Computer generation

Advances in hardware technology over a period of time called a computer generation.

FIRST GENERATION (1945-1956)

First generation computers were physically very large machines because they used vacuum tubes, were very unreliable, required a lot of power to run, and produced so much heat that adequate air conditioning was essential to protect computer parts. They had slow input and output devices, were slow to process and have small storage capacities. Programmers had to code all computer instructions and data in real machine language. They also had to keep track of where instructions and data were stored in memory.

Electronic circuits: - Tubes

Input:- Punched card

Output: - Paper

Storage: - Magnetic tape

Example:- UNICAC-I, IBM-650, 702, 705, BURROUGS-220, EDVAC, EDSAC, Mark -II, UNIVAC-II etc.

SECOND GENERATION (1956-1963)

Second generation computers used transistors instead of tubes. Transistors were smaller, cheaper, generated almost no heat and required very little power. The use of small, long-life transistors also increased processing speed and reliability. Storage capacity has been greatly increased with magnetic disk, magnetic cores for main storage. High-speed card readers, printers, and magnetic tape drives were also introduced. Increased internal processing speed. Programmers allow the use of mnemonic opcodes for instructional operations.

Electronic circuits: - Transistors

Input:- Punched card

Output: - Paper

Storage: - Magnetic core

Example:- IBM-1400, IBM-7000, Control Data-3600, General Electric-365, Honeywell-200, SS-80, NCR-300, CDC-1604, CDC-160A etc.

 

THIRD GENERATION (1964-1971)

This generation of computers used semiconductor logic microcircuits or integrated circuits (ICs), further reducing the physical size of computers and increasing their durability and internal processing speed. Smaller circuits allow higher internal processing speeds, resulting in faster instruction execution. New mass storage such as the capacity and speed of the data cell, drum, and disk, the portable disk set was developed, and faster, higher density magnetic tapes began to be used. Significant improvements have been made to card readers and printers. Applications using online processing, real-time processing, time-sharing, multiprogramming, multiprocessing, and teleprocessing have become widely adopted.

Electronic circuits: Integrated circuits (IC), LSI

Input:- Punched card, keyboard

Output: - Paper, Monitor

Storage:- Magnetic disks, Magnetic tapes

Example:- IBM System/360, UNVAC1108, UNVAC9000

FOURTH GENERATION (1971-PRESENT)

In the fourth generation computers, an integrated circuit with a large capacity microprocessor is used. As a result of this technology, computers are significantly smaller in physical size, retain a large memory capacity, and are ultra-fast. A whole new breed of computers called microcomputers and minicomputers that provide large amounts of computing power. The latest mass storage technologies such as optical disc, DVD, etc. are used.

Electronic Circuits: - VSLI (Very Large Integrated Circuits)

Input:- Keyboard, Mouse, Scanner Digitizers

Output: - Paper, Monitor, Plotter, Printer

Storage: - Magnetic discs, Optical discs, DVDs, etc.

Example:- IBM System/370, HP-3000, AMD Athelon, Pentium

FIFTH GENERATION (PRESENT AND BEYOND)

The PIM/m-1 machine, one of the few "fifth generation computers" ever made. The Fifth Generation Computer Systems Project was an initiative of Japan's Ministry of International Trade and Industry that began in 1982 with the goal of creating "a fifth generation computer that would perform many calculations using massive parallelism". The main goal of fifth generation computer systems is revolutionary technology. Next Generation Computer Technology (ICOT) creates specialized hardware and an operating system written entirely in a variant of the prolog programming language, as it was believed to be a truly parallelizable language. "Parallel inference machines" were eventually produced.:

𝚹 PIM/m 𝚹 PIM/p 𝚹 PIM/i 𝚹 PIM/k 𝚹 PIM/c

This generation will be fully utilized by robotics and artificial intelligence. The biochip (organic chip) will be used for dynamic and high-performance computing capabilities, and the latest technologies will be used for input, output and memory devices.

Electronic circuits: - Bio chips (organic chips)

Technology: - AI, expert systems, high speed, large storage capacity, multi-point input and output, etc.