The Five Generations of
Computers
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Group Head Office, The City School. 1
Generations of Computer
The computer has evolved from a large-sized
simple calculating machine to a smaller but
much more powerful machine.
The evolution of computer to the current
state is defined in terms of the generations of
computer.
Each generation of computer is designed
based on a new technological development,
resulting in better, cheaper and smaller
computers ©Group
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Department,
Head Office, The City School.
Generations of Computer
Currently, there are five generations of
computer. In the following subsections, we
will discuss the generations of computer in
terms of the technology used by them
(hardware and software), computing
characteristics (speed, i.e., number of
instructions executed per second), physical
appearance, and their applications.
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First Generation Computers
(1940-1956)
The first computers used vacuum tubes(a sealed glass tube
containing a near-vacuum which allows the free passage of
electric current.) for
circuitry and magnetic drums for memory.
They were often enormous and taking up entire room.
First generation computers relied on machine language.
They were very expensive to operate and in addition to
using a great deal of electricity, generated a lot of heat,
which was often the cause of malfunctions(defect or
breakdown).
The UNIVAC and ENIAC computers are examples of first-
generation computing devices.
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First Generation
Computers
Advantages :
It was only electronic device
First device to hold memory
Disadvantages :
Too bulky i.e large in size
Vacuum tubes burn frequently
They were producing heat
Maintenance problems
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Second Generation Computers
(1956-1963)
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Group Head Office, The City School. 6
Second Generation
Computers
Advantages :
Size reduced considerably
The very fast
Very much reliable
Disadvantages :
They over heated quickly
Maintenance problems
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Third Generation Computers
(1964-1971)
The development of the integrated
circuit was the hallmark of the third
generation of computers.
Transistors were miniaturized and placed
on siliconchips, called semiconductors.
Instead of punched cards and printouts,
users interacted with third generation
computers through keyboards
and monitors and interfaced with
an operating system.
Allowed the device
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Third generation computers
Advantages :
ICs are very small in size
Improved performance
Production cost cheap
Disadvantages :
ICs are sophisticated
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Fourth Generation Computers
(1971-present)
The microprocessor brought the fourth
generation of computers, as thousands of
integrated circuits were built onto a single
silicon chip.
The Intel 4004 chip, developed in 1971,
located all the components of the computer.
From the central processing unit and
memory to input/output controls—on a single
chip.
. Fourth generation computers also saw the
development of GUIs,
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Fourth Generation
Computers
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Group Head Office, The City School. 11
Fifth Generation Computers
(present and beyond)
Fifth generation computing devices, based
on artificial intelligence.
Are still in development, though there are
some applications, such as voice recognition.
The use of parallel processing and
superconductors is helping to make artificial
intelligence a reality.
The goal of fifth-generation computing is to
develop devices that respond to natural
language input and are capable of learning
and self-organization.
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Group Head Office, The City School. 12
Fifth Generation
Computers
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Group Head Office, The City School. 13