From: Thomas Walker Lynch
- Like a Turing Machine, a computer architecture is an abstraction. The box sitting on a person's desk is a realization of some computer architecture. To say a Turing Machine does something is to say that the Turing Machine was analyzed and the result of the analysis is that 'something'. The same can be said when stating that a computer architecture does something. A computer architecture is said to be Turing Complete when it can do anything that a Turing Machine can do. What this means for the realization of a computer architecture is that a running program will only throw an error because a) the program logic told it to, b) the program has a flaw, or c) there is a mathematical fact standing in the way of execution. It is tolerable to call a computer architecture Turing Complete if it has the built-in ability to pause a program until a 'more memory' request is fulfilled. If there can be any other errors from a realization running a program, such as running out of address space or integer overflow, then the architecture is not Turing Complete. + Like a Turing Machine, a computer architecture is an abstraction. The box sitting on a person's desk is a realization of some computer architecture. To say a Turing Machine does something is to say that the Turing Machine was analyzed and the result of the analysis is that 'something'. A computer architecture can also be analyzed. A computer architecture is said to be Turing Complete when through analysis it is determined that it can do anything that a Turing Machine can do. The practical implications for a realization of a computer architecture is that a running program will only throw an error because a) the program logic told it to, b) the program has a flaw, or c) there is a mathematical fact standing in the way of execution. It is tolerable to call a computer architecture Turing Complete if it has the built-in ability to pause a program until a 'more memory' request is fulfilled. If there can be any other errors from a realization running a program, such as running out of address space or integer overflow, then the architecture is not Turing Complete.