Second Generation Computers (1956-1963)
The invention of Transistors marked the start of the second generation. These transistors took place of the vacuum tubes used in the first generation computers. First large scale machines were made using these technologies to meet the requirements of atomic energy laboratories. One of the other benefits to the programming group was that the second generation replaced Machine language with the assembly language. Even though complex in itself Assembly language was much easier than the binary code.
The invention of Transistors marked the start of the second generation. These transistors took place of the vacuum tubes used in the first generation computers. First large scale machines were made using these technologies to meet the requirements of atomic energy laboratories. One of the other benefits to the programming group was that the second generation replaced Machine language with the assembly language. Even though complex in itself Assembly language was much easier than the binary code.
Second generation computers also started showing the characteristics of modern day computers with utilities such as printers, disk storage and operating systems. Many financial information was processed using these computers.
In Second Generation computers, the instructions (program) could be stored inside the computer's memory. High-level languages such as COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language) and FORTRAN (Formula Translator) were used, and they are still used for some applications nowadays.
The IBM 7090
The IBM 7090, announced in 1958, was a transistorized version of the vacuum-tube-logic 709 and the first commercial computer with transistor logic (the first such computing device, according to , was the IBM 608, but that was not a general-purpose stored-program computer).
Grayson Kirk, President of Columbia University (right) and Kenneth M. King, director of the University's new Computer Center, 1963, in the machine room at the IBM 7090 console, "one of the largest computers in existence" at the time. Photo: found in an unattributed newspaper clipping in the Columbiana archive.
The IBM 7090 Console in the Columbia Computer Center machine room, 1966. Pictured: A group of particle physicists who discovered the violation of charge-conjugation invariance in interactions of intermediate strength: Charles Baltay and Lawrence Kirsch of Nevis Lab (back row); Juliet Lee-Franzini of SUNY Stony Brook and team leader Paulo Franzini of Nevis Lab
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