COMPUTER GENERATIONS STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT

FIRST GENERATION 1940 – 1956 VACUUM TUBES USE VACUUM TUBES FOR CIRCUITS USE MAGNETIC DRUMS FOR MEMORY – DATA & PROGRAMS STORED INPUT – PUNCHED CARDS OUTPUT – PRINTOUTS BINARY CODED LANGUAGE

SINGLE TASK NO VERSATILITY AND SPEED SIZE – HUGE HEAT GENERATION – HEAVY NON PORTABLE SLOW EXPENSIVE POWER CONSUMPTION – HIGH MAINTENANCE – HIGH FOR DIFFERENT COMPUTERS – INSTRUCTIONS MUST BE REWRITTEN / RECOMPILED ENIAC, EDVAC, UNIVAC

SECOND GENERATION 1956 – 63 TRANSISTORS SEMICONDUCTOR MATERIAL – MADE OF – GERMANIUM,SILICON SMALL SIZE, LOW POWER MORE RELIABLE PRIMARY MEMORY – MAGNETIC CORE SECONDARY MEMORY – MAGNETIC DISKS MACHINE LANGUAGE - ASSEMBLYLANGUAGE

EASY PROGRAMMING COBOL FORTRAN PDP-8, IBM 1401 IBM 790 COMPUTATIONAL TIME – MILI SECONDS TOMICRO SECONDS LESS HEAT

THIRD GENERATION 1964 – 1970 IC –INTEGRATED CRCUITS SILICON CHIP – MADE OF – TRANSISTORS & RESISTORS SMALL SIZE, RELIABLE,EFFICIENT KEYBOARDS, MONITORS – OS MULTITASKING, MASS PRODUCTION COMPUTATIONAL TIME – MICRO SECONDS TO NANO SECONDS

NCR 395 B6500 EASILY PORTABLE LESS POWER CONSUMPTION MAINTENANCE COST – LOW HIGH LEVEL LANGUAGE

IV - GENERATION 1970’S MICROPROCESSORS BINARY NUMBERS CIRCUITS – MILLIONS OF TRANSISTORS INTEL 4004 – 1971 LSI, VLSI, ULSI PC REVOLUTION – NETWORK, INTERNET MAGNETIC CORE MEMORY REPLACED BYSEMICONDUCTOR MEMORY RAM,HARD DISK,NETWORK,GUI,MOUSE APPLE, ALTAIR, CRAY - I

V GENERATION SUPERCOMPUTERS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE COMPUTERS LEARNINGFROM MISTAKES 1990 – EXPERT SYSTEM MIMIC THE THOUGHT PROCESS REASONING OF EXPERTS IN SPECIFIC AREAS SUPER LSI PARALLEL PROCESSING – MANY CPU AI – SIMULATING HUMAN BEHAVOUR, THINK, SPEAK, REASON NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESISNG ROBOTIC SPEECH, VISION RECOGNITION CDROM, OPTICAL DISK