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Generations of Computer

The development of computers from 1946 onwards has been divided into five generations,based on the storage technology used
 * 1) First Generation
 * 2) Second Generation
 * 3) Third Generation
 * 4) Fourth Generation
 * 5) Fifth Generation

First Generation(1946-1958)

The computers in this generation were mainly

ENIAC EDSAC EDVAC UNIVAC I ENIAC'Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer was the first electronic general-purpose computer computer.It was built in 1945 under the direction of Dr. John Mauchly and J.Presper Echert in the US and was 1,000 times faster than the Harvard Mark I.It consisted of thousands of delicate valves*(i.e. vacuum tubes) and controlled by patch cables ans switches. This was enormous in size consisting of 18,000 vacuum tubes and 70,000 resistors.These computers used flow of electrons for computing which provided the remarkably increased speeds over its previous counterpart. This computer formed the basis for the First Generation Computers.The development from here was quick and spanned five generations.

Second Generation(1959-1963) The Second half of 1950's saw the Bipolar Junction Transistor creating a revolution in electronics and computers.A transistor is a small device that transfers electric signals across a resistor.It slowly replaced the Vacuum is a small device that transfers electric signals across a reistor.It slowly replaced the cacuum tubes as it was much smaller consumed less energy and was remarkably faster.It greatly reduced the size and operating cost of the computer.

Third Generation(1964-1971)

Integrated Chips(ICs) was the magic word for this generation of computers.IC's were made of silicon.Silicon is used as the semi-conducting material in the IC.Ic was developed by an engineer JACK Kilby wqorking with Texas Instruments. An IC is a complete electonic circuit on a tiny Silicon chip less than a1/8 inch slowly started replacing the transistors in computers resulting tn the third generation of computers.

Fourth Generation(1972-1984) These computers relied on Large Scale Integrated circuits(LSI) whose base was the integrated chip.This generation saw large scale advancements and successions in terms of miniaturization of circuits,computer hardware and software. The 1980's saw VLSI(Very Large Scale Integrated circuits)VVLSI andULSI(Ultra Large Scale Integrated circuits) squeezing millions of components on to a single chip,thus greatly reducing the size,cost and increasing the performance.

Fifth Generation(1985-Present Till now nthe focus was on the technology used in the computers,beginning with vacuum tubes till the VLSI era.The idea was to reduce size,cost and increase performance,speed. The limitations of the computers was the lack of intelligence or ability to think and perform.The thinking power of the human brain remains unmatched.The aim of the fifth generation computers is to bring it closer to the working of the human brain. The term supercomputers is given to these extraordinary computers that have the ability to perform extremely complex operations at amazing speed togeteher with enormous storage capacities. But the true computer user will agree that one of the greates advancements in this era have been networking and the emergence of the Internet.Portable and distributed computing is yet another addition to this generation.

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