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Group A
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| vacuum tube – електронна лампа, вакуумна лампа internal – внутрішній simultaneously – одночасно frequent – частий; звичайний burnout – перегорання time-consuming – трудомісткий bulky – великий, об’ємистий; громіздкий; важкий | cumbersome – обтяжливий; громіздкий magnetic core – магнітний сердечник to supplement – доповнювати enormous size – величезний розмір unreliability – ненадійність high cost – висока вартість |
Questions:
1. What were the vacuum tubes used for?
2. What were their disadvantages?
The first Generation, 1951-1958: The Vacuum Tube
The beginning of the computer age may be dated June 14, 1951. In the first generation, vacuum tubes— electronic tubes about the size of light bulbs were used as the internal computer components. They were used for calculation, control, and sometimes for memory. However, because thousands of such tubes were required, they generated a great deal of heat, causing many problems in temperature regulation and climate control. In addition, all the tubes had to be working simultaneously, they were subject to frequent burnout and the people operating the computer often did not know whether the problem was in the programming or in the machine. In addition, input and output tended to be slow, since both operations were generally performed on punched cards.
Another drawback was that the language, used in programming was machine language, which uses numbers, rather than the present-day higher-level languages, which are more like English. Programming with numbers alone made using the computer difficult and time-consuming.
Therefore, as long as computers were tied down to vacuum tube technology, they could only be bulky, cumbersome, and expensive.
In the first generation the use of magnetism for data storage was pioneered. For primary storage, magnetic corewas the principal form of technology used. This consisted of small, doughnut-shaped rings about the size of a pinhead, which were strung like beads on intersecting thin wires. Magnetic core was the dominant form of primary storage technology for two decades. To supplement primary storage, first-generation computers stored data on punched cards. In 1957, magnetic tape was introduced as a faster, more compact method of storing data. The early generation of computers was used primarily for scientific and engineering calculation rather than for business data processing applications. Because of the enormous size, unreliability, and high cost of these computers, many people assumed they would remain very expensive, specialized tools, not destined for general use.