Which of the following is regarded as the first commercially available electronic computer?
- A.ENIAC
- B.EDVAC
- C.Harvard Mark I
- D.UNIVAC-I
Correct answer
Explanation
The correct answer is D, UNIVAC-I, the Universal Automatic Computer. 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. It belongs to the first generation and used vacuum tubes.
Option A, ENIAC, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, was built by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchly and is remembered as one of the first general-purpose electronic computers, but it was a one-off machine and not a commercial product. Option B, EDVAC, was its successor and is remembered for putting the stored program idea into practice. Option C, the Harvard Mark I, was an electro-mechanical machine driven by relays rather than a fully electronic computer. Papers deliberately place ENIAC first in the list, so read the word commercially with care.
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
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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 →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
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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.
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
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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 →In which year was the Intel 4004, the first commercial microprocessor, introduced?
- A.1964
- B.1971
- C.1975
- D.1981
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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
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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.
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