LESSON 1.0: MILESTONES IN COMPUTER ARCHITECTURECOMP1: COMPUTER CONCEPTS WITH INTERNET

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

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

ZEROTH GENERATION: MECHANICAL DEVICES

ZEROTH GENERATION: MECHANICAL DEVICES

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

1ST GENERATION: VACUUM TUBE DEVICES

• “Bug” Literally

• Where the term ‘debugging’ came from

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

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

• Presper Eckert and John

Mauchly

• Inventors of ENIAC

FAMOUS COMPUTER PEOPLE

• Herman Hollerith

• Founder of what would be

IBM company

FAMOUS COMPUTER PEOPLE

• Microsoft Founders

• Bill Gates

• Paul Allen

FAMOUS COMPUTER PEOPLE

• Jack Kilby

• inventor of IC

• Engineer at Texas Instruments

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.”

FAMOUS COMPUTER PEOPLE

• Founders of Apple

• Steve Jobs

• Steve Wozniak

REFERENCE(S)

• Robers, Eric S. The Art and Science of C. Addison-Wesley

Publishing Company. Reading: 1995.