GENERATIONS OF

COMPUTER

_Sumit Yadav
Computers
generations
Features of the first generations
computer
 The first generations computers used vacuum tube
as electronic circuit, magnetic drum for primary
storage and mercury delay lined for memory.
 Storage capacity was too small (1 to 4K)
 The computers processed in terms of milliseconds
and they were slow.
 They were huge in size.
 The computers were used only for scientific or
research purpose.
Features of second generations of
computers.
 Instead of vacuum tubes, the second generation
computers used transistors.
 Operation increased to nanoseconds.
 Magnetic core memory was used as internal
storage.
 Magnetic tapes were used as secondary storage
media.
 They could understand high level languages such
as COBOL.
3 generations of computer
rd
Features of third generation of computer

 Integrated circuits were the main feature of

third generations of computer.
 Semi-conductor memory was used as
primary storage
 They used to operate in terms of nano-
seconds.
 The computers supported different high level
languages.
 They were small, elegant, efficient and
reliable.
4 generation computer
th
Features of fourth generations
computer
 Very Large Integration is one of the characteristics
features of fourth generation computers.
 The sizes of fourth generations computers were
reduced to desk-top or lap-top size.
 They can understand billions of instructions within
a second.
 Secondary storage, use of semi-
conductors are the speciality of fourth
generation computers.
5 generation computers
th
Features of fifth generation computer