OBJECTIVE
• To be able to see a brief sketch of some of the key historical
developments of computers and understand better where we
are now.
COMPUTER GENERATIONS
• Zeroth Generation: Mechanical Devices
• First Generation: Vacuum Tube Devices
• Second Generation: Transistors
• Third Generation: Integrated Circuits
• Fourth Generation: Microprocessors
• Fiftth Generation: Artificial Intelligence
1ST GENERATION: VACUUM TUBE DEVICES
• Vacuum Tube – a glass tube used to control the flow of electricity
• Used vacuum tubes for circuitry and magnetic drums for memory
• Enormous in size—taking up entire rooms; Expensive to operate;
Used great deal of electricity
• Con only solve one problem at a time
• Input - punched cards and paper tape
• Output - printouts.
1ST GENERATION: VACUUM TUBE DEVICES
Examples:
• UNIVAC – the first commercial computer delivered to a business
client.
• ENIAC – the first computer used for scientific studies
• Uses 18,000 vacuum tubes
2ND GENERATION: TRANSISTORS
• Transistor – small solid-state device that is used to control the
flow of electricity in radios, computers, etc.
• Transistors replaced vacuum tubes
• Smaller, faster, cheaper, more energy-efficient and more
reliable than vacuum tubes
• These computers could handle an enormous amount of data.
• Used in business, universities, and government from
companies.
3RD GENERATION: INTEGRATED CIRCUITS
• IC - tiny complex of electronic components and their
connections that is produced in or on a small slice of material
(as silicon)
• Drastically increased the speed and efficiency of computers.
• Uses keyboards and monitors and interfaced with an operating
system.
• Computers been able to run different application program.
• Became accessible to mass audience because they were smaller
and cheaper than their predecessors
4TH GENERATION: MICROPROCESSORS
• Microprocessors – Integrated Circuits designed to manage
information and process instructions
• IBM introduced first computer for home user. Apple introduced
the Macintosh.
• Computers can be linked together to form networks
• In this generation was the Internet developed.
5TH GENERATION: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
• Still in development
• Some applications are: voice recognition, hologram,
• Goal: to develop devices that respond to natural language
unput and are capable of learning and self-organization
FAMOUS COMPUTER PEOPLE
• John Atanasoff
• Assembled first electronic
computer
• Came up with the concept of
using binary numbers
FAMOUS COMPUTER PEOPLE
• John van Nuemann
• Suggested that programs and
data could be represented in
a similar way and stored in
the same internal memory
FAMOUS COMPUTER PEOPLE
• Ada Byron/
Lady Lovelace/
Ada Lovelace
• Considered to be the first
programmer
FAMOUS COMPUTER PEOPLE
• Thomas Watson Sr.
• President and CEO of IBM who
turned the company into a
highly-effective selling
organization, based largely
around punched card
tabulating machines
FAMOUS COMPUTER PEOPLE
• Charles Babbage
• Worked on the Difference
Engine and the Analytical
Engine
FAMOUS COMPUTER PEOPLE
• Wilhelm Shickard
• Invented the first known
mechanical calculator,
capable of simple arithmeric
FAMOUS COMPUTER PEOPLE
• Robert Noyce
• founder of intel
• Credited as an inventor of IC also
• “It is 20 times faster, has larger memory,
is thousands of times more reliable,
consumes the power of a light bulb
rather than that of a locomotive,
occupies 1/30,000 the volume and costs
1/10,00 as much.”