The first generation of computers: the beginning of the beginning

In the English translation, the word "computer" means "calculator". It was for the purpose of carrying out complex calculations that the first computers were created.

The history of the creation of a computer, paradoxically, originates in ancient times. Of course, the first computational tools do not go to any comparison with modern, but it is with them that the creation of computer technology begins . The first tool that helped people count, there were known to all scores.

Ancient Greek abacus was a wooden tablet, sprinkled with sand. In Russia, bones were used as the main tool for carrying out simple calculations and calculations, which were decomposed into heaps. However, since the time of Rus's existence many centuries will pass before we come close to creating a real computer.

The first generation of computers is associated with the names of John von Neumann, Claude Shannon and Alan Turing - scientists who are directly related to the development of computer technology. Most of the first computers were created in the period from 1945 to 1954 as an experiment to test some theoretical positions. At the same time, a new science, cybernetics, directly related to information technologies, is developing. Up to the 60s of the 20th century, cybernetics was understood as the science associated with the development of computer technologies, including its most promising direction - robotics and the invention of artificial intelligence. The first generation of computers was created on the basis of the work of electronic lamps (similar to those used in the work of older televisions), computers of the mid-20th century reached huge sizes, they required a separate room for their placement.

The evolution of a computer includes five main stages. Why is the period of creation of the first generation of computers worth considering in the most detail? We do not take into account the computational inventions of our ancient ancestors, because they, in fact, have nothing to do with the birth of electronic computers. The creation of the first computer, which is the prototype of a modern computer, is of enormous importance for such a science as computer science in general.

Stages of computer development:

• 1945-1954 g. - Creation of the first computer based on the development of computer hardware John von Neumann - the first generation of computers;
• 1955-1964 - the creation of a second generation of computers based on transistors, the introduction of the first operating system in them, the development of programming languages: Cobol, Algol, Fortran, the appearance of computers on sale;
• 1965-1974 g. - the invention of microcircuits, the beginning of the use of semiconductor memory (operational) in the work of computers, the beginning of large-scale production of computers.

Time from 1975 to 1985 is considered a period of calm in the development of electro-computers.

Since 1985, the period of development of the fourth generation of computers has begun, the improvement of computer technology due to the increase in its capacity and size, the general availability and mass production of computers.

The fifth generation of computers from the point of view of Japanese scientists involves the improvement of existing computer models and the creation of computer technology that can understand the user's commands at the level of his thinking. Regardless of whether the grandiose plans of foreign inventors are implemented or not, the first generation of computers played a very big role in the development of information technologies of the future. The first computers that occupy a huge territory and seem to us real monsters, one way or another, are the prototype of our usual computer. Without their existence, the invention of laptops, netbooks, tablets, etc. It would be impossible.