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Essay Archive - The First Generation of Computers
The First Generation of Computers
The first generation of computers, beginning around the end of World War 2,
and continuing until around the year 1957, included computers that used vacuum
tubes, drum memories, and programming in machine code. Computers at that time
where mammoth machines that did not have the power our present day desktop
microcomputers.
In 1950, the first real-time, interactive computer was completed by a
design team at MIT. The "Whirlwind Computer," as it was called, was a revamped
U.S. Navy project for developing an aircraft simulator. The Whirlwind used a
cathode ray tube and a light....
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