Q. Illustrate about First Generation Computers?
It is certainly ironic that scientific inventions of great impact have frequently been linked with supporting a very sad as well as undesirable aspect of civilization for example fighting wars. Nuclear energy wouldn't have been developed as fast, if huge efforts weren't spent in the direction of inventing nuclear bombs. Likewise origin of the first truly general-purpose computer was also designed to meet the requirement of World War II. The ENIAC (the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) was designed in 1945 at University of Pennsylvania to calculate figures for thousands of gunnery tables needed by US army for accuracy in artillery fire. The ENIAC ushered in era of what is recognized as first generation computers. It could execute 5000 additions or 500 multiplications per minute. It was though a monstrous installation. It took thousands of vacuum tubes (18000), weighed 30 tons, occupied a number of rooms, needed a great amount of electricity and emitted excessive heat.