SECOND_GENERATION

SECOND GENERATION COMPUTER (1959-1964)

The second generation computer were developed during 1959 to 1964 .They use transistors as the electronic circuits.The transistor was developed by John Burdeen,Walter Brattain and William Shockley in 1947 .Development of computer were revolutionized by the transistor.They were faster,more reliable,easier to operate,less expensive,much smaller,required less electricity than vaccum tubes of the first generation computers.This generation of computer used Assembly language and the high level language such as COBOL,ALGOL,FORTRAN etc for programming.

Features of second generation computer are:-

• Transistors were used as electronic circuits.
• These computer used Magnetic Cores as primary data storage medium and Magnetic Tapes as secondary storage medium.
• These computer were smaller,faster,more reliable,less expensive and accurate that those of first generation computer.
• Input and output devices were much faster than first generation computer.
• They required less power and emitted less range heat.
• Their operating speed was upto the microseconds range.
• They used Machine –independed (high level) programming language such as ALGGL,COBOL,FORTRAN etc. for programming.

Some example (model) of second generation computers and their manufactures are listed below.

Model	Manufactured by
IBM  7070, IBM 7080, IBM  7090, IBM  1400    IBM  1600 Series.	IBM
UNIVAC – II,SS80,SS90	UNIVAC
400 Series,800 Series	Honey Well
GE 635,GE 645,GE 200	General Electronics
CDC 1604,160A	Control Data
B5000,200 Serie	Burroughts