Basic Computer
65 Questions
Basic Computer MCQs — Practice & Prepare
✅ Correct answer: Jacquard
Punched cards were first introduced by Joseph Marie Jacquard in 1804, who used them to automatically control weaving patterns on his loom — a concept later adapted for programming early computers and data processing.
✅ Correct answer: Charles Babbage
Charles Babbage is known as the Father of Computer for designing the Difference Engine and Analytical Engine in the 19th century, the first mechanical concepts for a general-purpose programmable computer.
✅ Correct answer: Charles Babbage
The Analytical Engine, a mechanical general-purpose computer design featuring a 'mill' (processor) and 'store' (memory), was developed by Charles Babbage in the 1830s.
✅ Correct answer: counter wheels
The Analytical Engine used mechanical counter wheels as its memory unit, since it was a purely mechanical design (with rotating cogs and wheels) that predated any form of electronic or magnetic memory.
✅ Correct answer: Herman Hollerith
The Tabulating Machine, used to process the 1890 US Census data, was the first electromechanical machine, developed by Herman Hollerith, who later founded a company that eventually became part of IBM.
✅ Correct answer: John Von Neumann
The basic architecture underlying most modern computers — where instructions and data are stored together in the same memory — was developed by John Von Neumann, and is known as the Von Neumann architecture.
✅ Correct answer: Von Neumann
ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer), the first general-purpose electronic digital computer, was designed by J. Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly, completed in 1945.
✅ Correct answer: ADVAC
UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) is regarded as the first general-purpose electronic computer built for commercial use, delivered in the United States in 1951.
✅ Correct answer: first generation
First-generation computers, built with bulky vacuum tubes, were physically enormous, often filling entire rooms, unlike the much smaller machines that followed in later generations.
✅ Correct answer: vacuum tubes
First-generation computers (1940s-1950s) were based on vacuum tubes, which served as the primary switching and amplifying components before transistors replaced them.
✅ Correct answer: electromechanical
Before the first generation of electronic computers, machines like the Harvard Mark I were electromechanical, relying on a combination of electrical power and mechanical relays and switches.
✅ Correct answer: machine
First-generation computers were programmed directly in machine language — binary code specific to each machine — since higher-level programming languages had not yet been developed.
✅ Correct answer: micro seconds
First-generation, vacuum-tube-based computers operated at speeds measured in milliseconds, far slower than the microsecond, nanosecond, and picosecond speeds of later generations.
✅ Correct answer: 1946-1958
Second-generation, transistor-based computers were developed and used approximately between 1956 and 1963, following the invention of the transistor which replaced bulky vacuum tubes.
✅ Correct answer: third
Time-sharing, which allows multiple users to access a computer's resources simultaneously, became possible with third-generation computers, thanks to more advanced operating systems and IC-based hardware.
✅ Correct answer: integrated circuit
'Chip' is a common informal nickname for an integrated circuit (IC) — a complete electronic circuit with many components fabricated onto a single small piece of semiconductor material.
✅ Correct answer: integrated circuits
Third-generation computers (1965-1971) were built using Integrated Circuits (ICs), which replaced the individual transistors used in the second generation, making computers smaller, faster, and more reliable.
✅ Correct answer: silicon
Integrated Circuits (chips) used in computers are made primarily with silicon, a semiconductor material that allows precise control of electrical current, making it ideal for building tiny transistor-based circuits.
✅ Correct answer: integrated circuit
A complete electronic circuit combining transistors and other components on a small silicon chip is called an integrated circuit (IC) — the foundational building block of all modern computer hardware.
✅ Correct answer: 3rd Generation
Integrated Circuits (ICs) began being used starting with third-generation computers (1965-1971), replacing the discrete transistors used in the second generation and greatly increasing processing power and reliability.