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By 1948, the invention of the transistor greatly changed the computer's
development. The transistor replaced the large, cumbersome vacuum tube in
televisions, radios and computers. As a result, the size of electronic machinery
has been shrinking ever since. The transistor was at work in the computer by
1956. Coupled with early advances in magnetic-core memory, transistors led to
second generation computers that were smaller, faster, more reliable and more
energy-efficient than their predecessors. The first large-scale machines to take
advantage of this transistor technology were early supercomputers, Stretch by
IBM and LARC by Sperry-Rand.
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