INTRODUCTION

Evolution of the computer is a long journey. In the past it was happening, present period it’s happening,
and, in the future, it’ll be happening. It’s unstoppable. In fact, human being has been able to pass all
the milestone in that journey by their brain power.
Computers is an electronic device that operate by the data. It has several forms such as laptop, tablet,
and desktop computers. They have become such an important part of everyday living that it can be
difficult to remember a time when they did not exist. Even though computers have technically been in
use since approximately 5000 years ago still the evolution of computing hardware has taken place over
several centuries. The evolution of computers is divided into different generations according to the
technology of that period. This journey that was started in this manner has archived so many great
achievements.
Let’s see what it is…………….

Contents Page
1. Zero Generation ……………………………………………… 02
2. First Generation ……………………………………………… 04
3. Second Generation ………………………………………… 04
4. Third Generation ……………………………………………… 05
5. Fourth Generation ……………………………………………… 06
6. Fifth Generation ……………………………………………… 07
References ……………………………………………… 10

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 01. Zero Generation (Before 1946)

Abacus

• The first Abacus was invented in Babylonia in 2400 B.C. But the
Abacus that most familiar with was first used in China in 500
B.C.
• It used to perform basic arithmetic and mathematical
operations.

Napier’s Bones

• Napier’s Bone was invented in 1614 by John Napier.

• People used it for multiplicate, divide and calculate square root, cube
roots of numbers by moving the bars and placing them in the constructed
boards, and it was the earliest machine to operate the decimal point.

Slide Rule

• Slide Rule was invented by William Oughtred in 1622,

based on Napier’s ideas about Logarithms.
• It’s specially used for multiplication, division roots,
logarithms, trigonometry.

Pascaline (Arithmetic machine / Adding machine)

• Invented by Blaise Pascal in 1642.

• purposely used only for addition and subtraction.

Stepped Reckoner

• Stepped Reckoner was invented by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in

1673. This machine can do addition, subtraction, multiplication,
and division automatically.

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Jacquard mechanical Loom

• The Jacquard mechanical Loom was invented in 1801 by

Joseph- Marie Jacquard
• The punch card system used in this mechanical loom.

Arithmometer

• Arithmometer is a mechanical calculator invented by Thomas

de Colmar in 1820, which considered as the first mass-
produced, reliable, useful calculating machine.
• It can perform the basic mathematic functions (addition,
subtraction, multiplication, division).

Analytical Engine
Analytical Engine was made by Charles Babbage in 1833.Punch card was used as the secondary
storage in this engine. Charles Babbage is credited with being the father of the computer, as it could
perform the basic functions of a computer, such as INPUT, PROCESSING, OUTPUT.

The features of the analytical engine.

❖ Performing Calculations.

❖ Storage

❖ Input Processing Output

➢ Adah Augusta Lowliness, a friend of Charles Babbage’s, became the First Computer
Programmer to create the first computer program for Analytical Machine.
➢ In 1890 Herman Hollerith conducted an American census
using the PUNCH CARD `.

➢ Herman Hollerith started IBM (International Business

Machine) company.

➢ In 1945 Howard Aiken and IBM company together created

the automatic sequence calculator.

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➢ Atanasoff berry computer, a semi- computing computer, was developed between 1934 to

➢ 1942 with the assistance of Jhon Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Areas.

02. First Generation Computers (1946-1958)

Vacuum tubes are the basic component use in 1st generation computers.

• Because of vacuum tube produced a lot of heat and consumed a

lot of electricity.
• They were very expensive and only large organizations could
afford it.
• Huge in size and need a large A/C room.
• Punch cards, paper tapes and magnetic tapes were used as input
and output devices. Magnetic drums were used for memory.
• Mainly used the batch processing operating system.
• Machine code was the programming language used in this generation.
• Took days to solve one problem and set-up a new problem

Some 1st generation computers,

• ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) invented in 1946.
• UNIVAC – 1951, The first commercially available electronic digital computer. It was introduced
by Dr. John W. Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert Jr.
• IBM-701
• IBM – 650 (1,000 of computers were sold during 1951 to 1953)

Magnetic drums

03. Second Generation Computers (1956 – 1965)

Transistors were used in this generation. The first transistor was invented
at bell labs in 1947 by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William
Shockley.

• Transistors was very small in size and use less power and very
efficient than vacuum tubes. Transistors

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 • Faster than first generation computers, and consumed less electricity compared to first gen
• More reliable, smaller size, and generated less heat as compared to first generation computers
• Still very costly but cheaper than vacuum tubes and AC rooms were required.
• For primary memory magnetic cores were used
• For secondary storage magnetic tapes and magnetic disks were used
• Used high-level programming languages like FORTRAN and COBOL and Assembly
language.
Some 2nd generation computers,
✓ IBM 1620
✓ IBM 7094
✓ CDC 1604
✓ UNIVAC 1108

04. Third generation (1964-1975)

Hardware

The third-generation computers were introduced in 1964. With

the development of integrated circuits (ICs) which consists of so
many transistors, resistors and capacitors built on a single thin
slice of silicon were used to build these computers. So that the size of the computer got further
reduced and also increased the speed and productivity. Large IC companies like INTEL and AMD
started in this generation. (INTEL -1968, AMD- 1969)

• High-capacity disks (large magnetic core, magnetic tape / disk) used as the secondary
storage.
• Keyboard and mouse used for input data and the output displayed on a monitor.

Software

Common and well-developed programming languages that used

in this generation are ALGOL, BASIC, C, COBOL, Fortran,
Java, and Pascal.

Higher level language such as BASIC (Beginners All-purpose

Symbolic Instruction Code) was developed during the third
generation.

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General Motors created the earliest operating system in 1956.
(To run a single IBM central computer)

Characteristics of the Computer

• Smaller in size
• Less heat generation
• Low power consumption
• Low cost
• Comparatively faster than the second generation

Systems Invented

Some of the computers constructed during this period were IBM-360, IBM-370, PDP-11 (Personal
Data Processor), PDP-8, CDC-6600

05. Fourth generation (1975-1989)

The period of 1972-1989 we consider as the fourth generation.

Hardware
In 1968 Federico Faggin was able to develop the new technology of metal oxide semiconductor
silicon gate technology. Then he joined the intel company in1970 and by 1971 he was able to
produce the first commercial microprocessor Intel 4004.This 4-bit processor gave the ability to a
whole computer or a CPU to exist on a single chip. Soon came the 8-bit processors and very large-
scale integration technology giving birth to fourth generation of computers.

These hardware advancements made the possibility of a very large machine to become something
small and portable. This generation of computers gave the rise to personal computers.

Software

Bill Gates invented the MS-DOS which had the capability of opening
several programs at once while in adjacent years to come he also
invented operating systems with graphical user interfaces by this time
of history the industry had become very competitive and there were
innovations and inventions in every corner of the earth

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And invention of UNIX OS paved the way to a new variety of programmers

Programmers started using more advanced but user-friendly programing languages like C, C+, C++
and dBase.

Characteristics of the Computer

• Smaller in size and portable

• Less heat generation
• Low power consumption
• Low cost
• Comparatively faster than the third generation

Systems Invented

By 1981 IBM developed IBM PC and later apple developed Apple 2 after failure of apple 1 and
these devices were widely available to general public and changed the course of human history.
Some other systems that were invented are Star 1000 and DEC-10

06. Fifth Generation Computers

• There is main component was Ultra Large-Scale Integrated Circuits.

• This generation computer has feature of AI.
• Modern days computers are the examples of this generation computers

Below things are the most important things in this stage.

• Intel 80486 microprocessor (1989)

The microprocessor had 32-bit integer arithmetic and logic unit,
a 64-bit floating point unit and a clock rate of 33MHz.

• World Wide Web

✓ It was the Big Boom of the information technology.

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 ✓ Tim Berners-Lee invents Word Wide Web a CERN.
✓ CERN placed the WWW software in the public domain In 1993. Later, they made
a release available with an open license, more sure way to maximize its
distribution.
✓ Tim moved from CERN to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1994 to
find the WWW Consortium(W3C), an international community devoted to
developing open web standards.

• Apple ships the first Newton (1993)

Apple enters the handheld computer market with this.
Handwriting recognition software was the most important
feature of this device.

• Intel’s Pentium microprocessor (1993)

Fifth generation of the ‘X86’ line of microprocessors from intel,
It was basis for the IBM PC and its clones.

• IBM ThinkPad 701C (1995)

The IBM ThinkPad with its foldable “Track Write” keyboard who
designed by inventor Jhone Karidis, also we had known as the
ThinkPad Butterfly.

• Google (1998)
Google was founded by Larry page and Sergey brin in 1998 and End of the 1998 google
had indexed 60 million pages. Now they are handling over 3.5 billion search per day and it
also most famous search engine in the world.

• Facebook (2004)
Facebook is a social media platform and it launched in 2004. It was founded by Mark
Zuckerberg. Facebook allows to connect with friends and share videos, pictures, music.
Facebook is the most popular social media in the world, and it has 2.8 billion monthly active
users.

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• G-mail (2004)
Google had launched Gmail in 2004. Gmail is a free e-mail service provide by google. You
can send, receive e-mails, and block spams.

• Apple released the first iPhone (2007)

With a combination of a web browser, a music player and a cell
phone, the first iPhone managed to bring many computer
functions to the palm of our hands.

• The Raspberry Pi (2012)

A single-board computer as a size of a credit-card, weighing
approximately 45 grams.

• Apple Watch (2015)

Apple Watch contained Apple’s iOS operating system and sensors
for health and environmental monitoring.

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References

o https://www.infogrades.com
o https://venngage.net
o https://simplycoding.in
o https://en.wikipedia.org

Thank You…!

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