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Generation 2: Transistors (1954-1963)
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| Generation 2: Transistors (1954-1963) Vacuum tubes, in addition to being relatively large (several inches long, dissipated an enormous amount of heat. Thus, they required lots of space for cooling and tended to burnout frequently. The next improvement in computer technology was the replacement of vacuum tubes with transistors. Invented by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley in 1948, a transistor is apiece of silicon whose conductivity can be turned on and off using an electric current. Transistors were much smaller, cheaper, more reliable, and more energy-efficient than vacuum tubes. As such, they allowed for the design of smaller and faster machines at drastically lower cost. Transistors maybe the most important technological development of the 20th century. They allowed for the development of small and affordable electronic devices radios, televisions, phones, computers, etc, as well as the information-based economy that developed along with them. The potential impact of transistors was recognized almost immediately, earning Bardeen, Brattain, and Shockley the 1956 Nobel Prize in physics. The first transistorized computers were supercomputers commissioned by the Atomic Energy Commission for nuclear research in 1956: Sperry-Rand's LARC and IBM's STRETCH. Companies such as IBM, Sperry-Rand, and Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) began marketing transistor-based computers in the early s, with the DEC PDP-1 and IBM 1400 series being especially popular. As transistors drastically reduced the cost of computers, even more attention was placed on programming. If computers were to be used by more than just the engineering experts, programming would have to become simpler. In 1957, John Backus (1924-) and his group at IBM introduced the first high-level programming language, FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslator). This language allowed the programmer to work at a higher level of abstraction, programming via mathematical formulas as opposed to assembly level instructions. Programming in a high-level language like FORTRAN greatly simplified the task of programming, although IBM's original claims that FORTRAN would "eliminate coding errors and the debugging process" were a bit optimistic. Other high-level languages were developed in this period, including LISP (John McCarthy at MIT, 1959), BASIC (John Kemeny at Dartmouth, 1959), and COBOL (Grace Murray-Hopper at the Department of Defense, The s saw the rise of the computer industry, with IBM becoming a major force. The success of IBM is not so much attributed to superior technology, but more to its shrewd business sense and effective long-range planning. While smaller companies like DEC, CDC, and Burroughs may have had more advanced machines, IBM won market share through aggressive marketing, reliable customer support, and a strategy of designing an entire family of compatible, interchangeable machines. Download 451.15 Kb. Share with your friends:
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