First generation of

computers.
By:
Valeria Itzel Márquez Flores
Erick Domínguez
Gerardo Quezada montes
Andrea Daniela Chávez Jordán
 Introduction.
O 1940 to 1956
O Used vacuum tubes for
circuitry and magnetic
drums for memory, and
were often enormous,
taking up entire rooms.
O Vacuum tube: is a device
generally used to amplify a
signal by controlling the
movement of electrons in
an evacuated space.
 CHARACTERISTICS
O 1) First generation computers were based on
vacuum tubes.
O 2) The operating systems of the first generation
computers were very slow.
O 3) They were very large in size.
O 4) Production of the heat was in large amount in
first generation computers.
O 5) Machine language was used for
programming.
O 6) First generation computers were unreliable.
O 7) They were difficult to program and use.
O UNIVAC
UNIVAC (Universal Automatic
Computer) was the first
commercially general purpose
electronic computer. John Eckert and
John Mauchly at the Moore School
of Engineering, Pennsylvania
developed it in 1951. It was used for
the analysis of 1952 Presidential
Election in the United States. It was
8 feet high, 15 feet long and weighed
5 tons. It contained 5600 tubes,
18000 crystal diodes, and 300 relays.
A magnetic tape was used for data
input and output.
O
EDVAC
John Mauchly and J.P. Eckert also
proposed the development of
EDVAC. The conceptual design for
EDVAC electronic computer to use
the stored program concept
introduced by John Von Neumann.
Unlike the ENIAC, it
used binary number rather than
decimal. The University of
Pennsylvania built the EDVAC for
the U.S.Army’s Ballistics Research
Laboratory at the Aberdeen
Proving Ground. EDVAC had
almost 6000 vacuum tubes and
12000 diodes. It consumed 56kW
of power. It covered 490 feet
square of floor and weighed
7850kg.
EDSAC
ENIAC