Page 16 - Viva ICSE Computer Studies 6 : E-book

• They are used for weather forecasting and defence purposes such as to control satellites
and missiles.
• India has produced many supercomputers. PARAM is one of them.

CRAY-1, CRAY-2 and Sunway TaihuLight are some more examples of supercomputers.

Computer Languages

In order to instruct a computer to perform a particular task, a computer programmer has to
write a program. While writing a program, a programmer needs to follow the syntax of the
language in which commands are written.

Let’s look briefl y into the history of programming languages.
Machine Language: First Generation Language (1GL)

First generation language (1GL) is essentially a machine language. Instructions are given in
machine codes, i.e., in the form of a long string of 0s and 1s.

Advantages of Machine Language

• It is very fast as it is executed directly by the CPU.
• There is no need for translation.

Disadvantages of Machine Language
• The simplest of instructions need lengthy coding and programming.
• The programming is tedious and error-prone.
• Each processor has its own machine code.

• Programs written for one machine do not work on a diff erent or newer model.

Assembly Language: Second Generation Language (2GL)
Second generation language (2GL) usually refers to the assembly language. The assembly
language is an improvement over 1GL. It uses mnemonics (simple abbreviated codes) to
represent operators, memory locations of data, etc.

Advantages of Assembly Language
• It is easier to read and write than 1GL.

• It is easy to identify errors and rectify them in 2GL.
• It can be easily modifi ed.

Disadvantages of Assembly Language
• It needs an extra program, called assembler to translate the program into a machine
language.
• It is specifi c to a particular computer.

• Assembly language programs cannot be reused on diff erent models of computers.
• It does not reduce the size of a program.
• A line of assembly code usually is translated into a line of machine code.

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