Scribd
Upload
18 views10 pages

Computer Generations

The document discusses the five generations of computers. The first generation used vacuum tubes and were slow, large and expensive. The second generation used transistors, which were smaller and used less power. The third generation used integrated circuits, which packed more transistors onto a single chip. The fourth generation used very large scale integrated circuits and the fifth generation uses ultra large scale integration and parallel processing. Each generation brought improvements in speed, size and cost.

Uploaded by

alikdsa
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
18 views10 pages

Computer Generations

The document discusses the five generations of computers. The first generation used vacuum tubes and were slow, large and expensive. The second generation used transistors, which were smaller and used less power. The third generation used integrated circuits, which packed more transistors onto a single chip. The fourth generation used very large scale integrated circuits and the fifth generation uses ultra large scale integration and parallel processing. Each generation brought improvements in speed, size and cost.

Uploaded by

alikdsa
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 10

INTRODUCTION TO INFORMATION &

COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY

Lecture 2 Muhammad Daud Khan


Lecturer Computer Science
Generations of Computers Qurtuba University of Science
and Technology
COMPUTER GENERATIONS
A generation of computers refers to the specific improvements in
computer technology with time. In 1946, electronic pathways called
circuits were developed to perform the counting. It replaced the
gears and other mechanical parts used for counting in previous
computing machines.

In each new generation, the circuits became smaller and more


advanced than the previous generation circuits. The minimization
helped increase the speed, memory and power of computers. There
are five generations of computers which are described below;

Muhammad Daud Khan |Lecturer Computer Science| Qurtuba University of Science and Technology
FIRST GENERATION COMPUTERS
The first generation (1946-1959) computers were slow, huge and
expensive. In these computers, vacuum tubes were used as the basic
components of CPU and memory. These computers were mainly depended
on batch operating system and punch cards. Magnetic tape and paper tape
were used as output and input devices in this generation;
• Some of the popular first generation computers are;
• ENIAC ( Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer)
• EDVAC ( Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer)
• UNIVACI( Universal Automatic Computer)
• IBM-701
• IBM-650

Muhammad Daud Khan |Lecturer Computer Science| Qurtuba University of Science and Technology
SECOND GENERATION COMPUTERS
The Second Generation (1959-1965) was the era of the transistor computers.
These computers used transistors which were cheap, compact and consuming
less power; it made transistor computers faster than the first generation
computers.
In this generation, magnetic cores were used as the primary memory and
magnetic disc and tapes were used as the secondary storage. Assembly
language and programming languages like COBOL and FORTRAN, and
Batch processing and multiprogramming operating systems were used in
these computers.
• Some of the popular second generation computers are;
• IBM 1620
• IBM 7094
• CDC 1604
• CDC 3600
• UNIVAC 1108

Muhammad Daud Khan |Lecturer Computer Science| Qurtuba University of Science and Technology
THIRD GENERATION COMPUTERS
The Third Generation Computers used Integrated Circuits (ICs)
instead of transistors. A single IC can pack huge number of transistors
which increased the power of a computer and reduced the cost. The
computers also became more reliable, efficient and smaller in size. These
generation computers used remote processing, time-sharing, multi
programming as operating system. Also, the high-level programming
languages like FORTRON-II TO IV, COBOL, PASCAL PL/1, ALGOL-68
were used in this generation.
• Some of the popular third generation computers are;
• IBM-360 series
• Honeywell-6000 series
• PDP(Personal Data Processor)
• IBM-370/168
• TDC-316

Muhammad Daud Khan |Lecturer Computer Science| Qurtuba University of Science and Technology
FOURTH GENERATION COMPUTERS
The fourth generation (1971-1980) computers used very large scale
integrated (VLSI) circuits; a chip containing millions of transistors
and other circuit elements. These chips made this generation
computers more compact, powerful, fast and affordable. These
generation computers used real time, time sharing and distributed
operating system. The programming languages like C, C++, DBASE
were also used in this generation.
• Some of the popular fourth generation computers are;
• DEC 10
• STAR 1000
• PDP 11
• CRAY-1(Super Computer)
• CRAY-X-MP(Super Computer)

Muhammad Daud Khan |Lecturer Computer Science| Qurtuba University of Science and Technology
FIFTH GENERATION COMPUTERS
In fifth generation (1980-till date) computers, the VLSI technology
was replaced with ULSI (Ultra Large Scale Integration). It made
possible the production of microprocessor chips with ten million
electronic components. This generation computers used parallel
processing hardware and AI (Artificial Intelligence) software. The
programming languages used in this generation were C, C++, Java,
.Net, etc.
• Some of the popular fifth generation computers are;
• Desktop
• Laptop
• NoteBook
• UltraBook
• ChromeBook

Muhammad Daud Khan |Lecturer Computer Science| Qurtuba University of Science and Technology
VACUUM TUBES
The vacuum tube is a device that was
developed by English physicist John
Ambrose Fleming for the first time in
1904, which contains electrodes to control
electron flow. During the first half of the
1900s, it was used in televisions, sound
recording, industrial automation
reproduction, radar equipment, radios,
and telephone network systems.
Muhammad Daud Khan |Lecturer Computer Science| Qurtuba University of Science and Technology
TRANSISTOR
A Transistor is a kind of semiconductor device
that is short for transfer resistance regulates or
controls the electrical signal like current or
voltage. On 23 December 1947 the Transistor
was developed by three American physicists. In
most electronic devices, the transistor is one of
the key components, and it generates the binary
bits 0's and 1's that are used by the computer to
establish communication as well as deal with
Boolean logic.

Muhammad Daud Khan |Lecturer Computer Science| Qurtuba University of Science and Technology
INTEGRATED CIRCUIT
An Integrated Circuit (IC), sometimes called a
chip, microchip or microelectronic circuit, it was
invented On April 25, 1961, is a semiconductor
wafer on which thousands or millions of tiny
resistors, capacitors, diodes and transistors are
fabricated. ICs are used in amplifiers, video
processors, computer memory, switches, and
microprocessors.

Muhammad Daud Khan |Lecturer Computer Science| Qurtuba University of Science and Technology

You might also like