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Z3
Z3 was an electromechanical computer designed by Konrad Zuse. It was the world’s
fi rst working programmable, fully automatic computing machine. It was one of the fi rst
machines that could be considered a complete computing machine.
Harvard Mark I
Harvard Mark I computer was built in partnership between Harvard and IBM in 1944.
This was the fi rst programmable digital computer made
in the US. But it was not a purely electronic computer. Think and Discuss
The machine weighed fi ve tons and had 500 miles of
Who founded IBM?
wire. It was 8 feet in height and 51 feet in length.
ENIAC and UNIVAC
The fi rst fully functional electronic digital computer to be built in the US was Electronic
Numerical Integrator And Calculator (ENIAC). It was somewhat similar to the earlier
computers, but was considerably larger and more fl exible. UNIVersal Automatic
Computer (UNIVAC) was the fi rst commercial computer produced in the United States.
Generations of Computers
The history of computers is often referred to as diff erent generations of computers. With
every generation of computers, there was a major development in technology. As a
result, computers became smaller, cheaper, more powerful and more effi cient. So far, we
know about fi ve diff erent generations of computers.
First Generation Computers (1940—1956)
The fi rst generation computers were in use between 1940 and 1956. Scientists used
vacuum tubes as processors in them. They were so big that they occupied an entire
room. Some features of the fi rst generation computers are listed below.
• Their speed was quite low and power (electricity) consumption was very high.
• Inputs in such computers were in the form of punched cards and paper tapes.
• Their programming capacity was very low.
• They could not store much data.
• They were huge in size and very expensive.
Learn More
A punched card is a rectangular piece of cardboard in which information is represented by the
presence or absence of holes punched in it.
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