First Generation Computer (started from 1940 and lasted on 1956) is also called as Vacuum Tube Computers, because these used used vacuum tubes for circuitry and magnetic drums for memory and were often enormous to take an entire room space. These computers were difficult to operate also, used more space and electricity. As a result these created much heat which was often the cause of malfunctions. The whole machine is 51 feet long, weighs 5 tons, and incorporates 750,000 parts. . It used 3304 electromechanical relays as on-off switches, had 72 accumulators (each with its own arithmetic unit) as well as mechanical register with a capacity of 23 digits plus sign. The arithmetic is fixed-point, with a plugboard setting determining the number of decimal places. There are 60 sets of rotary switches, each of which can be used as a constant register - sort of mechanical read-only memory. First generation computers used machine language which is the lowest-level programming language understood by computers, to perform operations, and they could only solve one problem at a time.
Saturday, 21 April 2012
