JAFAR MUZEYIN

• Generations of Computers
• Milestones in Computer HW & SW
Development
• Characteristics and Types of Computers *
• Components of the Computer System
• Software Generations and Evolution
 Definition of a Computer

❖ a general purpose (stored program)

❖ Programmable (stored program)
❖ information processor
❖ with input and output

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 History of Computers
❖ Older computers were analog
❖ represent data as variable
points along a continuous
spectrum of values.
❖ More flexible but not necessarily
more precise and reliable
An early analog computer
in the late 1920s

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Computer Generations
Generation 0: Mechanical Calculators (relays)
Generation 1: Vacuum Tube Computers Generation
Generation 2: Transistor Computers Generation
Generation 3: Integrated Circuits Generation
Generation 4: Microprocessors Generation
Generation 5: High Speed Networking
:Distributed Computing

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 Generation of Computers
Generation Dates Characteristics

1st 1945-58 Use Valves (Vacuum tubes)

2nd 1959-64 Use transistors (no Valves)

3rd 1965-70 Integrated Circuits & Large Scale

Integrated Circuits
4th 1971 - 89 Very Large Scale Integrated
Circuits (Microprocessors)
5th 1990 - Under Advanced new HW technologies
development “Artificial Intelligence” based
computers
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Harvard Mark I Generation 0
 Harvard Mark I (1944)
❖ Built from Switches, Relays, rotating shafts and
clutches
❖ 765,000 components
❖ Hundreds of meters of wires
❖ Volume
❖ – Length (51ft) x Height (8 ft) x Depth (2 ft)
❖ Weight 4500 kg
❖ Used decimal number systems
❖ Called Automatic Sequence Controlled
 ENIAC (Generation 1)
❖ 1946 First general purpose (programmable, but need
to reconfigure) electronic computer
❖ Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC)
❖ Technology used

– Vacuum tubes 17,468

– Crystal Diodes 7,200
– Relays 1,500
– Transistors 70,000
– Capacitors 10,000
– Hand soldered joints 1 million
 ENIAC Continued
• Weight 30 tons

• Volume 100 ft (L) X 8 ft ( H) X 3 ft (D)

• Covers 1800 sq. feet

• Power consumption 150 KW

Uses punch cards

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Generation 1 : ENIAC Continued
The ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was unveiled in 1946:
the first all-electronic, digital computer

Used machine languages and magnetic tapes

Also used assembly languages at end of generation 1

(transition period) 16
First Generation Hardware

Vacuum Tubes
Large, not very reliable, generated a lot of heat

Magnetic Drum
Memory device that rotated under a read/write head

Card Readers Magnetic Tape Drives

Sequential auxiliary storage devices

Magnetic drum
 Manchester Mark I

❖ 1948
❖ First stored program computer,
❖ Based on Von Neumann architecture
❖ Manchester Mark 1 , built in UK. Using valves
❖ it can perform about 500 operations
per second and has the first RAM .
❖ It fills a room the size of a small office.

❖ Generation 1
 Generation 2: IBM7094

These machines used assembly language.

 Second Generation Hardware
Transistors
Replaced vacuum tube, fast, small, durable, cheap,
consumes less energy

Magnetic Cores
Replaced magnetic drums, information available instantly.

Magnetic Disks
Replaced magnetic tapes, data can be accessed directly
Magnetic core
Generation 3: Integrated Circuits

Seymour Cray created the Cray Research Corporation

Cray-1: $8.8 million, 160 million instructions per second and 8
Mbytes of memory

Used high level programming languages

 Third Generation Hardware

Integrated Circuits
Replaced circuit boards, smaller, cheaper, faster, more reliable

Transistors
Now used for memory construction

Terminal
An input/output device with a keyboard and screen
Generation 4: VLSI
Improvements to IC technology made it possible to
integrate more and more transistors in a single chip

SSI (Small Scale Integration): 10 - 1000

MSI (Medium Scale Integration): 1000 - 10,000
LSI (Large Scale Integration): 10,000 - 100,000
VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration): > 100,000

Microprocessors
Fourth Generation Hardware

Very Large-scale Integration

Great advances in chip technology

PCs, the Commercial Market,

Workstations
Personal Computers and Workstations emerge
New companies emerge: Apple, Sun, Dell …

Laptops, Tablet Computers, and

Smart Phones
Everyone has his/her own portable computer
 The Fifth Generation

❖ Based on Artificial Intelligence (AI).

❖ Still in development.
❖ The use of parallel processing and
superconductors is helping to make
artificial intelligence a reality.
❖ The goal is to develop devices that respond to
natural language input and are capable of
learning and self-organization.
❖ There are some applications, such as voice
recognition, that are being used today.
Generation 5?
The term “Generation 5” is used sometimes to refer to all more or less “sci-fi”
future and present developments
Voice recognition Artificial
intelligence Quantum computing
Bio computing
Nano technology
Low power and Invisible Computers Learning
Natural languages
Parallelism & High Speed Networking (Pervasive & Distributed Computing)
 Characteristics & Types of Computers

Characteristics of Computers
❖ High Processing Speed
❖ Accuracy
❖ Reliability
❖ Versatility
❖ Diligence
DILIGENCE : A Computer can work for long hours with the same accuracy and speed because

it is free from problems of boredom or lack of concentration.

VERSATILITY: The working of computer with different types of data is known as versatility.

Reliability: Produces the same or identical result repeatedly for the same input
 Types of computers
❖ With respect to physical size, speed, storage
capacity, price, and application type

❖ In terms of size (and in terms of processing capacity)

❖ small * The details are left as a
❖ medium Reading Assignment
❖ large
❖ Microcontrollers (embedded systems)
❖ Microcomputers
❖ Minicomputers (Workstations)
❖ Mainframe Computers
❖ Super computers
❖ Technology drivers of computer HW/SW evolution
❖ Moore’s law and micro-processing power
❖ Computing power doubles every 18 months

❖ Law of Mass Digital Storage

❖ The amount of data being stored each year
doubles
 MOORE ’ S LAW AND MICROPROCESSOR
PERFORMANCE

❖ Packing more than 2 billion

transistors into a tiny microprocessor
has exponentially increased
processing power.
❖ Processing power has increased to
more than 500,000 MIPS (millions of
instructions per second).
Moore’s law suggests that computer power will
double every 18 to 24 months. So far, it has.

Curve shows transistor count doubling almost every two years

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What Hardware Components Contribute to the
Speed of a Computer?
 The computer system concept

❖ A computer is a system of hardware components and functions

 Storage media cost, speed, and capacity trade-offs.

Note : how cost increases with faster access speeds but decreases with the
increased capacity of storage media.
Cost against Time graph for Software and Hardware

High Software

$ Hardware

Low
1950 time today

Why is cost for software always increasing?

 Software Generations

❖ Software is the general term for various kinds of

programs used to operate and manipulate computers
and their peripheral devices
.
 First Generation Software (1951-1959)

Machine Language
Computer programs written in binary (1s and 0s)

Assembly Languages and Translators

Programs translated into machine language

Programmer Changes
Programmers divided into two groups: application programmers and systems
programmers

❖ Computers only for programmers, professionals, expert users

❖ Not for the general public and novice users (not affordable and requires
skill)
❖ Universities, big organizations, military departments were using computers
First Generation Software
Assembly/Machine

Systems programmers Applications programmers

write the assembler use assembly language to
(translator) solve problems
Second Generation Software (1959-1965)

High-level Languages
English-like statements made programming easier:
Fortran, COBOL, Lisp

Systems
programmers
write translators for
high-level languages

Application
programmers
use high-level
languages to
solve problems
 Third Generation Software (1965-1971)
❖ Systems Software
❖ Utility programs
❖ Operating system: Decides which programs to run and
when, and what resources to be allocated for which
programs
Separation between Users
❖ Computer programmers write programs to be used by other people (i.e.,
nonprogrammers);
❖ Computer programmers began to write programs to be used by people who did not know
how to program
Third Generation Software Cont... (1965-1971)

❖ Multi-user and multi-programming

❖ Real-time
❖ Databases
❖ Product software
❖ WINDOWS

The layers of software surrounding hardware continue to grow

❖ Control process (Software Engineering attempts)

❖ Introduction of software houses 52

 Fourth Generation Software (1971-1989)

Structured and OOP Programming

Pascal C++
Java (Some functionalities overlap with fifth generation)

New Application Software for Users

Spreadsheets Word processors
Database management systems

With VLSI came the rise of personal computing

SW & HW Companies like Microsoft, Apple, and IBM were founded

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 Fourth Generation Software
❖ Distributed systems (networked systems)
❖ Low cost hardware (mass production)
❖ Customer impact
❖ Global and local area network
❖ High bandwidth
❖ Heavy demand for software developers

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Fifth Generation Software (1990- present)
Microsoft
Windows operating system and other Microsoft application
programs dominate the market

Object-Oriented Design
Based on a hierarchy of data objects (i.e. Java and C#)

World Wide Web

Allows easy global communication through the Internet

New Users
Today’s user needs no computer knowledge Computer
is like commodity
 Fifth Generation Software
❖ Powerful desktop systems
❖ Object Oriented Technology
❖ Expert systems
❖ Artificial Neural Networks (implanted in beings)
❖ Parallel computing
❖ Pattern recognition and human like information
processing capability
❖ Knowledge engineering (branch of AI)
❖ Replacing conventional Software Development
approaches