Storage of instructions in computer memory to enable it to perform a variety of tasks in sequence or intermittently.
The idea was introduced in the late 1940s by John W. Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert , contributed to this idea, which enabled {{link=digital computer">digital computer s to become much more flexible and powerful. Nevertheless, engineers in England built the first stored-program computer, the Manchester Mark I, shortly before the Americans built EDVAC, both operational in 1949.