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A transistor computer, now often called a second-generation computer, [1] is a computer which uses discrete transistors instead of vacuum tubes. The first generation of electronic computers used vacuum tubes, which generated large amounts of heat, were bulky and unreliable.
This is a list of transistorized computers, which were digital computers that used discrete transistors as their primary logic elements. Discrete transistors were a feature of logic design for computers from about 1960, when reliable transistors became economically available, until monolithic integrated circuits displaced them in the 1970s.
Philco was one of the pioneers of transistorized computers, also known as second generation computers. After the company developed the surface barrier transistor, which was much faster than previous point-contact types, it was awarded contracts for military and government computers. Commercialized derivatives of some of these designs became ...
Similarly, indirect addressing became more common in the second generation, either in conjunction with index registers or instead of them. While first-generation computers typically had a small number of index registers or none, several lines of second-generation computers had large numbers of index registers, e.g., Atlas, Bendix G-20, IBM 7070.
Transistors greatly reduced computers' size, initial cost, and operating cost. Typically, second-generation computers were composed of large numbers of printed circuit boards such as the IBM Standard Modular System, [144] each carrying one to four logic gates or flip-flops.
Computers introduced between 1959 and 1964, often regarded as second-generation computers, were based on discrete transistors and printed circuits – resulting in smaller, more powerful and more reliable computers. 1959 UK
Second generation computer, a computer constructed using discrete transistors; Second generation of video game consoles (1976–1984), sometimes referred to as the early 8-bit era; Second Generation Multiplex Plus, DNA profiling system; Second-generation programming language, a generational way to categorise assembly languages
The world's first transistor computer was built at the University of Manchester in November 1953. The computer was built by Richard Grimsdale, then a research student in the Department of Electrical Engineering and later a professor of Electronic Engineering at Sussex University. The machine used point-contact transistors, made in small ...