Computer Era (1946 - Today)

• First Generation (1946 - 58)
  • Characteristics
    • Vacuum tubes
    • 2 000 calculations per second
    • Stored programs
    • Used binary number system
    • Scientists felt that 6 would be all the world needed EVER
  • Themes
    • Huge (one complete floor of a building)
    • Broke down frequently
    • Tremendous heat output
    • Very expensive
    • High level of training needed to use
  • Famous computers and / or Events
    • ENIAC - Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (1946)
      • First electronic digital computer
      • Ekert, Mauchly, Atansoff
      • 18,000 vacuum tubes
      • Decimal machine (Base 10 number system)
    • EDVAC - Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic computer (1947)
      • Used binary number system, storage
      • John Von Neumann
    • Transistor (1947)
      • Picture of first transister
      • William Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Brattain invented the "transfer resistance" device, later to be known as the transistor revolutionized the computer and gave it the reliability that could not achieved with vacuum tubes
    • UNIVAC (1951)
      • Used to predict results of the 1952 US Presidential Election
    • 1953 IBM 701
      • Picture of IBM 701
      • IBM's first business computer
    • 1955 IBM 704
      • Picture of IBM 704
      • first commercial machine with floating-point hardware, and was capable of operating at approximately 5 kFLOPS
    • 1957 FORTRAN
      • FORmula TRANslator
      • First poplular computer language
      • Fortran 77 and Fortran 90 still used today