The Five Generations of Computers

The First Generation

Computers in this generation were so enormous that they took up whole rooms.

They used vacuum tubes for circuitry and magnetic drums for memory.

First Generation Computers

They were very expensive to operate and in addition to using a great deal of electricity, they generated a lot of heat, which was often the cause of malfunctions.

The Second Generation

Transistors replaced vacuum tubes and ushered in this generation of computers. The transistor was far superior to the vacuum tube, allowing computers to become smaller, faster, cheaper, more energy-efficient and more reliable than their predecessors.

Second Generation Computers

Although the transistor was a vast improvement over the vacuum tube, these computers still relied on punched cards for input, printouts for output and generated a great deal of heat.

The Third Generation

Transistors were miniaturized and placed on silicon chips, called semiconductors, which drastically increased the speed and efficiency of computers.

The Fourth Generation

As small computers became more powerful, they could be linked together to form networks, which eventually led to the development of the Internet.

GUIs, the mouse and handheld devices were also developed in this generation.

Transistors

A device composed of semiconductor material that amplifies a signal or opens or closes a circuit. Invented in 1947 at Bell Labs, they have become the key ingredient of all digital circuits, including computers. Today's microprocessors contains tens of millions of them in microscopic size.

Binary Code

Groupings of 1's and 0's that makes information that a computer can understand.

High Level Languages

This was being developed during the Second Generation. A programming language such as C, FORTRAN, or Pascal that enables a programmer to write programs that are more or less independent of a particular type of computer.

These languages have their name because they are closer to human languages and further from machine languages.

First Generation Computers

The UNIVAC was the first commercial computer delivered to a business client, the U.S. Census Bureau in 1951.

Machine Language

First generation computers relied on this language, the lowest-level programming language understood by computers, to perform operations, and they could only solve one problem at a time.

Input was based on punched cards and paper tape, and output was displayed on printouts.

Integrated Circuit

Another name for a chip, it is a small electronic device made out of a semiconductor material. The first integrated circuit was developed in the 1950s.

Microprocessor

A silicon chip that contains a CPU. It sits at the heart of all personal computers and most workstations.

This brought the fourth generation of computers, as thousands of integrated circuits were built onto a single silicon chip. What in the first generation filled an entire room could now fit in the palm of the hand.

The Fourth Generation

In 1981 IBM introduced its first computer for the home user, and in 1984 Apple introduced the Macintosh. More and more everyday products began to use microprocessors.

Artificial Intelligence

This is the branch of computer science concerned with making computers behave like humans. The term was coined in 1956 by John McCarthy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Voice Recognition

The field of computer science that deals with designing computer systems that can recognize spoken words

Parallel Processing

The simultaneous use of more than one CPU to execute a program. Ideally, this makes a program run faster because there are more engines (CPUs) running it.

Fifth Generation

The goal of this generation is to develop devices that respond to natural language input and are capable of learning and self-organization.

Natural Language Processing

A computers ability to comprehend human languages .

UNIVAC and ENIAC

These computers are examples of first-generation computing devices.

Integrated Circuit

This development was the hallmark of the third generation of computers.

Quantum computation

This alongside molecular and nanotechnology will radically change the face of computers in years to come.

High Level Languages

These are easier to read, write, and maintain than low-level languages.