The first generation of comput

The computer as we know it today had its beginning with a 19th century English mathematics professor named Charles Babbage. His ambition was the construction of a general purpose, fully program-controlled, automatic mechanical digital computer. Babbage called this idea an Analytical Engine. Babbage's proposed Analytical Engine was mostly mechanical and was intended to be steam powered. QUESTION: Did Babbage’s computer use electricity?

Even though he never finished his project, it contained the five key characteristics of modern computers:- 1. An input device 2. Storage for numbers waiting to be processed 3. A processor or number calculator 4. A unit to control the task and the sequence of its calculations 5. An output device. QUESTION: Did Charles Babbage finish constructing his computer?

A step towards automated computing was the development of punched cards, which were first successfully used with computers in 1890 by Herman Hollerith and James Powers, who worked for the US. Census Bureau. They developed devices that could read the information that had been punched into the cards automatically, without human help. These computers used electromechanical devices in which electrical power provided mechanical motion — like turning the wheels of an adding machine. This machine was able to complete the calculation of the 1890 U.S. census in 6 weeks compared with 7 and half years for the 1880 census which was manually counted. QUESTION: What was this computer used for?

In 1937 the first electronic digital computer was built by Dr. John V. Atanasoff and Clifford Berry. It was called the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC). Inspite of its impressive appearance, this machine was basically a small calculator. These calculations, however, were made digitally for the first time. QUESTION: What was a difference between this computer and previous computers?

In 1943, as part of the British war effort, a series of vacuum tube based computers (named Colossus) were developed to crack German secret codes during World War II. This technology was kept as a Top Secret until the 80’s. QUESTION: What was this computer used for?

Other developments continued until in 1946 the first general– purpose digital computer, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) was built. It is said that this computer weighed 30 tons, consumed about 180,000 watts of electrical power, and had 18,000 vacuum tubes which were used for processing. Question: This computer consumed 180.000 watts, How many watts does an average desktop computer consume at present?

Computers of this generation could only perform single task, and they had no operating system. Maintenance was extremely difficult as the vacuum tubes broke down regularly and had to be replaced, and also there was a big problem with overheating. QUESTION: Which of these ones was NOT a problem for computers from the first generation?