Features of First Generation of Computers

Nowadays, computers are one of the most important tools in our lives and we use them almost everywhere; however, this wasn’t always the case. Before personal computers, there were large mainframe computers that could only be used by professionals who knew how to program them to perform specific tasks. This article describes the first generation of computers that was launched in the 1950s, such as the IBM 305 RAMAC and UNIVAC I, which feature big physical cabinets with vacuum tubes and reel-to-reel tape drives.

The first generation of computers was built in the 1950s, and they are what most people imagine when they think of computers — massive machines filled with wires and vacuum tubes, taking up an entire room, and their only use was for crunching numbers to solve equations. Though the price was huge, these machines weren’t very capable of multitasking, so if you wanted to do more than one thing at once (like compute while you also printed), you had to buy another machine that could handle that additional task.

The use of computers has become almost ubiquitous in today’s society, and that likely won’t change any time soon. From the first computer scientists to the pioneers of the fifth generation of computers, here’s a look at how we got to where we are today and where things might be headed in the future.

The machines themselves

The machines themselves ran on electricity and required a great deal of it. Indeed, they consumed so much electricity that entire rooms were often devoted to running computers. The massive amount of energy required to run them also made them very expensive, not to mention that first-generation computers were completely incapable of multitasking. Computers could only do one thing at a time, whether it was sorting numbers or playing a game of chess. Finally, first-generation computers didn’t look like our desktop PCs today; they took up entire rooms and had an array of tubes and wires to operate.

Price was huge

Many people in today’s society do not know what it was like to use the first-generation computer. The price was huge; so, only large companies were able to afford them. Most of these early computers could not even multi-task or process more than one program, making them inefficient and unattractive to consumers. Electricity consumption was very high due to vacuum tubes and mechanical relays which made them noisy, fragile, and expensive to operate.

Electricity consumption was very high

The first generation of computers was powered by very high electricity consumption, not capable of multitasking, the price was huge. But its commercial introduction led to many further generations of computer technology and set computing as a staple in everyday life. A typical first-generation computer consumes as much power as an entire house or office building while running only a fraction of its capability. The Z3 is believed to be among one of the first electronic programmable computers that were made by Konrad Zuse between 1936 and 1938, it used binary code and electromechanical parts. It was used for solving mathematical problems and featured relay switches, electric motors, and gears within its design.

Applications focused, not general purpose

These early computers were very different from today’s computers, not only in terms of technology but also in terms of their applications. As we saw above, early computers were built to solve very specific problems such as calculating complex equations and developing missile systems. The first generations of computers were focused on a single application, rather than being general-purpose machines that could be used for many different things. For example, most of these first-generation computers could not perform more than one task at a time. Imagine if you had to write an email while also printing off your monthly budget — how much time would it take?

Conclusion

When you think of the first generation of computers, you probably imagine a large room filled with bulky machines that took up tons of space and consumed large amounts of electricity to do simple tasks like calculating numbers or drawing graphics. These early computers were simply not capable of multitasking and were quite slow at performing even the simplest of calculations, which makes them quite unusable in today’s society. Despite their shortcomings, however, these first-generation computers were revolutionary in their day and paved the way for future generations to follow.