The History of Computer

The History of Computer

    Computers can be divided into five geneations depending upon the technologies used.

First Generation (1942-1955)

      World War gave rise to numerous developments and started off the computer age. Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) was produced by a partnership between University of Pennsylvania and the US government. It consisted of 18,000 vacuum tubes and 7000 resistors. It was developed by John Presper Eckert and John W.Mauchly and was a general purpose computer. "Von Neumann designed the Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer (EDVAC) in 1945 with a memory to hold both a stored program as well as data." Von Neumann's computer allowed for all the computer functions to be controlled by a single source.

          Then in 1951 came the Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC I), designed by Remington rand and collectively owned by US census bureau and General Electric. UNIVAC amazingly predicted the winner of 1952, presidential elections, Dwight D, Eisenhower.

             In first generation computers, the operating instructions or programs were specifically built for the task for which computer was manufactured. The Machine language was the only wayto tell these machines to perform the operations. There was great difficulty to program these computers, and more when there were some malfunctions. First Generation computers used Vacuum tubes and magnetic drums for data storage. They were extremely large and occupied a very large space. They consumed a lot of power and generated a lot of heat. They had low level of accuracy and reliability. They were restricted to commercial and scientific application. They were very expensive and they were not so accurate and reliable.

Second Generation Computers (1955-1964)

         The invention of Transistors marked the start of the second generation. These transistors took place of the vacuum tubes used in the first generation computers. First large scale machines were made using these technologies to meet the requirements of atomic energy laboratories. One of the other benefits to the programming group was that the second generation replaced machine language with the assembly language. Even though complex in itself Assembly language was much easier than the binary code.

         Second generation computers also started showing the characteristics of modern day computers with utilities such as printers, disk storage and operating systems. Many financial information was processed using these computers.

        In Second Generation computers, the instructions (program) could be stored inside the computer's memory. High-level languages such as COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language) and FORTRAN (Formula Translator) were used, and they are still used for some applications now a days. Transistors were used a electronic circuits. The computer used Magnetic Cores as primary data storage medium and magnetic Tapes as secondary storage medium. These computer were smaller, faster, more reliable, less expensive and accurate than those of first generation computer. Input and output devices were much faster than first generation computer.

          They required less power and emitted less heat than vacuum tubes used in second generation. The operating speed was upto the microseconds range.

Third Generation Computers (1964-1975)

          Although transistors were great deal of improvement over the vacuum tubes, they generated heat and damaged the sensitive areas of the computer. The Integrated Circuit (IC) was invented in 1958 by Jack Kilby. It combined electronic components onto a small silicon disc, made from quartz. More advancement made possible the fittings of even more components on a small chip or a semi conductor. Also in third generation computers, the operating systems allowed the machines to run many different applications. These applications were monitored and coordinated by the computer's memory.

• They used Integrated Circuits (IC) as electronic circuits.
• They had large storage capacity.
• Their operating speed was improved to nono-second.
• They used semiconductor device as a primary storage.
• They were more reliable, much smaller in size, easier to operate and less expensive than previous generation computers.
• They included multi programming, batch amd time-sharing operating systems.
• They used high level programming language including Report Programming Generator (RPG) and Pascal.

Fourth Generation Computers (1975-onwards)

           Fourth Generation computers are the modern day computers. The Size started to go down with the improvement in the integrated circuits. Very Large Scale (VLSI) and Ultra Large scale (ULSI) ensured that millions of components could be fit into a small chip. It reduced the size and price of the computers at the same time increasing power, efficiency and reliability. "The Intel 4004 chip, developed in 1971, took the integrated circuit one step further by locating all the components of a computer (central processing unit, memory, and input and output controls) on a minuscule chip."

      

        Due to the reduction of cost and the availability of the computers power at a small place allowed everyday user to benefit. First came the minicomputers, which offered users different applications, most famous of these the word processors and spreadsheets, which could be used by non-technical users. Video game systems like Atari 2600 generated the interest of general populace in the computers.

        In 1981, IBM introduced personal computers for home and office use. "The number of personal computers in use more than doubled from 2 million in 1981 to 5.5 million in 1982. Ten years later, 65 million PCs were being used. "Computer size kept getting reduced during the years. It went down from Desktop to laptops to palmtops. Macintosh introduced Graphic User Interface in which the users didn't have to type instructions but could use Mouse for the purpose.

       They continued improvement allowed the networking of computers for the sharing of data. Local Area Networks (LAN) and Wide Area Network (WAN), were potential benefits, in that they could be implemented in corporations and everybody could share data over it. Soon the internet and World Wide Web appeared on the computer scene.

The main features of fourth generation computers are:

• These computers sued Large Scale Integration (LSI) and Very Large Integration (VLSI) called microprocessor chips as electronic circuits.
• They used semi-conductor memory like floppy disk, hard disk and magnetic tape for secondary storage.
• Their operating speed was increased to Pico-seconds.
• They size was reduced to micro computer such as desktop and laptop.
• They can understand many high level languages, and they are quite user friendly.
• They are highly reliable and accurate.

Fifth Generation (Present and Beyond)

        Fifth generations computers are only in the minds of advance research scientists and being tested out in the laboratories. These computers will be under Artificial Intelligence (AI), They will be able to take commands in a audio visual way and carry out instructions. Many of the operations which requires law human intelligence will be performed by these computers. Parallel Processing is coming and showing the possibility that the power of many CPU's can be used side by side, and computers will be more powerful than those under central Processing. Advances in Super Conductor technology will greatly improve the speed of information traffic. Future looks bright for the computers.