GROUP- 1

Generally, the computers built during the World War II era are known as the first generation computers. These are considered the first computers, and were extremely different from the computers we see today. Because the first generation computers were extremely difficult to program, they were designed for a specific task, and they never made it to the general market. These primitive computers relied on vacuum tubes and magnetic drums.

A sealed glass tube containing a near-vacuum that allows the free passage of electric current.

magnetic drums were easily adaptable for data storage - the drum's surface was coated with a ferromagnetic material that could store digital data by changing the magnetic properties of the material (similar to the way in which data is stored on a hard disk today). Most computers built between 1950 and 1955 used drum memory.

Early computers had no input devices, or any type of software as we know it today. They were "hard-wired" to perform specific mathematical calculations - a computer's function could only be changed by re-wiring its circuits.

By the time the UNIVAC appeared in 1951, a control panel on the front of the computer allowed simple input through a series of toggle switches and buttons. The toggles were used to input the first computer programs and data - in binary format!

The programming was very limited and very complex USN machine language. Usually they were hardwired and the applications very limited.

One of the problems with vacuum tubes was that they took up a large amount of space. The ENIAC, developed in 1946, used 18,000 vacuum tubes, weighed 30 tons and covered 1,800 square feet! The vacuum tubes also produced a lot of heat, so that even with giant air-conditioning systems, the vacuum tubes would burn out regularly and need to be replaced.

This is a small vacuum tube, used in first generation computers. Here you can clearly see the effect of overheating, leaving a black stain on the inside of the glass tube. Constant overheating and burnout in the vacuum tubes of ENIAC.

First generation computers relied on machine

language, the lowest-level programming language

understood by computers, to perform operations, and

they could only solve one problem at a time.

Vacuum tube technology made possible the development of electronic digital computers.

Magnetic tapes and drums were used as secondary memory

1939-1942: Atanasoff-Barry Computer - John Atanasoff and Clifford Berry

1941: Z3 – Konrad Zuse

1943: Colossus - Tommy Flowers and Max Newman

1944: Harvard Mark I - Howard Aiken

1943-1946: ENIAC - Dr. John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert

1945: EDVAC - Jogh Mauchly and J. Preper Eckert

1944-1945: Plankalkul - Plankalkul

1947: Transistors - Bell Telephone laboratories.

1948: SSEC - IBM

1949: EDSAC - Maurice Wilkes

1945-1951: Whirlwind - Jay Forrester and Robert Everrett

1951: UNIVAC - John Mauchley and J. Presper Eckert Junior

1953: IBM 701 - IBM

1954: IBM 650 - IBM

More Reliability

Better Portability

Less Heat Generation

Smaller size

Faster Computers

Very small size compared to a vacuum tube for the same amount of amplification.

No warm-up time. A tube takes 30 seconds to warm up.

A transistor is very easy to mass produce compared to a tube.

A transistor can take extreme amounts of shock and vibration compared to a tube.

A transistor is usually much lower in cost compared to a tube that gives the same amplification.

Transistors generally live and work forever whereas tubes burn out after a while