History of computing

RITIK DHINGANA | INTRODUCTION TO COMPUTING | 8/27/2019

Contents

• HISTORY OF COMPUTING

• FIVE GENERATIONS OF COMPUTING

1. First Generation: Vacuum Tubes (1940-1956)

2. Second Generation: Transistors (1956-1963)
3. Third Generation: Integrated Circuits (1964-1971)
4. Fourth Generation: Microprocessors (1972-2010)
5. Fifth Generation: Artificial Intelligence (2010)

HISTORY OF COMPUTING

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The history of computing is longer than the history of computer hardware and modern
computing technology and includes the history of methods intended for pen and paper or
for chalk and slate, with or without the help of tables. A computer can be described as “an
apparatus that performs routine calculations automatically”. In fact, calculations underlie
many activities that are not normally thought of as mathematical.

The earliest known calculating device is abacus. The abacus is a digital device which
represents the value discretely. It was invented in at least 1100 BC and is used today in
our modern world. It all changed when a Scottish mathematician named John Napier
published the discovery of logarithms in 1614. There is a clear evidence and adding two
ten digits’ numbers is much simpler than multiplying them together. What logarithms
does is transformation of a multiplication problem into an addition problem. In 1620, an
English mathematician who originated the terms cosine and cotangent, Edmund Gunter
built a device for navigational calculations and named it as The Gunter Scale or simply a
navigator The Gunter. And after that in 1632, an English clergyman and mathematician
named William oughtred built the first slide rule by adopting the ideas of Napier.

Then digital computers were invented. In contrast to analog computers, digital computers
represent information in discrete form generally in the sequence of binary digits i.e. 0s
and 1s. Today the most powerful computers used in the world are Supercomputers.
Supercomputers are very expensive and its uses are limited to high priority purposes such
as nuclear simulations and weather modeling.

Minicomputers and Microcomputers are too used widely around the globe.
Minicomputers are relatively mall and inexpensive are used in a single department of an
organization whereas Microcomputers are used in wide range of departments to perform
various purposes such as computation, data visualization, computer-aided engineering.

There is an another class used widely named Embedded processor. These are small
computers that use microprocessors to control electrical and mechanical functions. They
can be inexpensive because they usually do not have to do elaborate computations or are
extremely fast, nor they have great input-output capability.

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There are five generations of computer.

 First Generation: Vacuum Tubes (1940-1956)

 Second Generation: Transistors (1956-1963)
 Third Generation: Integrated Circuits (1964-1971)
 Fourth Generation: Microprocessors (1972-2010)
 Fifth Generation: Artificial Intelligence (2010)

FIRST GENERATION: VACUUM TUBE(1940-1956)

The first computer systems used for circuitry and magnetic drums for memory and often
enormous enough taking up entire room space are vacuum tubes. These computers used a
a lot of electricity due toc which it is very expensive. In addition to this, it produced a lot
of heat too which caused malfunction most of the times. Punch cards, paper tapes and
magnetic tape was used as input and output devices. Machine code was used as a
programming language in these computers.

SECOND GENERATION: TRANSISTORS(1956-1963)

These type of computers featured circuit boards filled with individual transistors and
magnetic core memory. These type of computers were cheaper because they consumed
less power, more compact in size, more reliable and faster than the machine made of
vacuum tubes. These computers used assembly language and high level programming
languages like FORTRAN and COBOL. The computers used batch processing and multi-
programming operating system.

THIRD GENERATION: INTEGRATED CIRCUITS(1964-1971)

These type of computers emerged due to the development of integrated
Circuits. These computers relatively took small space because of the integrated circuits.
They could be as small as large toasters therefore they were named as microcomputers.
These computers were fast and efficient because of the transistors which were
miniaturized and placed on silicon chips called semiconductors. Users used keyboards,

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monitors and interface with an operating system to interact with these computers instead
of using the punch cards and printouts.

FOURTH GENERATION: MICROPROCESSORS(1971-2010)

These type of computers used very large scale integrated circuits (VLSI). Thousands of
transistors are integrated on a small silicon chip by using VLSI technology. The main
features of this computers are that they are very cheap and are portable and reliable to
use. As these computers became powerful, they could be linked together to form
networks which eventually led to the development of internet.

FIFTH GENERATION: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE(2010)

Al is the future of the world. These computers are incredibly fast. They can perform the
tasks of human beings which require intelligence. However, they can not perform those
tasks which require tacit knowledge that humans acquire spontaneously such as thingss
concerned with shape and speech recognition and communication in natural language.
The use of parallel processing and superconductors is helping to make artificial
intelligence a realty They are still in development but are widely used across the globe.

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