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How It Came Along: The Beginning

The document discusses the history and development of computer architecture and organization. It describes how the Von Neumann architecture established the basic structure of a computer system with processing, memory, control, and input/output units. This allowed for stored programs and removed the need to rewire the hardware to change programs. Transistors then revolutionized computer organization by making systems smaller, less power consuming, and more efficient, marking the start of the second generation of computers. Integrated circuits further improved this by integrating multiple transistors onto a single chip, enabling the development of third generation computers.

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57 views1 page

How It Came Along: The Beginning

The document discusses the history and development of computer architecture and organization. It describes how the Von Neumann architecture established the basic structure of a computer system with processing, memory, control, and input/output units. This allowed for stored programs and removed the need to rewire the hardware to change programs. Transistors then revolutionized computer organization by making systems smaller, less power consuming, and more efficient, marking the start of the second generation of computers. Integrated circuits further improved this by integrating multiple transistors onto a single chip, enabling the development of third generation computers.

Uploaded by

ADITYA ANSH
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Computer Organization and Architecture is the study of internal working, structuring and implementation of a

computer system. Architecture in computer system, same as anywhere else, refers to the externally visual attributes
of the system. Externally visual attributes, here in computer science, mean the way a system is visible to the logic of
programs (not the human eyes!). Organization of computer system is the way of practical implementation which
results in realization of architectural specifications of a computer system.[1] In more general language, Architecture of
computer system can be considered as a catalog of tools available for any operator using the system, while
Organization will be the way the system is structured so that all those cataloged tools can be used, and that in an
efficient fashion.

How it came along[edit]


History of computer systems, in strict sense of name, will date back to as back as the basic need for computation
among humans. We, however, are more concerned with architecture and organisation of Electronic computer
systems only as 'the computing systems' before this had very vague (or atleast different!) representation of these
terms in their construction.

The beginning[edit]
The first among the electronic computers was The ENIAC, designed by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert. This,
although a great achievement altogether, was not of much importance on front of standards of Architecture and
organisation. The programming of this giant machine required manual change of circuitry by expert individuals by
changing connecting wires and lots of switches; It sure was a tedious task. Besides ENIAC was not a digital machine.
It worked on decimal systems much similar to the way we, humans, do in our normal lives.

Von Neumann architecture[edit]


A major break through came with the draft of second electronic computer, EDVAC. This computer was proposed by
John von Neumann and others in 1945. It used stored program model for computers, wherein all instructions were
also to be stored in memory along being data to be processed thereby removing the need for change in hardware
structure to change the program. The architecture of this computer described the digital system to be divided into a
Processing Unit consisting of an Arithmetic and Logic Unit and Processor registers, Control Unit consisting of a
Program Counter and an Instruction Register, Memory Unit and Input/Output mechanisms. This basic structure of
computer system has since then served as the basic idea for a computer system. The trend continues even today
with few changes in the design. This architecture however is more popular for implementation in IAS computer, (as
Neumann, later, shifted to this project). We will see the architecture of IAS computer in detail at a later stage.

Rapid restructuring of Organisation[edit]


As all this was going on, a major advancement in the field of electronics was achieved at Bell labs as William
Shockley invented the transistor. Transistors were devices comparable in purpose to a vacuum tube, but amazingly
small, efficient, and reliable. Transistors revolutionized the organisation of a normal computer system. The systems
grew smaller, less power consuming, less heat generating, more reliable and much more efficient. This generation of
computers using transistors as basic components is commonly known as second generation of computers.
Transistors, however, were just a beginning as, soon, a new phase took over. Integrated Circuits were developed
which could contain more than one transistors on a single chip. This further reduced size, power consumption and
heat generation. This led to development of third generation of computers. After this generation, however, there is no
consensus on how generations changed as the number of transistors on a single IC kept increasing and thereby
name of technologies involved kept changing from MSI to LSI to VLSI to ULSI but the basic structure of IC based
computer was maintained. Although now, a whole computer was available on a single machine, thanks to VLSI
techniques. Today the number of transistors on a chip doubles every 18 months and so!

IAS Computer

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