COMPUTER 6

COMPUTER 6

LESSON 1 : Computer Generation

• As years passed by, the improvement of computers became more and more advanced to

  use them easily and accurately. It was in 1965 when Gordon Moore, a pioneer in semiconductors,

  predicted that the number of transistors contained in a chip would double each year.

  First Generation (1936-1953)

  The main technology used in this generation was the vacuum tubes. These are electronic devices

  which consist of a glass or steel vacuum tubing and two or more electrodes where the electrons can

  move freely between them.

  
  

  JOHNNIAC. John Von Neuman created the Johnniac which

  used the vacuum tubes to operate and store programs.

  
  

  Second Generation (1954-1962)

  In this generation, vacuum tubes were almost entirely replaced by transistors, which are cheaper,

  smaller and more reliable. A transistor is a solid-state device that consists of a tiny piece of semi-

  conducting material usually germanium or silicon element, to which three or more electrical connection

  made.

  
  

  Transistors. These electronic devices are still used to produced sound

  in units such as amplifiers.

Third Generation (1963-1972)

The third generation of a computer began in the late 1960s, wherein integrated circuits, tiny

transistors, and other electrical components were arrange on a single chip of silicon and had eventually

replaced transistors in computer. As integrated circuits became miniaturized, more components were

designed as a single computer circuit.

Integrated Circuits. A great number or machine

used in telecommunications, commerce, industry,

and transportation owe their improvements to the

integrated circuits.

Fourth Generation (1972- 1984)

Computers in this period differ in the number of devices per chip utilized or used in constructing

the computing elements. At this scale, the entire processors can fit into a single chip. The capacity of the

memory was greatly increased and directly affected the types and functions of the software that can be

used.

The capacity of a computer during these times depend on the number of

chips it has.

Fifth Generation (1984- 1990)

Parallel processing marked the beginning of the fifth generation computers. It is a computer

technique wherein multiple operations can be carried out simultaneously. Parallelism reduces

computational time. For these reason, it is used for intensive applications such as predicting economic

trends or generating visual and special effects for featured films.

The fifth generation introduced parallel

processing, wherein a user can do multiple task at the

same time using, for example, a subnotebook computer.

Sixth Generation (1990- present)

Although it is very hard to establish, the line between this generation and the previous one is the

growth of wide area networking or Network Bandwidth. By the late 1990s, a variety of other technologies

became available which greatly improved the bandwidth to 1.5 mbps (megabyte per second) or more.

Technology. Communication can be considered

as the greatest pillar of this generation. Enhanced by the

World Wide Web, a lot of things can be done with a

single click of a button.