First Generation Computers

Computer at the beginning of this first generation is now the second world war, the countries involved in world war it sought to develop computers to maximize the ability of the strategic set owned by the computer. This will affect the increase in funding the development of computers has participated to accelerate the growth of technical progress. In 1941, a German engineer named Konrad Zuse developed a computer, the Z3, to design airplanes and missiles.

In other places there are parties who are also allies also made other progress in the development of computer capabilities. In 1943, the British managed to complete a secret code-breaking computer called Colossus which functions are given to solve the secret code used by the German state. Effects of The Colossus was not much influenced the development of the computer industry, it could happen because there are two reasons, namely: first, Colossus computer is not versatile, he made just to be able to decode secret messages. Secondly, the existence of the machine was kept secret until decades after the war finished.

While the work done by the Americans at the time was to produce a progress compared to other allies. An engineer named Howard H. HarvardAiken (1900-1973) in collaboration with IBM, succeeded in producing electronic calculators for the U.S. Navy. The calculator is very large, ie half the length of a football field and also has a range of 500 miles along the cable (not very big). The computer is; The Harvd-IBM Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator, or Mark I, an electronic relay computer. Mark I uses electromagnetic signals to move the mechanical components. Mark I beropreasi with slow, it takes 3-5 seconds for each calculation and inflexible sequence of calculations that can not be changed. Mark I could perform basic arithmetic and more complex equations.

Another computer development at the time the Electronic Numerical Integrator and the acronym is the ENIAC computer, which was created thanks to cooperation between the United States government and the University of Pennsylvania.Computer ENIAC consisted of 18,000 vacuum tubes, 70,000 resistors and 5 million soldered joints, the ENIAC computer is a very large computer resources he needed for 160kW.

ENIAC computer, designed by John Presper Eckert [1919-1995] and John W. Mauchly [1907-1980], ENIAC is a versatile computer [general-purpose computer] that is able to work 1000 times faster when compared with the computer Mark I.Then in the mid-1940s, John von Neumann [1903-1957] joined the team of University of Pennsylvania in an effort to create a computer design concept which until 40 years from now still be used in computer engineering. Von Neumann designed the Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer [EDVAC] in the year 1945 with a good memory to accommodate the programs or data.This allows the computer may stop at some point and then resume his work again. The key factor of the von Neumann architecture is the central processing unit (CPU), which allowed all computer functions to be coordinated through a single source. In 1951, UNIVAC I or stands for Universal Automatic Computer I was made by Remington Rand, became the first commercial computer to use the von Neumann architecture model.

United States Census Bureau and General Electric have a UNIVAC. One of the most impressive results achieved by the UNIVAC was at the time managed to predict a victory Dwilight D.Eisenhower in the presidential election in the year 1952.

This first generation of computers can be characterized by the fact that operating instructions were made specifically for certain tasks. Each computer has a program different binary-coded-called "machine language". It makes it difficult for the programmed computer and the speed limit.Another feature is the use of first generation computer vacuum tube (which makes the computer at that time looked very large size) and a magnetic cylinder for functioning as a data storage.

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