First generation of Computers (1951-1959)

Introduction of the UNIVAC I in 1951 marked the beginning of the first generation. General features of these computers were:

1. Electronic circuitry used vacuum tubes.
2. Punched cards used for feeding information.
3. Punched cards and paper used for getting results.
4. Magnetic tapes were used for external storage.
5. Oriented towards batch processing, where the entire machine is dedicated to a particular job until completed.
6. Human operators had to set switches.
7. Development of machine language and assembly language.
8. The operating speed was very slow (e.g. Milliseconds) but large in size.
9. They were restricted to commercial and scientific applications. Machine language and assembly language were used to program the computers.
10. Vacuum tubes required great amount of energy so generated much heat and very hard to maintain.
11. It had no facility for linking programs.

Typical computer: UNIVAC I, IBM 650, BURROUGHS 220.