School of Medicine

Course title: Introduction to Information Communication

Technology

Title: Briefs of history of development of computer and

its generations

Prepared by : AMANUEL MEBRATU GEBREMICHAEL

ID NO: CHS/UR129130/10
Academic Year:2017/18

Submitted to : Mr. GEREMESKEL N.

Submission date: Nov 24/2017

Submitted respectfully
Historical Development of computers
Actually speaking electronic data processing does not go back more than just half a century.
History of computer began many thousands years ago. The idea of computer is originated from
simple computing machine like as Abacus, Pascalene, Napier bone etc.

Abacus

Abacus was the first mathematical computing machine, originated between 600 and 500 BC, in
Asia Minor and is still in use in some countries. The round beads of wood or bone are used to
perform addition and subtraction sliding back and forth on the rods. Early merchants used the
abacus to keep trading transaction.

Napiers Bone

The inventor of logarithms, Scottish mathematician, John Napier, invented a device

called Napiers Bone. It was a rectangular rod of wood or bone on which multiplication tables
were inscribed.

Slide Rule

It was invented by English mathematician William Oughtred in 1620. It performs multiplication

and division by adding and subtracting. It uses the same principle of logarithm except it is
represented on a scale instead of a table.

Liebniz Step Reckoner

Reckoner is an improved form of Pascalene. It can perform addition, subtraction, multiplication

and division. It can also extract square root by a series of repeated addition. The shift mechanism
is applied for multiplication and division .In decimal system, multiplying a digit by 10, shifts it
one place to the left and dividing a digit by 10, shifts it one place to the right. Shift mechanism
duplicates this process.

Generations of computer
major technological development that fundamentally changed the waycomputer operates,
resulting in increasingly smaller, cheaper, more powerful and more efficient and reliable devices
characterize each generation of computers. The following are some of its briefs:
First generation : Vacuum Tubes (1940-1956)

The computers manufactured between 1945 -55 are called first Generation Computers. They
were extremely large in size with vacuum tubes in their circuitry which generated considerable
heat. Hence, special air conditioning arrangements were required to dissipate this heat.

They used vacuum tubes for circuitry and magnetic drums for memory, and relied on machine
language,the lowest-level programming language understood by computer. They were extremely
slow and their storage capacity was also very less compared to todays computers. In these
computers punched cards were used to enter data in to the computer. These were cards with
rectangular holes punched in them using some punching devices. UNIVACI was the first
commercially available computer, built in 1951 by Remington Rand Company.

Second Generation: Transistors (1956-1963)

The transistor was invented at Bell Labs in 1947 but did not see widespread use in computers
until the late 1950s.

The transistor was far superior to the vacuum tube, allowing computers to become smaller,
faster, cheaper, more energy-efficient and more reliable than their first-generation predecessors.
Though the transistor still generated a great deal of heat that subjected the computer to damage,
it was a vast improvement over the vacuum tube. Second-generation computers still relied on
punched cards for input and printouts for output.

From Binary to Assembly

Second-generation computers moved from cryptic binary machine language to symbolic,
or assembly, languages, which allowed programmers to specify instructions in words. High-level
programming languages were also being developed at this time, such as early versions
of COBOL and FORTRAN. These were also the first computers that stored their instructions in
their memory, which moved from a magnetic drum to magnetic core technology.

The first computers of this generation were developed for the atomic energy industry.

Third Generation: Integrated Circuits (1964-1971)

The development of the integrated circuit was the hallmark of the third generation of computers.
Transistors were miniaturized and placed on silicon chips, called semiconductors, which
drastically increased the speed and efficiency of computers.

Instead of punched cards and printouts, users interacted with third generation computers
through keyboards and monitors and interfaced with an operating system, which allowed the
device to run many different applications at one time with a central program that monitored the
memory. Inaddition, an improved high level languages were evolving such as
PASCAL,BASIC..etc. Computers for the first time became accessible to a mass audience
because they were smaller and cheaper than their predecessors.

Fourth Generation: Microprocessors (1971-Present)

The microprocessor brought the fourth generation of computers, as thousands of integrated

circuits were built onto a single silicon chip. What in the first generation filled an entire room
could now fit in the palm of the hand. The OOP language was also introduced during this
generation. During this period many operating systems were developed, including MS_DOS,
Microsoft Window, and UNIX. Etc. In 1981, IBM introduced its first computer for the home
user, and in 1984 Apple introduced the Macintosh. Microprocessors also moved out of the realm
of desktop computers and into many areas of life as more and more everyday products began to
use microprocessors.

As these small computers became more powerful, they could be linked together to form
networks, which eventually led to the development of the Internet. Fourth generation computers
also saw the development of GUIs, the mouse and handheld devices.
Fifth generation : Artificial Intelligence (1989- beyond)

The period of fifth generation is 1980-till date. In the fifth generation, VLSI technology became
ULSI (Ultra Large Scale Integration) technology, resulting in the production of microprocessor
chips having ten million electronic components.

This generation is based on parallel processing hardware and AI (Artificial Intelligence)

software. AI is an emerging branch in computer science, which interprets the means and method
of making computers think like human beings. All the high-level languages like C and C++,
Java, .Net etc., are used in this generation.

The main features of fifth generation are

ULSI technology
Development of true artificial intelligence
Development of Natural language processing
Advancement in Parallel Processing

The End
References

http://www.sciencehq.com/computing-technology/history-of-computer.html
https://www.tutorialspoint.com/computer_fundamentals/computer_fifth_generation.ht
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