The first generation of computers was characterized by the
use of vacuum tubes as the primary electronic component. Vacuum tubes were
large, fragile, and generated a lot of heat, but they were essential for making
electronic computing possible. In 1937, John Atanasoff, a physicist at Iowa
State University, began work on an electronic computer that used vacuum tubes
for calculations. Atanasoff's computer was the first to use binary digits (or
bits) to represent data and was an important precursor to later computer
designs.
In the United States, John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert
were also working on an electronic computer. Their computer, called the ENIAC,
was completed in 1945 and was the first electronic computer to be publicly
demonstrated. The ENIAC used over 17,000 vacuum tubes and was capable of
performing calculations much faster than any previous computer.
Other key technological innovations during the first
generation of computers included magnetic tape storage, which allowed for the
storage of large amounts of data, and the development of programming languages
such as FORTRAN and COBOL, which made it easier to write programs for
computers.
Applications of first-generation computers included military
calculations, such as the calculation of ballistics tables, and scientific
research, such as the computation of weather patterns and nuclear simulations.
