COMPUTER HISTORY AND GENERATION

THE FIRST GENERATIONS OF COMPUTER

• First Generation ( 1940 - 1956 ) Vacuum Tubes .
• The first computers used vacuum tubes for circuitry and magnetic drums formemory, and were often enormous, taking up entire rooms.
• First generation computers relied on machine language, the lowest-level programming language understood by computers, to perform operations, and they could only solve one problem at a time.
•  Input was based on punched cards and paper tape, and output was displayed on printouts.
• The UNIVAC was the first commercial computer delivered to a business client, the U.S. Census Bureau in 1951.

THE SECOND GENERATIONS OF COMPUTER

• Second Generation ( 1956 - 1963 ) Transistor .
• Transistors replaced vacuum tubes and ushered in the second generation of computers.
• The transistor was far superior to the vacuum tube, allowing computers to become smaller, faster, cheaper, more energy-efficient and more reliable than their first-generation predecessors.
• The transistor was invented in 1947 but did not see widespread use in computers until the late 1950s. 
• Second-generation computers still relied on punched cards for input and printouts for output.

THE THIRD GENERATIONS OF COMPUTER 

• Third Generation ( 1964 - 1971 ) Integrated Circuits.
• The development of the integrated circuit was the hallmark of the third generation of computers.
• Transistors were miniaturized and placed on silicon chips, called semiconductors, which drastically increased the speed and efficiency of computers.
• Instead of punched cards and printouts, users interacted with third generation computers through keyboards and monitorsand interfaced with an operating system, which allowed the device to run many different applications at one time with a central program that monitored the memory.
• Computers for the first time became accessible to a mass audience because they were smaller and cheaper than their predecessors.

THE FOURTH GENERATION ( 1971 - PRESENT ) MICROPROCESSORS

• The microprocessor brought the fourth generation of computers, as thousands of integrated circuits were built onto a single silicon chip. 
• The Intel 4004 chip, developed in 1971, located all the components of the computer—from the central processing unit and memory to input/output controls—on a single chip.
• In 1981 IBM introduced its first computer for the home user, and in 1984 Apple introduced the Macintosh.
•  Microprocessors also moved out of the realm of desktop computers and into many areas of life as more and more everyday products began to use microprocessors.
• As these small computers became more powerful, they could be linked together to form networks, which eventually led to the development of the Internet.
• Fourth generation computers also saw the development of GUIs, the mouse and handhelddevices.

THE FIFTH GENERATION ( PRESENT AND BEYOND ) ARTIFICAL INTELLIGENCE

• Fifth generation computing devices, based on artificial intelligence, are still in development, though there are some applications, such as voice recognition, that are being used today.
• The use of parallel processing and superconductors is helping to make artificial intelligence a reality.
• Quantum computation and molecular and nanotechnology will radically change the face of computers in years to come. The goal of fifth-generation computing is to develop devices that respond to natural language input and are capable of learning and self-organization.