Computer Age: Past, Present, and Future

Generations of Computer
The First generation The Second Generation The Third Generation The Fourth G
eneration The Fifth Generation
The Computer Age
Rapid
changes Four generations over 50 years
Trends
across generations Decrease size Increase speed
The First Generation

1951-1958 Vacuum Tube

Magnetic core memory Storage

Heat Burnout

Machine language
Punched cards Tape (1957)
Characteristics of 1st Generation Computers Computers big and clumsy Electri
city consumption is high Electric failure occurred regularly - computers not v
ery reliable Large air conditioners was necessary because the computers genera
ted heat Batch processing
The First Generation
1951,

UNIVAC
Eckert and Mauchly completed the first commercial computer in the USA the UNIV
AC (Universal Automatic Computer) First computer built for business Short Code -
A set of instructions called Short Code is developed for the UNIVAC. Programmer
s
The First Generation

1951, SAGE - Semi Automatic Ground Environment was developed. IBM built the SAGE
computers and became leaders in real-time applications and used the technology
of Whirlwind. SAGE computers were used in an early U.S. air defense system. They
were fully deployed in 1963, that consisted of 27 centers throughout North Amer
ica, each with a duplexed AN/FSQ-7 computer system containing over 50,000 vacuum
tubes, weighing 250 tons and occupying an acre of floor space. SAGE was the fir
st large computer network to provide man-machine interaction in real time.
The First Generation

1952, EDVACElectronic Discreet Variable Computer

John Von Neumann, designed with a central control unit which would calculate and
output all mathematical and logical problems and a memory which could be writte
n to and read. (RAM in modern terms) which would store programs and data.
The First Generation

1953, IBM 701

The 701 was formally announced on May 21, 1952. It was the unit of the overall 7
01 Data Processing System in which actual calculations were performed. That acti
vity involved 274 assemblies executing all the system's computing and control fu
nctions by means of electronic pulses emitted at speeds ranging up to one millio
n a second. Whirlwind was a large scale, general purpose digital computer begun
at the Servomechanisms Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology i
n 1946.

1953, The Whirlwind

The Second Generation

1959-1964 Transistor

Storage

Smaller No warm-up time Less energy Less heat Faster More reliable
Removable disk pack (1954) Magnetic tape Assembly language FORTRAN (1954) COBOL(
1959)
Programming
languages
Used primarily by business, university, government
The Second Generation
Computers
became smaller Generate less heat Electricity consumption lower More relia
ble and faster Core memory developed Magnetic tapes and disks used First o
perating systems developed A new processing method was needed. Time-sharing
(processing technique)
The Second Generation
1963, Mini-computer: PDP-8
Digital introduces the first successful minicomputer the PDP8. It was about
as large as a fridge and used transistors and magnetic core memory.
1964 Real-time reservation system IBM developed a realtime computerised ticket
reservation system for American Airways.
It was smaller than SAGE and was called SABRE (Semi-Automatic Business-Related
Environment).
The Second Generation

1964, IBMs System 360 It consisted of 6 processors and 40 peripheral units. M

ore than 100 computers per month were ordered. 1964, BASIC (programming language
)

A programming language was necessary that could be used in a time-sharing enviro

nment and that could serve as a training language.
The Third Generation

1965-1970 Integrated Circuit Electronic circuit on small silicon chip Reliab

ility Compactness Low cost Inexpensive massproduced
1. Computers smaller, faster and more reliable 2. Power consumption lower 3. Hig
h-level languages appeared
The Third Generation
1965,

Gordon Moore
The semi-conductor pioneer, Gordon Moore (founder of Intel), predicted that the
number of transistors that occurred on a microchip would double every year. It b
ecame known as Moores Law and is still valid today.
Burroughs
used integrated circuits in parts of two computers - the B2500 and the B3500.
Control Data and NCR made two computers using only integrated circuits - the CDC
7600 and the Century series respectively.
The Third Generation

1968, Intel was founded (INTegrated Electronics).

They developed more sophisticated memory chips.

1968, Magnetic core memory was replaced by a microchip.

The first 256 bit RAM microchips, and later the first 1Kb RAM (1024 byte) chips,
caused the disappearance of Magnetic Core Memory that was used since the mid 19
50 s.

1969, IBM System/370 replaced their System/360 with the System/370 that only use
d integrated circuits.
The Fourth Generation

1971-Present Microprocessor General-purpose processor on a chip Explosive grow

th Digital watches Pocket calculators Personal computers Cars Copy mac
hines Television sets

Integrated circuits, smaller and faster Micro computer series such as IBM and AP
PLE developed Portable computers developed Great development in data communicati
on Different types of secondary memory with high storage capacity and fast acces
s developed
The Fourth Generation

1971, Microprocessor Intel developed the first microprocessor - a CPU on a micro

chip.

1971, Pascal (programming language) Early programming languages

It was called the 4004 and consisted of 2-250 transistors capable of processing
4 bits at a rate of 60,000 transactions/second.

Niklaus Wirth - a Swedish computer scientist - developed the Pascal language in

1971. This language was specifically designed to teach the concepts of structure
d programming. Pascal remains the most popular language for learning the basic p
rinciples of good programming. Intel released the 8008 - an 8 bit processor powe
rful enough to be used as the CPU of a minicomputer
1972, 8008

The Fourth Generation

1972, CP/M (Operating system)

The first operating system for microcomputers was developed by Gary Kildall and
John Torode. Torode developed hardware to connect a diskette (floppy disk) to th
e CPU. 8080 Microprocessor, was released - it made the development of the microc
omputer possible.
MARK-8 Johnathan Titus (a chemist with an interest in electronics) ordered an 80
08 processor from Intel.

He built a computer with six(6) circuit boards which had 256 bytes RAM.

1974

Motorolas 6800 processor developed a processor

the 6800. which could perform all the functions of the 8080.
The Fourth Generation

1975 - January

Altair 8800- Popular Mechanics published an article which announced the developm
ent of a true personal computer Developed by MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Tel
emetry Systems). It used the 8-bit Intel 8080 microprocessor and was made availa
ble in a complete kit, including all components and assembly instructions. 256 b
ytes of RAM was available. 16 slots were left open to include more RAM when nece
ssary.

Apple- Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs founded the Apple Company . They built a m
icrocomputer motherboard that used a 8-bit processor. The motherboard was a si
ngle circuit board and held 4 Kb RAM. 1976, MOS 6502 processor MOS technologie
s announced the development of the 6502 processor, an 8-bit processor with very
few registers and 16-bit address bus. It was used in the design of the Apple I
I
The Fourth Generation

1977. Apple II Wozniak and Jobs released the Apple II. It was cheap, had 16 Kb R
AM and was ideal for playing video games.

1978 Intels 8086 processor that contained 16-bit registers and used segmented m
emory addressing.
All x86 processors had to be compatible with the set of instructions, first used
in this processor. 1979, Motorolas 68000 processor which was used in the Apple
Lisa and Macintosh computers.

It was sold with a keyboard, a power supply and included 8 slots for peripherals
. It could therefore be used with a wider variety of peripherals and programs.
The Fourth Generation

First spreadsheet :

VisiCalcDan Bricklin and Bob Frankston of the Software Arts Company developed th
e first spreadsheet program for use on microcomputers, namely VisiCalc. It was d
istributed by Personal Software for use on all Apple computers.Word processor Th
e word processing program WordStar was developed by Seymour Rubenstein s firm Mi
croPro and became the best seller in the CP/M operating environment.

WordStar

1981, IBM PCIBM announced it s first Personal Computer the IBM PC - an Intel 808
8 processor 1982, Intels 286 processor. Intel announced the 80286 microprocesso
r.

This was used in the IBM PC AT (Advanced Technology).

4th Generation
1983, Apples Lisa Apple announced the Lisa, a computer that used a mouse to
move a cursor on the screen in order to select commands. The Lisa was the first
commercial computer to use a Graphical User Interface (GUI) 1983, IBM announc
ed the PC XT (eXtended Technology). Memory was expanded to 640 Kb and it feature
d: 4,77 MHz processor speed Double floppy disks MS DOS version 3.3 Later
versions also had 10 or 20 Mb hard disk drives available. 1990, Windows 3.0 (
operating system) Microsoft released Windows 3.0.
The Fifth Generation

Mid 1990s Intelligent computers Artificial intelligence Expert systems Na

tural language
Applications for 5th Gen computers

Intelligent robots that could see their environment (visual input - e.g. a vid
eo camera) and could be programmed to carry out certain tasks and should be able
to decide for itself how the task should be accomplished, based on the observat
ions it made of its environment. Intelligent systems that could control the rout
e of a missile and defence-systems that could fend off attacks. Word processors
that could be controlled by means of speech recognition. Programs that could tra
nslate documents from one language to another.
5th Generation

Some technological developments that could make the development of fifth-generat

ion computers possible, include:

Parallel-processing - many processors are grouped to function as one large group

processor. Superconductors - a superconductor is a conductor through which elec
tricity can travel without any resistance resulting in faster transfer of inform
ation between the components of a computer. Expert Systems helps doctors to reac
h a diagnosis by following the logical steps of problem solving just as if the d
octor would have done it himself. Speech recognition systems, capable of recogni
sing dictation and entering the text into a word processor, are already availabl
e.
The Fifth Generation AI Artificial Intelligence
How
computers can be used for tasks that required human characteristics
Problem Solving by Search

An important aspect of intelligence is goal-based problem solving. The solution

of many problems (e.g. noughts and crosses, timetabling, chess) can be described
by finding a sequence of actions that lead to a desirable goal. Each action cha
nges the state and the aim is to find the sequence of actions and states that le
ad from the initial (start) state to a final (goal) state.

A well-defined problem can be described by: 1. Initial state 2. Operator or succ

essor function - for any state x returns s(x), the set of states reachable from
x with one action 3. State space - all states reachable from initial by any sequ
ence of actions 4. Path - sequence through state space 5. Path cost - function t
hat assigns a cost to a path. Cost of a path is the sum of costs of individual a
ctions along the path 6. Goal test - test to determine if at goal state
The Fifth Generation Expert Systems
Software
used with an extensive set of organized data that presents the computer as an ex
pert on a particular topic
The Fifth Generation Natural Language
Humans
communicate with computers in the language they use on a daily basis
The Fifth Generation Robotics

Computer-controlled device that can physically manipulate its surroundings

Robot development firm Speecys Corp. of Tokyo developed a small humanoid robot,
powered entirely by easy-to-replace, environmentally friendly fuel-cell batterie
s.
THOR on display and demonstration circa 1981
The Fifth Generation VR Virtual Reality

Engage a user in a computer-created environment

User physically interacts with computer-created environment

The END