9/26/04

A student writes:

     Dear Dr. Patt,
     On the video lecture, you mentioned that the Von Neumann Model
     consists of 4 parts. In the textbook, on P.97, it says that the 
     Von Neumann Model consists of 5 parts. Can you please clarify?
     I apologize if I heard you wrong.

     Your student,

     << name withheld to protect the budding accountant >>

Well, normally, I would simply say: You can't believe everything you read in books. However, given my immense respect for the author of the book, I must refrain from that.

How about: I was so intimidated by the video camera that I choked.

Actually, the truth is that there are really five parts (as the book says) but a lot of people say four (lumping input and output as one part: I/O). If I said four on the tape, that must have been what I was thinking.

Hope the tape did not put you to sleep. I bumped into one student on the drag this evening, who said that he did sleep through a good part of the tape. But then he reassured me that it was not because of the tape, seeing as how he generally sleeps through the live lectures, also.

Good luck.
Yale Patt