Generations of Computer



The computer has seen five generations till now. According to Moore's law, the number of transistors per square inch on integrated circuits had doubled every year since their invention. He also predicts that this trend will continue into the foreseeable future. Human kind was overwhelmed with the tremendous speed of innovation in terms of technology, hardware, software, memory etc., in each generation. 

 Let us discuss in detail about the five generations of computers below:

UNIVAC
UNIVAC 494

First Generation - Vacuum Tubes:

  • Example: The UNIVAC and ENIAC are the best examples of first generation computers. UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) was the first commercial computer developed in United States by Presper Eckert and John Mauchly. ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) is an earliest electronic general purpose computer which is Turing complete. It can able to solve a large class of numerical problems through reprogramming.
ENIAC
ENIAC

  • Infrastructure: These computers used Vacuum Tubes for circuitry and magnetic drums for memory. It is enormous in size taking up entire rooms also expensive to operate. They generated a lot of heat which in turn required air conditioned room for them.
  • Programming: Programming is done using Machine language which is the lowest level language understood only by computers to perform operations. Machine language uses Binary number system for representation. They could solve only one problem at a time.
  • Operation Speed: It would take days or even weeks to perform an operation
  • Input and Output: Input was based on punched cards and paper tape, and output was displayed on printouts.
Punched Card
Paper Tape

Second Generation - Transistors (1956-1963):

transistor
Transistor

  • Innovation: In second generation, vacuum tubes were replaced by Transistors. The transistor was invented at Bell Labs in 1947.
  • Transistor: Transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify electronic signals and electrical power. It is composed of semiconductor material usually with at least three terminals (Base, Emitter, Collector) for connection to an external circuit.
Magnetic Drum
Magnetic Core
  • Advantages over Vacuum tubes:The transistor was smaller, faster, cheaper, more energy efficient and more reliable than Vacuum tubes based computers. They stored their instructions in memory which moved from magnetic drum to magnetic core technology.
  • Limitations: However, transistors still generated a great deal of heat that makes the computer to damage over the vacuum tube.
  • Input and Output: Similar to first generation computers, input was based on punched cards and printouts for output.
  • Programming: Second generation computers used assembly language which allowed programmers to specify instructions in words. High level languages such as COBOL, FORTRAN were evolved at the same time.
assembly language
Assembly Language

  • The first computers of this generation were developed for the atomic energy research institutions.

Third Generation - Integrated Circuits

Third generation computer

  • Innovation: Third generation computers were evolved with the development of Integrated circuits in which the transistors were miniaturised and placed on Silicon chips called semiconductors. This drastically increased the speed and efficiency of computers.
Integrated Circuit

  • Input and output: Input and output was based on keyboard and monitors. The computer was completely organized and managed using a System software called Operating System.
  • Advantages: These computers allowed the device to run many applications at one time with a central program that monitored the memory. These are smaller and cheaper which made many people to adopt.
  • The integration of large number of tiny transistors into a small chip results in circuits that are magnitude smaller, cheaper and faster than discrete electronic components.
  • Programming: Programming was done using high-level programming languages such as BASIC, FORTRAN, COBOL, PASCAL etc., However assembly language is preferred by Programmers since high level languages are not much supported.

Fourth Generation - Microprocessors (1971 - Present)


  • The fourth generation computers were the most successful computer generation. The microprocessor was built using thousands of integrated circuits on Silicon chip. The Intel 4004 chip was developed in 1971, located all the components of the computer - from CPU to I/O on single chip.
  • In 1981, IBM introduced its first computer for the home user and in 1984 Apple introduced Macintosh.
  • Fourth generation computers saw the development of GUIs, the mouse and handheld devices.

Fifth Generation - Artificially intelligent Quantum Computer 

quantum computer'
Quantum Computer

  • Fifth generation computing devices is based on Artificial Intelligence are still in development. It will extensively uses Voice recognition, parallel processing, superconductors, Quantum computation and molecular and nanotechnology.
  • The goal is to develop devices that respond to natural language inpur and are capable of learning and self organization.
  • The main research areas to be focused are
    • Natural Language Processing
    • Quantum Information Processing
    • Machine Learning and Deep Learning
    • Blockchain
    • Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality
    • Internet of Things
    • Nanocomputing
    • Quantum Cryptography
The development of computers have led to the progressive development of human kind exponentially. 

Location: Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India

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