Profile
Settings
Refer your friends
Sign out
The five generations of computers can be classified by the technological advances in computer architecture, the developments in software systems, and new features added to the machines that make them work better. The five generations of computers are First Generation, Second Generation, Third Generation, Fourth Generation, and Fifth Generation of Computers. The First Generation of Computers can be classified as machines that only use electronic valves (vacuum tubes) to perform calculations; this type of computer only existed during the late 1940s and early 1950s before it was replaced by faster and cheaper vacuum tube-less machines.
The First Generation of Computers
In 1946, ENIAC was built by John Presper Eckert Jr. and John W. Mauchly at The University of Pennsylvania to calculate ballistic firing tables for World War II. ENIAC was 10x15x100 feet large, with 19,000 vacuum tubes weighing 30 tons.
The Second Generation of computer
From 1968 to 1971, scientists developed some advanced versions of the abacus. They invented a computer chip containing power transistors, resistors, capacitors, and diodes which came to be known as integrated circuits. These integrated circuits could sense or display data processed in storage devices called memory chips. The computer system soon came to be referred to as Second Generation computer systems. With further advancements, they developed a huge electronic device that would appear next on our list of generations of computers.
The Third Generation of computer
IBM, Intel, and Apple were making big strides in improving computers. The IBM 5100 was built to be portable, it weighed 50 pounds but still had poor graphics performance. Third-generation computers became more powerful, especially in memory capacity. The microprocessor-based machines of that generation could perform floating-point arithmetic calculations faster than previous generations of computer systems. In terms of hardware improvement, at least three generations are typically recognized: Cray Research introduced its Cray-1 supercomputer in 1976 (first delivered in 1977). At peak performance levels it was around 10 times faster than contemporaneous competitors. The advent of newer technologies such as RISC would lead to improvements beyond what even top-of-the-line supercomputers like Cray could achieve by themselves.
The Fourth Generation of computer
Fourth-generation computers are highly advanced devices that use artificial intelligence to make decisions. They can take in information, interpret it, decide what to do based on what they’ve learned about their past experiences, and make action plans. For example, if a fourth-generation computer controlled your car’s GPS, it could plan out your fastest route according to traffic patterns rather than rely on already-set directions. This type of computer uses expert systems to learn how to think through experience or observations. As you might imagine, there are still limitations to these systems; they rely on their programming (via their expert system) rather than natural reasoning or intuition.
The Fifth Generation and Beyond of computer
The fifth generation of computers was born in 1980, bringing us the technology we now take for granted: personal computers. Instead of sharing mainframes, smaller versions were created for people to work on at home and work. The huge electronic device remained housed in a room with scientists working with stacks of punch cards and even later, floppy disks. Thanks to Moore’s Law and other innovations that increase processing power over time, today’s smartphones have more power than machines used to do everything from creating spreadsheets to launching rockets. With next-generation technology quickly on its way, who knows what computers will be capable of once computing enters its sixth generation? Only time will tell!
Conclusion
The idea of the computer was conceived by a few men in the late 1800s, but it wasn’t until the 1950s that we saw the first generation of computers become commercialized. These early machines were big and bulky, as well as quite expensive to purchase and maintain, which is why only huge corporations like banks could afford them at the time. These early models were also incredibly slow and inefficient compared to the computers we use today, but they laid the groundwork for what was to come. Here’s an overview of the five generations of computers and how they progressed over time.
