About Computer And Its Generations

We are going to know about the History of Computers and their generations that we used till now. We should also know what were the previous generations and computers which are not present and present in the world. Some important information, introduction and about its generation till future is explained clearly as everyone should know how it came into existing.

What does Computer mean?

The word Computer was first introduced in the year 1613 to perform calculations and computations. Up to 19th century the definition of the computer was same, later the meaning has been changed to a machine which carries out computations. A computer is an electronic device which performs the both arithmetic and logical operations.

Introduction

In 1822, Charles Babbage introduced the analytical engine for automatic calculations with the help of programming. It contains the ALU (arithmetic and logical unit), flow control and memory. Due to funding issues he can`t build that first general purpose computer concept. Later in 1906 his son Henry Babbage modified it as analytical engine 2 which is used to perform the basic calculations. He gave a successful demonstration of its use on computing tables at Science Museum in South Kensington in 1990.

Generations of Computers

1. First Generation from 1946-1958 (Vacuum Tubes): J.P Eckert and J.Mauchly

In this generation, the computers were very slow, huge and very expensive too. They use to consume more amount of electricity. It is to be programmed in mechanical language. The machine was called as ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator Automatic Computer) which had thousands of vacuum tubes in it.

2. Second Generation from 1959-1964 (Transistors):

It was not that much worked compared to the vacuum tube. In 1947 three scientists developed a short Era where Vacuum tubes were replaced as Transistors at AT&T`s Bell labs. The Core memory was developed which was faster than First Generation Computers with the First Operating System. The programming was in both Assembly and Machine Level Language. The programming languages appeared was COBOL and FORTRAN, in these magnetic tapes and discs, were used. These Transistor Computers consumed less power, heat and were very small compared to First Generation Computers.

3. Third Generation from 1965-1970 (Integrated Circuits):

It was a great step from Transistors to IC`s in developing semiconductor technologies. The IC consists of a huge number of transistors on a single chip. Robert Noyce from Fairchild Corporation and Jack Kilby of Texas Instruments independently discovered the attributes of IC`s. The thin pieces of Bakelite and Fiberglass were electrically connected on them called a Mother Board. This generation computers use to carry the instructions in billion of a second. The human interaction has been changed in this generation to keyboards and monitors from punched cards and printouts. In this, SSI and MSI technologies were used. Power Consumption was low compared to both the First and Second Generations.

4. Fourth Generation from 1971-Present (Microprocessor):

The microprocessor is a chip built with thousands of IC`s in one silicon chip. It was started by Intel 4004 chip that was developed in the year 1971. The computer revolution was been changed from the first generation which was filled in a large room and now it is fixed in a single small chip. This chip consists of CPU, memory, input/ output controls. In this LSI and VLSI technologies were used which made a development of portable computers with a RAID technology of data storage. In this, if the data has to be sent in a smaller distance the greater is the speed of the computer. Different types of memories with high accessing speed and storage capacity were used. These were used in multimedia, VR, and simulation. Then later in 1970`s, people started buying the personal computers were one of the first personal computers was Altair 8800 computer kit. In 1977, the Apple II was sold and then 1981 IBM developed the personal computer market.

5. Fifth Generation from Present-Future (Artificial Intelligence):

In the present stage, computers are based on AI are still in development. The parallel processing and superconductors are helping to make the artificial technology as reality. Maybe quantum technology and nanotechnology can change the face of computers in Future.

Note:

Maybe in future many billions or trillions of transistors on a single chip will perform a billion calculations in a single second.