Part II: Getting Smaller

The 2nd Generation –Transistors

• (1956 to 1963)
• Software Technology - The instructions were written using the assembly language
• Computing Characteristics - The computation time was in microseconds
• Physical Appearance - Transistors are smaller in size compared to vacuum tubes, thus, the size of the computer was also reduced
• Application - The cost of commercial production of these computers was very high, though less than the first generation computers. The transistors had to be assembled manually in second generation computers
• Examples - PDP-8, IBM 1401 and CDC 1604

The second generation computers used magnetic core technology for primary memory. They used magnetic tapes and magnetic disks for secondary storage. The input was still through punched cards and the output using printouts. They used the concept of a stored program, where instructions were stored in the memory of computer.