The First Generation Of Computers :: essays research papers

The First Generation of ComputersThe first generation of computers, beginning close to the end of World War 2,and continuing until around the year 1957, included computers that used vacuumtubes, drum memories, and programming in machine code. Computers at that timewhere mammoth machines that did not have the power our founder day desktopmicrocomputers.     In 1950, the first real-time, interactive computer was completed by adesign team at MIT. The "Whirlwind Computer," as it was called, was a revampedU.S. dark blue project for developing an aircraft simulator. The Whirlwind used acathode ray tube and a light gun to provide interactively. The Whirlwind waslinked to a series of radars and could identify unfriendly aircraft and directinterceptor fighters to their projected locations. It was to be the prototypefor a network of computers and radar sites (SAGE) acting as an important elementof U.S. air defense for a quarter-century afterwards 1958. &nb sp   In 1951, the first commercially-available computer was delivered to theBureau of the Census by the Eckert Mauchly Computer Corporation. The UNIVAC(Universal Automatic Computer) was the first computer which was not a one-of-a-kind laboratory instrument. The UNIVAC became a household word in 1952 when itwas used on a televised newscast to project the winner of the Eisenhower-Stevenson presidential race with stunning accuracy. That same year Maurice V.Wilkes (developer of EDSAC) laid the earthing for the concepts ofmicroprogramming, which was to become the guide for computer design andconstruction.     In 1954, the first general-purpose computer to be completelytransistorized was built at Bell Laboratories. TRADIC (Transistorized airborne