Lecture 3 ITC

Generations of Computer

Generation

The generation of computer means the gap between the development of the computer in terms of the technologies. Each generation of computer is characterized by a major technologies development that fundamentally changed the way computer operate, resulting, smaller, cheaper and more powerful, efficient and reliable device.

First Generation(1944-1958)

First Generation

• Used thousand of vacuum tubes
• They were fastest calculating devices.
• Too large in size
• Large amount of heat due to thousands of
• vacuum tubes, so air conditioning was required
• High power consumption
• Frequent hardware failure due to burn out of
• tubes
• Costly to manufacture and maintain these
• computers
• The first computer using vacuum tubes was
• ENIAC

2ND GENERATION (1959 - 1964)

Second Generation

• Use of transistors instead of vacuum tubes
• These transistors were made of solid material, some of which
• is silicon, therefore they were very cheap to produce
• Easier to use and handle
• No burning out, but hardware failures were still there
• Almost ten times faster than tubes
• Much smaller than vacuum tubes and generate less heat.
• Less expensive to produce but still costlier
• Produce less heat as compared to tubes but air
• Conditioning was required
• High level programming languages such as
• FORTRAN, COBOL were used
• Easier to program these computers
• Batch operating system was used

3RD GENERATION (1964 - 1970)

Third Generation

• INTEGRATED CIRCUIT
• In 1958, Jack St. Clair Kilby & Robert Noyce invented
• integrated circuits
• IC’s consist of several electric components like
• transistors, resistors and capacitors embedded on a
• single chip of silicon
• SSI, MSI technology
• More powerful & faster than second generation computers.
• Smaller in size and require small space for
• installation
• Require less power and produce less heat but still
• need proper air conditioning
• Faster and large memory

4TH GENERATION (1971- PRESENT)

Fourth Generation

• INTEGRATED CIRCUIT
• Use of IC’s with technology Very Large-scale integrated (VLSI).
• Microprocessors and semiconductor memory
• Larger memory because of larger hard disks and floppy
• disks and magnetic tapes as portable storage media
• Very less heat hence no air conditioning was required
• instead fans were used.
• Graphical User Interface operating systems were used
• Very easy to manufacture & maintain them and cost very less
• Very fast as compared to computers in early generations
• Microprocessors led to the invention of personal computers

5th GENERATION PRESENT & BEYOND

Fifth Generation

• IC’s based on ULSI technology
• Portable PC’s (notebook computers) were much smaller And
• handy
• Much faster and powerful than computers in earlier
• generations
• Consume very less power
• Less costlier and easy to manufacture and maintain
• Newer and more powerful applications make computers
• more easy to use in every field
• Artificial Intelligence (AI) concerns with making computers
• behave and think like humans.
• AI studies include robotics, expert systems, games, etc..