edu:the_first_computer

The Development of the Computer
(Just in case you didn't know)

Welcome to our very first series for Educate Yourself: PC Resources. In a world of gigahertz, T3s and web-phones, we figured there would be no finer point in history to begin than with the early development of computers.

The very first computer
The first computers were huge. They were so large they occupied rooms. Almost an entire building had to be dedicated to house it, but most of the space was isolated for giant air conditioning units. On top of that, large power plants were needed to supply the juice these computers required. This was due to the reliance we had on tubes (yes, the same vacuum tubes we once used in old television sets). The tubes were our source of memory and computing for these monsters.
As you have guessed by now, these computers and tubes and air conditioning units and power plants, they imposed somewhat of a fee on its owners. As a matter of fact, the United States Government was the only organization that could afford to do this (which they used for calculating projections).
As for other complications, the vacuum tubes weren't very reliable. With thousands of tubes located in one area, the chances that a tube would fail greatly increased. One failure could've brought the entire computer down. Hey IT guy, if this was the late 1940s, you'd be running up and down the isles with boxes of tubes all day long.
"So just how powerful were the first generation of computers?" you ask.
Your solar-powered pocket calculator is a bit more functional. However, before this development there was no means of computing and processing huge amounts of data.

Transistor-driven computers

With the replacement of vacuum tubes for transistors within television sets during the late 1950s, the second generation computer adopted this new technology as well. Transistors occupied a smaller amount of space, were more powerful, ran cooler, required less power to run, and had an extended lifetime of 20 years. These computers became more affordable and were able to occupy less room than the existing first-generation monsters. Universities and businesses were now able to run them without draining all of their resources and employing huge maintenance teams. As more people had access and as hardware developed, programming languages began extreme development, and a synergy took place within our society.

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Welcome to our very first series for Educate Yourself: PC Resources. In a world of gigahertz, T3s and web-phones, we figured there would be no finer point in history to begin than with the early development of computers.

The very first computer

The first computers were huge. They were so large they occupied rooms. Almost an entire building had to be dedicated to house it, but most of the space was isolated for giant air conditioning units. On top of that, large power plants were needed to supply the juice these computers required. This was due to the reliance we had on tubes (yes, the same vacuum tubes we once used in old television sets). The tubes were our source of memory and computing for these monsters.

As you have guessed by now, these computers and tubes and air conditioning units and power plants, they imposed somewhat of a fee on its owners. As a matter of fact, the United States Government was the only organization that could afford to do this (which they used for calculating projections).

As for other complications, the vacuum tubes weren't very reliable. With thousands of tubes located in one area, the chances that a tube would fail greatly increased. One failure could've brought the entire computer down. Hey IT guy, if this was the late 1940s, you'd be running up and down the isles with boxes of tubes all day long.

"So just how powerful were the first generation of computers?" you ask.

Your solar-powered pocket calculator is a bit more functional. However, before this development there was no means of computing and processing huge amounts of data.

Transistor-driven computers

With the replacement of vacuum tubes for transistors within television sets during the late 1950s, the second generation computer adopted this new technology as well. Transistors occupied a smaller amount of space, were more powerful, ran cooler, required less power to run, and had an extended lifetime of 20 years. These computers became more affordable and were able to occupy less room than the existing first-generation monsters. Universities and businesses were now able to run them without draining all of their resources and employing huge maintenance teams. As more people had access and as hardware developed, programming languages began extreme development, and a synergy took place within our society.