PRESENTATION

FIRST GENERATION COMPUTERS

1940-1956

GROUP-1
• INTRODUCTION
Generally, the computers built during the World War II era are known as the
first generation computers. These are considered the first computers, and were
extremely different from the computers we see today. Because the first generation
computers were extremely difficult to program, they were designed for a specific
task and they never made it to the general market. These primitive computers
relied on vacuum tubes and magnetic drums.

Vacuum tube Magnetic drum Magnetic drum

• WHAT ARE VACCUM TUBES?

A sealed glass tube containing a near vacuum that

allows the free passage of electric current.
• MAGNETIC DRUMS
Magnetic drums were easily adaptable for data storage- the drum surface
was coated with a ferromagnetic material that could store digital data by
changing the magnetic properties of the material (similar to the way in which
data is stored on a hard disk today). Most computers built between 1950 and
1955 used drum memory.