History of Computers
Important
Computer generations are defined by major technological developments that fundamentally changed the way computers operated.
First Generation (1946–1959)
ENIAC, Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer
- First real computer
- designed for military
Components
- vacuum tubes for circuitry
- magnetic drums for memory
- Used machine language
- lowest level
- complex
- Ran one program at a time
- Input with punch cards
Cons
- Often malfunctioned due to heat generated
- Large size, because vacuum tubes were large
- limited capacity
- lots of maintenance
Second Generation (1959–1965)
Mainframe computers
- used less power, and ran cooler
- Still large as a room
Components
- Used transistors
- represented 2 states, on/off (0/1 binary)
- Still used punch cards for input, printouts for output
- Assembly language
- COBOL - business uses
- FORTRAN - math + science use cases
Third Generation (1965–1971)
Integrated Circuits and mini-computers
- Beginning of modern computing
Components
- Used integrated circuits
- invented silicon
- miniaturized transistors and placed on silicon chips called semiconductors
- Used keyboard and monitors
- Operating systems ran multiple applications simultaneously and shared memory
Fourth Generation (1971–present)
Personal computer (PC): Desktops & laptops
- Age of microprocessors
- thousands of integrated circuits on a single silicon chip
- Significant reduction of processor size
- Size of transistors reduced to 7-14 nanometers
- Significant increase in capability
Components
- GUIs
- Mouse
- Handheld devices
- New OS: MS-DOS, Windows
- High-level languages
Fifth Generation
- Using AI
- Natural language processing (NLP)
- Quantum computing
- the study of non-classical model of computation
- reduce power consumption from 100-1000x
- Nanotechnology
- molecular-level systems
- Overlap with Gen 4 and 5