Vacuum tubes were used as the main electronic component in which generation of computers?
- A.First generation
- B.Second generation
- C.Third generation
- D.Fourth generation
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is A, the first generation. Machines such as ENIAC, EDVAC and UNIVAC-I ran on thousands of vacuum tubes, which made them enormous, power-hungry and dependent on constant cooling. They were programmed in machine language and used punched cards for input and magnetic drums for storage.
Option B, the second generation, replaced the tube with the transistor invented at Bell Laboratories in 1947, which cut the size and heat sharply and allowed assembly language and the first high-level languages such as COBOL and FORTRAN. Option C, the third generation, is defined by the integrated circuit demonstrated by Jack Kilby in 1958, and brought the keyboard, the monitor and the operating system. Option D, the fourth generation, begins with the microprocessor and very large scale integration, the Intel 4004 of 1971 being the first commercial one. Learn the chain tube, transistor, integrated circuit, microprocessor in order.
Read the full article: Basics of Computers and Generations: Parts, Memory and MCQs
Practice Questions
View allWho is known as the Father of the Computer?
- A.Blaise Pascal
- B.Charles Babbage
- C.Alan Turing
- D.Herman Hollerith
Show answer
He designed the Difference Engine and then the Analytical Engine, and the Analytical Engine contained the logical parts of a modern computer: a store for holding numbers, a mill for calculating, punched-card input and a printed output.
Read the full explanation →The transistor, which defined second-generation computers, was invented at which laboratory?
- A.Texas Instruments
- B.Intel Corporation
- C.Bell Laboratories
- D.IBM Research
Show answer
John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley demonstrated the transistor there in 1947, and the three shared the Nobel Prize in Physics for it.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following is regarded as the first commercially available electronic computer?
- A.ENIAC
- B.EDVAC
- C.Harvard Mark I
- D.UNIVAC-I
Show answer
It was the first electronic computer built to be sold to customers rather than used only in a laboratory, and it was famously put to work on census and business data processing.
Read the full explanation →In which year was the Intel 4004, the first commercial microprocessor, introduced?
- A.1964
- B.1971
- C.1975
- D.1981
Show answer
The Intel 4004 placed an entire processing unit on a single chip for the first time in a commercial product, and that step marks the beginning of the fourth generation of computers, built on very large scale integration.
Read the full explanation →Which of the following is a volatile memory?
- A.ROM
- B.Hard disk
- C.RAM
- D.EPROM
Show answer
Random access memory holds the programs and data the processor is working on at that moment, and it is volatile: the instant the power supply is cut, everything stored in it disappears.
Read the full explanation →