Evolution Of Computer

                                                                                                                      Evolution Of Computer

The “Abacus” was the first non-electric computer. The Abacus, also called a counting frame, is a rack of sliding beads and/or pebbles. It is used for performing arithmetic processes. It allowed the users to compute numbers by adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing. This way allows this computer to use no electricity at all. This computer was developed approximately 5000 years ago. The Mesopotamia, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans, Chinese, Indians, Japanese, Koreans, Native Americans, and Russians have their own versions of the Abacus (different material was used, better suited to their own environments) .

2. What were the major innovations of first-generation computers over the mechanical era? The major innovations of the first-generation computer includes the use of electronic switches, with the help of vacuum tubes they were able maker these electronic switches open on close approximately 1000 times faster than mechanical switches. The inputs for these first-generation computers were primarily by the use of “punch cards”.

Information was stored on magnetic tape made of a thin unimaginable coating on a very long and narrow strip of plastic tape. The memory of these computers were equivalent to about 20 words. Since these computers used a large number of vacuum tubes so a “small computer” was about the size of an entire room. Large power was necessary to run these machines. The “MANIAC”, a machine built by John Macaulay and J. Prosper Checker had a 29 power supplies to keep it up and running. The MANIAC had 18,000 vacuum tubes which generated a very large amount of heat.

A very coordinated and elaborated fan system was designed to cool it down. First generation computers had no memory (no ability no store data that can be retrievable at a later time. E. G. RAM, Heads Sods etc. ) 3. What were the major innovations of second-generation computers? During the second-generation of computers, many changes were seen. Including the use of transistors, this replaced the vacuum tubes from the first-generation. These transistors were very small and they improved speed from vacuum tubes by quite a ton, thus resulting in more compact computers, without the loss of speed.

First time in history, high level languages for programming were created. With the use of Tambala use AT common Engel’s words In ten language, It mace It sealers Tort programmers to create complex programs with the use of these codes. 4. What is a mainframe? “Mainframe” computers are known as very large and expensive first- and second- generation computers. They were used by major and big companies to handle corporate and business information and were very well capable of handling hundreds to thousands of users at a time.

Second -generation, they would mainly need to know how transistors work as they were pretty much one of the main innovations of the generation. Third-generation- they would need to know much more about transistors capacitors and resistors as they were mainly involved with computer chips (which were mainstream at that time). For fourth-generation, a “computer expert”, in order to be called an expert would need to have good knowledge of how a microprocessor works and about the input/output of data.

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