3 GHz). Hundreds of thousands per processor (core) is not uncommon at mid range prices. That is because more and more operations turned from sequential as in von Neumann architecture to parallel processing, that is more operations per instruction, requiring more circuitry thus more transistors. Instructions or machine cycles process whole blocks of memory data at the time due to a relatively newer component call DMA (Direct Memory Accessing) allow a more efficient use of memory. Multiple processors also allow more parallel processing. Nowadays overwhelming majority of computer processing is data transfer as opposed to math calculations.

But what is a transistor. Again, first described by an (Austro)-Hungarian scientist in 1926 and not realized until much later, it was a much sought for replacement for old vacuum tubes in early electronic devices. The holy grail of electronics if you want. An early superheterodyne radio contained 6 or more of those tubes also called valves.

But valves were big, fragile and required extra power to heat up by a filament.

Their main function was amplifying of a weak signal like those carried by radio waves into a strong one that could be heard in a speaker.

Transistors are done with semiconductors instead of vacuum. What is essential is there are two circuits. A weak signal circuit or input and a strong current circuit called output.

One single compact small transistor was replacing one valve and was solid and required no filament power. However there are power losses when transistors work as amplifier (output circuit is basically shorted to the ground through a resistor where there's no signal). That power loss has to be evacuated as heat with a radiator like in most stereo systems.

MOSFET transistors that are build by etching a single silicon crystal in the hundred of thousands to make computer chips have basically three terminals. Source, Gate and Drain. Question.  How many gates (both logical and semiconductors terminals) do you have in your octo-core smartphone processor (not counting the display, memory and other components)?

White Shinto Built Gates

I once was intrigued with the shape of a structure on a side of Hwy 18 and took a picture of it. It reminded me of something i saw before. Maybe at the Japanese Garden in Portland

Same shape here

Then i remembered something i saw in the movies. BTW, Southfork ranch is kinda small for how rich those people were. One bedroom for each couple? And God knows how well you can hear through walls in American houses.

And this recent post. In her IMDb bio, it is said Victoria Principal (Pamela Ewing) was born in Japan. However it is not said she was Japanese.

Keep searching for ranch gates. Found a few very interesting ones.

or this type

Which of course remind me of this (i don't believe in Auschwitz, only in its symbolism).
And last but not least, officially residing in the State of Washington, Bill Gates, his name co-inspiring the title of this post.

Architecture from Seattle area

Traditional Japanese Architecture

kuji-in - nine seals

Neskowin

Spent a few hours yesterday at a beach called Neskowin, south of Lincoln City.

A native American name, don't know it it has anything to do with Confederations of Siletz Tribes who own the casino in Lincoln City. Haven't seen many natives if any in oh so many times i've been there, don't know if it's real or just a symbolic link between real owners and our perceived reality. Can't help here but to add that Siletz name resonates with the root sele (Selleck as in Tom Selleck or Sellers as in Peter Sellers, a quite common Hungarian last name with many variants and capital of Oregon, Salem or  Soros are not far from it). I know for sure that i once caught a celebration at the casino when i saw Hungarian actors dressed as and pretending to be native Americans (known in the past as Indians).

It is the first beach i've ever been too in the US in August or September 1995 or 25 years ago. Veronica Mart took us there and we went to the beach and then we had a pick-Nick. Like yesterday, a small plane making a big noise passed very low on top of the beach and i was wearing European style swimwear that is not accepted here (two short) (not that you can swim much in Oregon, water temperature allows that only maybe once a year, in average). Name Nesko-win reminds of course of Nico and i remember i was intrigued she choose a pick-nick table in the parking lot that was next to restroom (i hear nowadays a commercial where a black guy pronounces the word restaurant very similar to restroom).

BTW recently searching through Hungarian actors databases i ran into a face that fits that of Veronica Mart. Sitting next to a a Hungarian renown actor, Gyula Szombathy who seems to be "Romanian pilot George Hârșovescu" as described in the post linked above. Here on right, slightly out of focus, don't know the name. Could be her.
Back at the beach. There was a whole continuous show unfolding all around us. Populated with now more like next in line (as opposed to top of the creme) Hungarian voice actors trying really hard to overcome the barriers of accent. But since all media is populated with them, who knows what "standard American English" is anymore. Don't know if newest style apparition, could have happened before and i forgot or didn't realize, next to us came two short blond women that seemed to be Japanese made to look like American, if that is possible. With a kid, they were syncing with everything we were doing. But i was too tired and much too dipped into nostalgia to pay attention to all details of the unfolding present. I first parked in a store spot, there was a warning for beach goers not to park in there. I went to the car several times to see what's happening, scenes unfolding like a Mexican wave every time. Later, as a spot freed i ended parking between two cars that in the end turned to belong to some Asians (read Japanese) that put up a show when we left.
And last but not least. On McMinville Ave there was a (tiny) house with an unusually shaped gate. There were of course some ropes and a couple of buoys hanging. I passed several times in front of it but planned to take a picture when i left, for obvious reasons. However when i left they were two guys in front of it, kinda staring at me.
At the end of the day Angela went to play at Chinook Winds nearby and i stayed in the car, listening music, surfing the web and then i fell asleep. But some people made a fire on the beach and there was so much smoke i could not stay in the car. I tried to start the fan but all i did was contaminate the new cabin filter that was still smelling hours later. So i moved at the top level in the new parking lot where you can hear the ocean and if you stand you can even see it. But that level is connected with a tunnel like passage with the room of the casino where they have the parties and base was so loud i could hear it from the car. Staring at the entrance of the parking lot with height limiters looking like a Shinto gate, like in the image with the fish above. Was thinking. They could have put it after the entrance of the first level, cause top level does not have height limit. But they put it in the street so it is visible as a symbol (google maps picture since 2018).

Right before Angela came a very attractive woman came and started and left with the car nearby.

I was pretty pissed last night when i drove back home (read sad). About most everything. But they stole that feeling from me too. At the red light camera at the intersection with 99. Angela doesn't let me to turn right on red at night when we're alone in the street at red light cameras, but this time there was a car behind me and another one going from right to left, with Asian women i think, all waiting (was there red in all directions?). After one minute of waiting i saw a flash, but kinda dim. Don't know for who it was, nobody was moving for about one minute before that. Then the light turned green and i started my right turn. They did that to me before, a flash in the night when i was going through one of these, for no reason. Malfunctioning? Mood changing, certainly. And creating a new fake branch of events. Bansenshukai.

More on Lipid Bylayer

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Feel patient enough today to be able to read a scientific article?

"This thin, flexible, and potentially very fragile structure is all that stands between the interior of the cell and the environment." (Yeah, cells could not form organs if it wasn't for the extra-cellular matrix made of collagen, a very strong protein).

"Most books mention that membranes have a typical "lipid bilayer," but why lipids, why should it be a bilayer, and how was this basic structure determined? Although it is now generally taken for granted that membranes are based on the presence of a lipid bilayer, that was not always the case. Early experiments, often by physicists, led to the understanding that the cell membrane was lipid in nature. A key experiment using the Langmuir trough provided the basis for accepting that the membrane is a bilayer and laid the groundwork for the current model of membrane structure."

"Working in her kitchen, and with no formal training, she devised a simple apparatus to quantify the area covered by the oil film. Her apparatus was refined by Langmuir (1917) and is now generally referred to as a Langmuir trough (Figure 2), although it really should be a Pockels trough."

So that's it. Whole cellular biology science is based on this experiment done in the kitchen 100 years ago. Intrigued already?

Then see this.

In other words, CDC, first in front line of the battle with COVID thinks viruses are alive and eat protein. As for the formaldehyde part, i'm trying to think. Don't know of anything toxic inside a coronavirus.

Anyways this is not the purpose of this post. I'm still at the bylayer. Both cells and viruses are surrounded by a bylayer membrane. So when the viruses multiply inside a host cell in the end they have to "steal" a part of the cell's membrane to make it their own.

But then i realized i don't know how during cellular division (not all cells divide but most do) the "parent" cell shares its membrane to the two daughters.

What do i know. It looks like cells have muscles (and skeletons).
Actin and myosin. The muscle proteins inside cell that form the contractile ring that initiates the change of shape from spherical into two lobes and then the cell becomes two.

However virus progenies employ a different mechanism for generating their membrane. I was reading this article but did not fully understand how.

"Although membrane fusion for entry is a speciality of the enveloped viruses due to the presence of a lipid bilayer around them, HSV is capable of exploiting other routes of entry as well"

So we know how the virus enters the host cell. Membrane (lipid bylayer) fusion and/or endocytosis. But how is it released?

Apparently the virus emerges encapsulated by using parts of the Golgi network that turn into "secretory vesicles". But where the virus gets its spike proteins and how it breaks the cells membrane to escape?

I'm not getting to any conclusion yet and plan to read further in the immediate future but from what i read so far to me viruses are so fragile and the mechanisms of cell invasion, replication and building are so complicated it should take very little to brake them. Of course main motivation for writing this is frustration with a science and scientists who failed for such a long time to find something to disrupt them.

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