Generations of computers

Generations of

(zafar_ayub@hotmail.com)
Copyright reserved for Zafar Ayub
Computers
Brief history of computer generations
Compile By Zafar Ayub

1

0 Generation (1600 to 1940)

• Early age of record keeping machines are consider as
“0 Generation”.
• In this age of computers, machines were used for fast data
calculating as compare to manual process.

• This age is start since 1642 by Blaise Pascal invention
“Pascaline“, which is mechanical calculating device for basic
addition operations.
•

2

• In 1671, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz invented “Leibniz
Wheel”.
• This device was used for addition, subtraction, multiplication
and division operations.

3

• In 1812, Charles Babbage was developed first desktop
calculator, knows as “Babbage Difference Engine”.
• This scope of this engine was resolved series of predictable
actions that were constantly repeated. It may possible to do
these automatically.

4

• Punched Cards were used by the French weaver Joseph
Jacquard in 1810. The cards carried weaving instructions for
the looms, later this idea offered a great use for storing info.
• A step towards automated computing was the development of
punched cards, which were first successfully used with
computers in 1890 by Herman Hollerith and James Powers.
• The concept of punch card was program the machine for
different task by punch card feeding.

• Hollerith founded a company that became International
Business Machines (IBM) to market the technology.

5

• A vacuum tube also called a electron tubes is a sealed glass or
metal-ceramic enclosure used in electronic circuitry to control
the flow of electrons between the metal electrodes sealed
inside the tubes.
• The air inside the tubes is removed by a vacuum. Vacuum
tubes are used for: amplification of a weak current,
rectification of an alternating current to direct current (AC to
DC), generation of oscillating radio-frequency (RF) power for

radio and radar, and more.

6

• In 1875, American, G.R. Carey invented the phototube.
• In 1878, Englishman Sir William Crookes invented the 'Crookes tube', an
early prototype of cathode-ray tube.
• In 1895, German, Wilhelm Roengten invented an early prototype Xray tube.
• In 1897, German, Karl Ferdinand Braun invents the cathode ray tube
oscilloscope.
• In 1904, John Ambrose Fleming invented the first practical electron tube
called the 'Fleming Valve'. Leming invents the vacuum tube diode.
• In 1906, Lee de Forest invented the audion later called the triode, an
improvement on the 'Fleming Valve' tube.

• In 1913, William D. Coolidge invented the 'Coolidge Tube', the first practical
Xray tube.
• In 1920, RCA began the first commercial electron tube manufacturing.
• In 1921, American Albert Hull invented the magnetron electronic vacuum
tube.
• In 1922, Philo T. Farnsworth develops the first tube scanning system for
television.
• In 1923, Vladimir K Zworykin invented the iconoscope or the cathode-ray
tube and the kinescope. 7
• In 1926, Hull and Williams co-invented the tetrode electronic vacuum tube.
• In 1938, Americans Russell and Sigurd Varian co-invented the klystron tube.

1st Generation of Computer (1946 – 1957)

• In 1946, John P. Eckert, John W. Mauchly , and their associates
at the Moore school of Electrical Engineering of University of
Pennsylvania decided to build a high – speed electronic
computer to do the job.
• This machine became known as ENIAC (Electrical Numerical

Integrator And Calculator).

8

• ENIAC was 1000 time faster then the pervious generation
relay computers.
• ENIAC used 18,000 vacuum tubes, about 1,800 square feet of
floor space, and consumed about 180,000 watts of electrical
power.
• By using lot of amount electrical power ENIAC generate heat
and proper cooling system was required.
• The ENIAC used in world war II for military purpose. The

processing time for single calculating of operational seating by
human was 40 hours and ENIAC is 2 munities.

9

• In 1949, EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic
Calculator) was made by British Computer.
• EDSAC was the first practical stored-program electronic
computer and first to run a graphical computer game.

• EDSAC was constructed by Maurice Wilkes and his team at the
University of Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory in England.
• It used mercury delay lines for memory, and derated vacuum
tubes for logic. Input was via 5-hole punched tape and output
was via a teleprinter.
10

• In 1946, EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic
Computer) was made by Eckert and Mauchly american team.
• Its also store program computer with automatic calculation
checking software.

• The final cost of EDVAC, was similar to the ENIAC's, at just
under $500,000.

11

• In 1951, UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) was made
by Dr. Presper Eckert and Dr. John Mauchly in US.

• The first business used computer for Census Bureau's.
• The final cost of constructing the first UNIVAC was close to
one million dollars.
12

• In 1952, IBM was design IBM 701 known as the Defense
Calculator.
• The system used electrostatic storage, consisting of 72
Williams tubes with a capacity of 1024 bits each, giving a total
memory of 2048 words of 36 bits each.

• The first IBM large-scale electronic computer manufactured in
quantity and commercial used.
• The first IBM machine in which programs were stored in an
internal, addressable, electronic memory.
13

Age conclusion
• Vacuum tubes were used – basic arithmetic operations took few
milliseconds
• Bulky / heavy volume
• Consume more power with limited performance
• High cost
• Uses assembly language “Low Level Language” – to prepare
programs. These were translated into machine level language for

execution.
• Mercury delay line memories and Electrostatic memories were used
• Fixed point arithmetic was used
• 100 to 1000 fold increase in speed relative to the earlier mechanical
and relay based electromechanical technology
• Punched cards and paper tape were invented to feed programs and
data and to get results.
• Magnetic tape / magnetic drum were used as secondary memory
14
• Mainly used for scientific computations.

2nd Generation of Computer (1958 – 1963)

• The second generation of computers began when the
transistor was made.
• The transistor was invented by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain

and William Shockley at Bell Labs (AT & T) in December, 1947.
• Commercial used was start in 1950th decade.
• A small device which made semiconductor material, basic
function is open “on” and close “off” electronic circuits.
• Transistors was used amplify the power, and switch electronic
circuits.

15

• Transistors replace the vacuums tubes.
• Detail of transistors is also available on following web site,
http://www.transistormuseum.com

16

• Second major invention in 2nd generation was “Magnetic
Memory”, also know as “Memory” or “RAM”.
• The first practical form of random-access memory was the
Williams tube starting in 1947.
• In 1952 at MIT, Jay Forrester invented the Core Memory for
commercial purpose.
• Available memory capacity was 8k increased up 64k.

17

• Fortran is first “High Level Language” was developed in 1954
by IBM team lead by John Backus with first complier.
• In 1958 the first major revision of the language by IBM,
Fortran II, introduced the concept of subroutines for other
then IBM manufacturers or non IBM computers.
• Fortran means “The IBM Mathematical Formula Translating
System”.
• This language used words and sentences instead of the binary

machine codes that had been commonplace in computers
prior to the 1950s.

18

• 2nd high level programming language COBOL was developed in
1959 by the Conference on Data Systems Languages
(CODASYL).
• The mean of COBOL is COmmon Business-Oriented Language,
defining its primary domain in business, finance, and
administrative systems for companies and governments.
• Basic structure of COBOL language is consist of four divisions,
• Identification Division, Environment Division, Data Division,

Procedure Division

19

• The first super computer IBM 7030 was invented by IBM in
1961, code name was Stretch.
• IBM first transistorized supercomputer with price of 13.5
millions US $.
• The IBM 7030 used about 170,000 transistors.

20

• The first computer game “Space War” was developed in 1961,
by MIT students Slug Russell, Shag Graetz, and Alan Kotok for
the PDP-1 computer.
• This was perfect for playing Space War, which was a two-
player game involving warring spaceships firing photon
torpedoes.
• The PDP-1 (Programmed Data Processor-1) was the first
computer in Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP series and

was first produced in 1960.
• The PDP-1's operating system was the first to allow multiple
users to share the computer simultaneously.

21

Age conclusion
• Lower cost as compare to 1st generation.
• Magnetic ferrite core memories were used as main memory which is a
random-access nonvolatile memory
• Magnetic tapes and magnetic disks were used as secondary memory
• Hardware for floating point arithmetic operations was developed.
• Index registers were introduced which increased flexibility of
programming.
• High level languages such as FORTRAN, COBOL etc were used -

Compilers were developed to translate the high-level program into
corresponding assembly language program which was then translated
into machine language.
• Separate input-output processors were developed that could operate in
parallel with CPU.
• Punched cards continued during this period also.
• 1000 fold increase in speed.
• Increasingly used in business, industry and commercial organizations for
preparation of payroll, inventory control, marketing, production
planning, research, scientific & engineering analysis and design etc.
22

3rd Generation of Computer (1964 – 1970)
• In 3rd generation transistors were replace with Integrated
Circuits (IC).
• In 1960s simultaneously by Texas Instruments and by Fairchild
Semi-Conductor, the integrated circuit combines many tiny
transistors and other electrical components onto a small

silicon chip, knows as IC
• There are two main advantages of IC’s, cost and performance.
• The first integrated circuits contained only a few transistors.
Called "small-scale integration" (SSI),

23

• In 1969, the AT & T Bell Laboratories, programmers Kenneth
Thompson and Dennis Ritchie developed a new type of
operating system known as UNIX.
• UNIX is a multi-user operating system able to perform multiple
tasks.
• UNIX is written in the C language, which allows it to be less
machine-specific than other available operating systems.
• UNIX was used as supercomputing operating system.

• The UNIX operating system was designed to let a number of
programmers access the computer at the same time and
share its resources.

24

• The first GUI “Graphical User Interface” was designed in 1970
by the Xerox Corporation for Alto computer system.
• GUI allowed users to be able to "point and click." In other
words, the computer screen was designed to resemble a
desktop.
• GUI basic elements are WIMP "window, icon, menu, pointing
device".
• The Xerox Alto was one of the first computers designed for

individual use, making it best what is now called a Personal
Computer. It was developed at Xerox PARC in 1973. It was the
first computer to use the Desktop Computing and mouse-
driven Graphical User Interface (GUI).

25

• In 1969, The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network
(ARPANET), was the world's first operational packet switching
network and beginning of Internet.
• The network was design for US Defense Department and
Research Laboratories.
• Four computers were the first connected in the original
ARPANET. They were located in the different computer
research labs in US.

• ARPANET introduce several major innovations like;
• Email (electronic mail), the ability to send simple messages to
another person across the network (1971)
• Telnet, a remote connection service for controlling a computer
(1972)
• FTP (file transfer protocol), which allows information to be sent
from one computer to another in bulk (1973).
26

• In 1967, Floppy Disk was invented at IBM by David Noble,
under the direction of Alan Shugart, for use with the IBM
System / 370 mainframe computer.
• A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of
thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a
rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust
particles. They are read and written by a floppy disk drive
(FDD).

• First permanent memory for record keeping. Different size are
as follows;
• 8 inch – 80 KB capacity 1967, 1.1 MB capacity 1977
• 5.25 inch – 360 KB capacity 1978, 1.2 MB capacity 1984
• 3.5 inch – 1 MB capacity 1983, 1.44 MB capacity 1987,

27

• In 1965, BASIC is a family member of high level language
whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name
is an become from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic
Instruction Code.
• The original BASIC language was designed by John Kemeny
and Thomas Kurtz and implemented by a team of Dartmouth
students under their direction.
• BASIC was used for; 1) general purpose 2) easy of use
3) expandable 4) interactive 5) with debugging help

6) efficient 7) hardware independent 8) OS independent.
• BASIC different versions were in market like; BASIC, GW-
BASIC, QuickBasic and QBasic, with the newest version being
called Visual Basic.

28

Age conclusion

• ICs were used
• Small Scale Integration and Medium Scale Integration technology were
implemented in CPU, I/O processors etc.
• Smaller & better performance
• Comparatively lesser cost
• Faster processors
• In the beginning magnetic core memories were used. Later they were replaced
by semiconductor memories (RAM & ROM)

• Introduced microprogramming
• Microprogramming, parallel processing (pipelining, multiprocessor system etc),
multiprogramming, multi-user system (time shared system) etc were introduced.
• Operating system software were introduced (efficient sharing of a computer
system by several user programs)
• Cache and virtual memories were introduced (Cache memory makes the main
memory appear faster than it really is. Virtual memory makes it appear larger)
• High level languages were standardized by ANSI eg. ANSI FORTRAN, ANSI COBOL
etc
• Database management, multi-user application, online systems like closed loop
process control, airline reservation, interactive query systems, automatic 29
industrial control etc emerged during this period.

4th Generation of Computer (1971 – 1989)
• 4th generation was start with Microprocessor invention in
1971 by Intel.
• A microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer’s
central processing unit (CPU) on a single IC or at most a few
integrated circuits.
• It is a multipurpose programmable device that accepts digital

data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in
its memory, and provides results as output.
• First processor design by 4-bit architecture.
• Today's technology upgrade to 128-bit architecture.

•
30

• Intel Corporation was founded in Mountain View , California
in 1968.
• Intel is from the word intelligence.
• Intel processor time line;

• Intel 4004 – 4-bit in 1971
• Intel 8008 – 8-bit in 1972
• Intel 8086 – 16-bit in 1978

• Intel 80286 – 16-bit in 1982
• Intel 80386 – 32-bit in 1985
• Intel 80486 - 32-bit in 1989
• Intel Pentium – 32-bit in 1993
• Intel Pentium Pro – 32-bit in 1995
• Intel Pentium MMX – 32-bit in 1996
• Intel Pentium II – 32-bit in in 1997
• Intel Celeron – 32-bit in 1998 31

• Intel Xeon – Server Processor in 1999
• Intel Pentium III – in 1999
• Intel Pentium IV – in 2000
• Intel Pentium – M – For mobile / laptops in 2003
• Intel Pentium – D – in 2005
• Intel Celeron – D - in 2005
• Intel Core 2 Due - in 2006
• Intel Core 2 Quad – 64-bit in 2008

• Intel Quad Core – 64-bit in 2009
• Intel Core i – 32 –bit / 64-bit in 2009

32

• Microsoft Corporation was found in 1985 at in Washington
DC, USA by Paul Allen and Bill Gates, both was childhood
friends.
• Microsoft entered the OS business in 1980 with its own
version of Unix, called Xenix. However, it was DOS (Disk
Operating System) for personal computers.
• Some history about Windows;
• Windows 1.0 in 1985 code name Interface Manager, boot by DOS

• Windows 2.0 in 1987 with Word and Excel applications
• Windows 3.0 in 1990 with multitasking and virtual memory
• Windows 3.1 in 1991 was multimedia version with CD-Rom and
Sound Card
• Windows 3.11 in 1992 was network version known as Workgroup
• Windows NT 3.1 in 1993 for server base environment
• Windows NT 3.5 in 1994
• Windows NT 3.51 in 1995 33

• Windows NT 4 in 1996
• Windows 95 in 1995 with long file name and plug n play support
• Windows 98 in 1998 with Internet explorer
• Windows ME in 2000 was worst operating systems, in market known as
“Mistake Edition”
• Windows 2000 in 2000 with professional, server, advance server, and
data center versions with Windows NT 5.0 technology
• Windows XP in 2001 (eXPerience) with home, Professional, Media
edition, and tablet PC edition.

• Windows Server 2003 in 2003 with web, standard, enterprise, data
center edition and storage server. (at NT technology)
• Windows Vista in 2006 with 3D technology.
• Windows 2008 in 2008 code name "Longhorn”, with standard,
enterprise, data center, web, and storage versions.
• Windows 7 in 2009 with code name “Blackcomb” and “Vienna”, key
feature is Windows Power Shell. Some versions are Starter, Home basic,
Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate.
• Windows 8 in 2012 also known as “Windows To Go” USB boot operating 34
system.

• Apple – Apple corporation was established on April 1, 1976 by
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak to sell the Apple I PC kit.
• Company was made to make..
• Computer Software and Hardware
• Consumer electronics
• Digital distribution
• Apple logos;
• The Newton Crest: 1976-1976 The Rainbow Logo: 1976-1998 The Monochrome Logo: 1998 – Present

35

• The Apple II was introduced on April 16, 1977, was chosen to
be the desktop platform for the first Colored graphics
application.
• The company introduced the Apple III in May 1980 in an
attempt to compete with IBM and Microsoft in the business
and corporate computing market.
• Apple Lisa – Sold in early 1980’s, first personal computer sold
to public with a GUI. Extreme failure due to limited software

titles and high price tag.

36

• Macintosh - Designed in 1984, sold very strong in the
beginning but because of its high price, total consumption was
low.
• PowerBook – In 1991, with 7lbs weight and 3 hour battery
life.
• Macintosh LC - First in affordable price and color-capable
feature.

• MS Office - In 1997, Steve Jobs announced Apple would join
Microsoft to released new versions of Microsoft office, known
as MC Office 1998 for MAC.
37

• Apple Store - On November 10, 1997, Apple introduced the
online store tied to a new build-to-order manufacturing
strategy.
• iMac - On August 15, 1998, Apple introduced a new all-in-one
computer reminiscent of the Macintosh 128K or iMAC.

• Apples iPod - The iPod line was announced by Apple on
October 23, 2001. iPod is a line of portable media players
created and marketed by Apple Inc. Over 100 million units
were sold in the first six years

38

• Apple iTunes Store - Apple's iTunes Store in 2003 was
introduced offering online music downloads for $0.99 a song
and integration with the iPod. The service quickly became the
market leader in online music services, with over 5 billion
downloads by June 19, 2008.

• iPhone - The iPhone is a line of Internet- and multimedia -
enabled smart phones in 2007. The 5th generation iPhone
known as iPhone 4S, was announced on October 4, 2011.
Apple’s total iPhone user base may reach as high as 100 39
million users by the end of 2011.

• iPAD - Apple released the first iPad in April 2010, and sold 3
million in 80 days.
• The iPad is a line of tablet pc designed developed and
marketed by Apple Inc., primarily as a platform for audio-
visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music,
games, apps and web content.

• As of June, 2011, there were about 90,000 iPad specific apps
on the App Store. 40

5th Generation of Computer (1990 – to date)
• 5th generation is start from 1990 to date, with Artificial
Intelligence. AI also known as Robotics.
• The generation of computers being designed to expand the
use of artificial intelligence, natural language, expert systems
and online social networks.

• AI - Ability of a machine to perform tasks thought to require
human intelligence.
• Commonly used in interactive game playing, language
translating, expert system, and robotics.
• Expert system - An expert system is a computer program that
simulates the judgment and behavior of a human or an
organization that has expert knowledge and experience in a
particular field. 41
•

• Online social networks - A social networking is an online
service platform or site that focuses on building and
developing online relations among the people who’s share of
interests are same.
•

42

Generations of computers

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