Generation: The Brief History of Computer Architecture

First Generation (1940-1950) :: Vacuum Tube

• ENIAC [1945]: Designed by Mauchly & Echert, built by US army to calculate trajectories for ballistic shells during Worls War II. Around 18000 vacuum tubes and 1500 relays were used to build ENIAC, and it was programmed by manually setting switches
• UNIVAC [1950]: the first commercial computer
• John Von Neumann architecture: Goldstine and Von Neumann took the idea of ENIAC and developed concept of storing a program in the memory. Known as the Von Neumann's architecture and has been the basis for virtually every machine designed since then.

Features:

• Electron emitting devices
• Data and programs are stored in a single read-write memory
• Memory contents are addressable by location, regardless of the content itself
• Machine language/Assemble language
• Sequential execution