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Electronic Comp Hist
Graves Early Electronic Computer History
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What was the 1st generation of computer electronics? | The vacuum tube |
| What did the vacuum tube do? | It controlled the flow of electricity, allowing for 1s and 0s to be input and processed |
| What were two of the first computers that used vacuum tubes? | Britain's Colossus and USA's ENIAC, created for WWII |
| What was the problem with vacuum tubes? | They broke or burned out easily |
| What was the 2nd generation of computer electronics? | The transistor |
| What did the transistor do? | It controlled the flow of electricity, but was made of silicon. It was far more reliable and less breakable than vacuum tubes |
| What was the 3rd generation of computer electronics? | The integrated circuit |
| What was special about the integrated circuit? | It combined the functions of many transistors onto a chip of silicon |
| What computers used first used the integrated circuit? | The guidance computers in the landing module and command module for the first NASA Moon mission |
| What did Colossus do? | The British designed and used it to break Nazi Germany's coded messages. |
| What did ENIAC do? | The US military designed and used it to create aiming tables for artillery. |
| What did the Harvard Mark I computer do? | It was used to help develop the atomic bomb. |