LEARNINGS OF THE WEEK(TABIGUE)

HISTORY OF COMPUTERS

ELECTROMECHANICAL AGE

(1840-1940)

-The discovery of ways to harness electricity was the key advance made during this period. Knowledge and information could now be converted into electrical impulses.

VOLTAIC BATTERY

The first electric battery, known as the Voltaire pile was invented in 8th century by Alessandro Volta.

Voltaic files consisted of a stack of alternating discs of zinc and copper or silver separated by felt soaked in brine. They provided, for the first time, a simple source of stored electrical energy that didn’t rely on mechanical means.

TELEGRAPH

Samuel F.J. Morse conceived of his version of an electromagnetic telegraph in 1832 and constructed an experiment version in 1815.

He did not construct a truly practical system until 1844, when he built a line from Baltimore to Washington.

TELEPHONE AND RADIO

1876

•Alexander Graham Bell.
•Developed the first working telephone and transmitted his now famous quotation “Watson, come here, I want you.”
•His telephone was introduced on a large scale at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1877.
•Followed by the discovery that electrical waves travel through space and can produce an effect far from the point at which they originated by Guglielmo Marconi in 1894
•These two events led to the invention of the radio
•1852-George Boole develops binary algebra. This became known as Boolean algebra andbecame important in the 20th century when binary computers were developed.

1853

Pehr and Advard Scheutz complete their tabulating Machine, capable of processing fifteen-digit numbers, printing out results and rounding off to eight digits.

1885

Dorr Felt devises the Comptometer, a key driven adding and subtracting calculator.

1889
Felt’s Comptograph, containing built-in printer, is introduced.

PUNCHED CARDS

• Herman Hollerith was the first person to successfully use punched cards in 1890.
• Punched Card was adapted for use in early computers and provided computer programmers with a new way to put information into their machine.
• Until only two decades ago, the punched card was the most popular method for entering data into computers.
• By the 19th century, the number of people in the United States was so large, it took seven years to count them all.
• Seeking to shorten that time, the Census Bureau held a contest to find the fastest adding machine.
• Hollerith won the contest with his punched card device and his invention helped to complete the 1
• Hollerith was the father of information processing and found the Tabulating machine Company which later became the Computer Tabulating Recording Company.
  890 census in just two and one-half years.
• Hollerith company went to become the International Business Machines Corporation known today as IBM.

1893

The Millionaire, the first efficeint four-function calculator invented by Otto shweiger, a Swiss Engineer.

1906

• With the groundwork laid by people such as Pascal, Babbage and Hollerith, innovators began working toward modern computers.
• It was during the early 2oth century computers changed from mechanical calculation machines to electronic computers.
• Vacuum tube was developed by Lee De Forest which provide electricity controlled switch, a necessity for digital electronic computers.
• Vacuum tubes look similar to light bulbs.
• It were the first major electrical part of a computer, replacing manual switches.
• After the introduction of the vacuum tube, there were no longer problems with mechanical gears, pulleys or levers.

It marked the end of mechanical computing and the beginnings of electronics in computer.

ELECTRICAL AGE

•In 1941, Konrad Zuse built the first programmable computer called Z3. A computer is “programmable” because it is capable of following instructions.
• Z3 is designed to solve engineering equations rather than basic arithmetic problems.
•Z3 was the first fully functional, program controlled (freely programmable) computer of the world. The Z3 was presented on May 12, 1941 to an audience of scientists in Berlin. The demonstration was a success.

1942
•Howard Aiken a PhD student of Harvard University built the Mark I “ The First Stored Program Computer”
•8 feet tall, 51 feet long, 2 feet thick, weight 5 tons, used about 750, 000 parts, 500 miles of wires, 3-5 seconds per calculation.
•In 1942, John Atanasoff and Clifford berry completed the first all-electronic computer the ABC (Atanasoff-Berry computer).
•ABC was the first computer to use electricity in the form of vacuum tubes to make electric computation possible.
•ABC was used for solving complex system of equations.

GENERATIONS OF COMPUTERS

FIRST GENERATION(1951-1958)

The first generation of computers used vacuum tubes as their main logic elements; punched cards to input and externally store data; and rotating magnetic drums for internal storage of data in programs written in machine language (instructions written as a string of 0s and 1s) or assembly language (a language that allowed the programmer to write instructions in a kind of shorthand that would then be "translated" by another program called a compiler into machine language).

In addition, first-generation computers often broke down because of burned-out vacuum tubes. First generation computers also needed many experts to operate them.
In 1945, Presper Eckert and John Mauchly developed the first operational electronic digital computer, called ENIAC, for US Army. ENIAC was over 1000 times faster than Mark 1, and could perform 5000 additions per second. ENIAC had more than 1800 vacuum tubes, and took up to 1800 square feet of space. In addition, the electrical current ENIAC required could power more than a thousand modern computers. Today, ENIAC’s technology could fit in a modern wristwatch. In 1951 the UNIVAC-1 became the first commercially available electronic computer. This computer was designed by Eckert and Mauchly (the designers of the ENIAC) and built by the Remington Rand corporation. The first of these computers was delivered to US. Census Bureau.
Between 1951 and 1953 magnetic core memory was developed. This memory consists of tiny ferrite “donuts” that were arranged on a lattice of wires. The polarity of their magnetization could be change or detected by passing current through the wires. This allowed each lattice point store one “bit” – either 0 or 1. Magnetic core memory was the fastest type of memory until the late 1980’s.

SECOND GENERATION(1959-1963)

In the 1940s, discovered that a class of crystalline mineral materials called semiconductors could be used in the design of a device called a transistor to replace vacuum tubes. Magnetic cores (very small donut-shaped magnets that could be polarized in one of two directions to represent data) strung on wire within the computer became the primary internal storage technology. Magnetic tape and disks began to replace punched cards as external storage devices.
High-level programming languages (program instructions that could be written with simple words and mathematical expressions), like FORTRAN and COBOL, made computers more accessible to scientists and businesses.
Instead of vacuum tubes, second generation computers used transistors an exiting new invention at the time. John Barden, Walter Brattain and William Shockley of Bell Telephone Laboratories invented the transistor. A transistor is a small, solid-state component designed to monitor the flow of the electric current.

THIRD GENERATION( 1963-1974)

•Individual transistors were replace by integrated circuits.
•Magnetic tape and disks completely replace punch cards.
•Magnetic core internal memories began to give way to new form, metal-oxide semiconductor.

In the third generation, computers relied on a new technology called the integrated circuits. The integrated circuit is a single wafer or chip that can hold many transistors and electronic circuits.

FOURTH GENERATION (1979-Present)

•Intel Corporation designed the first tiny computer on a chip, it was called the microprocessor.
•Microprocessor is an integrated circuit built on a tiny piece of silicon.
•Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems or MITS produced the first PC. They named the computer kit Altair 8080, after the Star Trek episode, “A Voyage to Altair” in 1975.
•Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded
the Microsoft.
•In April 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded APPLE COMPUTERS.
•VisiCalc is released. This is the first spreadsheet program and it made microcomputers useful to business in 1978.
•The first microcomputer word processor, Word Star, is released in 1979.

Learnings of the week

History of Computers

The Electromechanical Age

(1840-1940)

The discovery of ways to harness electricity was the key advance made during this period. Knowledge and information could now be converted into electrical impulses.

VOLTAIC BATTERY

The first electric battery, known as the Voltaire pile was invented in 8th century by Alessandro Volta.

Voltaic files consisted of a stack of alternating discs of zinc and copper or silver separated by felt soaked in brine. They provided, for the first time, a simple source of stored electrical energy that didn’t rely on mechanical means.

TELEGRAPH

Samuel F.J. Morse conceived of his version of an electromagnetic telegraph in 1832 and constructed an experiment version in 1815.

He did not construct a truly practical system until 1844, when he built a line from Baltimore to Washington.

TELEPHONE AND RADIO

1876

•Alexander Graham Bell.
•1876
•Developed the first working telephone and transmitted his now famous quotation “Watson, come here, I want you.”
•His telephone was introduced on a large scale at the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition in 1877.
•Followed by the discovery that electrical waves travel through space and can produce an effect far from the point at which they originated by Guglielmo Marconi in 1894
•These two events led to the invention of the radio
•1852-George Boole develops binary algebra. This became known as Boolean algebra andbecame important in the 20th century when binary computers were developed.

1853

Pehr and Advard Scheutz complete their tabulating Machine, capable of processing fifteen-digit numbers, printing out results and rounding off to eight digits.

1885

Dorr Felt devises the Comptometer, a key driven adding and subtracting calculator.

1889

Felt’s Comptograph, containing built-in printer, is introduced.

PUNCHED CARDS

• Herman Hollerith was the first person to successfully use punched cards in 1890.
• Punched Card was adapted for use in early computers and provided computer programmers with a new way to put information into their machine.
• Until only two decades ago, the punched card was the most popular method for entering data into computers.
• By the 19th century, the number of people in the United States was so large, it took seven years to count them all.
• Seeking to shorten that time, the Census Bureau held a contest to find the fastest adding machine.
• Hollerith won the contest with his punched card device and his invention helped to complete the 1890 census in just two and one-half years.
• Hollerith was the father of information processing and found the Tabulating machine Company which later became the Computer Tabulating Recording Company.
• Hollerith company went to become the International Business Machines Corporation known today as IBM.

1893

The Millionaire, the first efficient four-function calculator invented by Otto shweiger, a Swiss Engineer.

1906

• With the groundwork laid by people such as Pascal, Babbage and Hollerith, innovators began working toward modern computers.
• It was during the early 2oth century computers changed from mechanical calculation machines to electronic computers.
• Vacuum tube was developed by Lee De Forest which provide electricity controlled switch, a necessity for digital electronic computers.
• Vacuum tubes look similar to light bulbs.
• It were the first major electrical part of a computer, replacing manual switches.
• After the introduction of the vacuum tube, there were no longer problems with mechanical gears, pulleys or levers.
• It marked the end of mechanical computing and the beginnings of electronics in computer.
  
  

Learnings Of The Week ( Tagaro)

♣LEARNINGS OF THE WEEK♣
By: Sharra Mae S. Tagaro IV- Rizal

Before being an expert on something, we must first have to know its properties, characteristics and from which it started from. Just like in computer, before being an expert we must first tackle and study its history so that we will be aware of the big contributions our ancestors made in the development of our modern computers.
From those past few weeks, I learned a lot about the development of our modern computers and how such simple beginnings contributed to make a big difference. I learned that there are four basic periods in the history of computer: the Pre- mechanical age, the mechanical age, the electromechanical age and the electronic age.
Pre- mechanical age (3000BC to 1450AD)

• First human communicated only through speaking and simple drawings known as petroglyths.
  
• Evolution of the alphabet: From petroglyths (signs or simple figures carved in rock) to the Sumerians in Mesopotamia (southern Irag) who devised cuneiform –the first true written language and the first real information system, to the Phoenicians who created symbols that expressed single syllables and constants (the first true alphabet). To the Greeks who adopted the Phoenician alphabet and added vowels; the Romans gave the letters Latin names to create the alphabet we use today.
• Their input technologies are the stylus, papyrus plant, and paper made from rags from which modern paper making originated. And their output technologies are the books, scrolls and vertically folded sheets of papyrus plant.
• Egyptian system: numbers 1-9 as vertical lines, 10 as a U or circle, 100 as a coiled rope, 1000 as a lotus blossom, 10000 as a finger and 100000 as a frog.
• The first numbering systems similar to those in use today were invented between 100 and 200 A.D. by Hindus in India who created a nine-digit numbering system. Around 875 A.D., the concept of zero was developed.
• The very first information processor the abacus was the very first calculator.

Mechanical age (1450- 1840)

• Johann Gutenberg invented the movable metal- type printing press in 1450.
  
• Actually people who who held the job title "computer: one who works with numbers."
  
• John Napier introduces logarithms in 1614. He was like a superstar for he has fans awaiting his next publication. Napier's greatest hits include A Description Of The Admirable Table Of Logarithms and his inventions of divining rods.
• In 1623, Wilhelm Shickard invented the first mechanical calculator. It works, but never made it beyond the prototype stage.
• Early 1600s, William Oughtred invented the slide rule which is an early example of an analog computer.
• Blaise Pascal invented a mechanical calculation machine called "Pascaline". it can solve basic operations like addition and subtraction.
• In 1671, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz invented a machine called the stepped reckoner that could multiply 5 digit and 12 digit numbers gaining up to 16 digit numbers.
• In 1801, Joseph Marie Jacquard invented the automatic loom. The punch card idea was picked up by Babbage from Jacquard's loom.
• Arithmometer became the first mas produced calculator in 1820 and was developed by Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar in France. This was more reliable than Leibniz's stepped reckoner although they perform the same type of computations.
• In 1821, Charles Babbage invented the "the difference engine." This machine can automatically solve math problems. In 1832, Babbage also invented "the analytical engine." This engine was a machanical adding machine that took information from punched cards to solve and print complex mathematical operations. These two engines was regarded as the first " thinking machines," which helped him earn the title "father of modern computers."
• In 1842, Ada Augusta Lovelace ( Lady Byron) made the first stored program in the computer made by Charles Babbage. She is credited as the first computer programmer.
  

Electromechanical age (1840- 1940)
-The discovery of ways to harness electricity was the key advance made during this period. Knowledge and information could now be converted into electrical impulses.

• Telecommunication began with the voltaic battery (invented by Alessandro Volta in 8th century), telegraph ( invented by Samuel F.J. Morse in 1832; constructed an experiment version in 1815), telephone and radio ( developed by Alexander Graham Bell in 1976).
• Alexander Graham Bell with his first working telephone, transmitted his now famous quotation " Watson, come here, I want you."
  
• In 1894, Guglielmo Marconi dicovered that electrical waves travel through space and can produce an effect far from its point of origin ( wireless communication).
• In 1852, George Boole developed the binary algebra which became known as Boolean Algebra.
  
• Electromechanical computing used the tabulating machine ( invented by Pehr and Advard Scheutz in 1853), comptometer ( invented in 1885 was a key drevin, adding and subtracting calculator) and comptograph( invented in 1889, can operate the MDAS) both invented by Dorr Felt and punched cards ( used succesfully by Herman Hollerith in 1890).
• Hollerith was the Father of information processing and found the Tabulating machine Company which later became the Computer Tabulating Recording Company and later on became the International Business Machines Corporation or IBM.
• In 1893, the first efficient four- function calculator was invented by Otto Shweiger and was called "The Millionaire."
  
• In 1906, vacuum tube was developed by Lee De Forest which provide electricity controlled switch, a necessity for digital electronic computers.
  

Electronic age (1941- present)

• Konrad Zuse built the first programmable computer called Z3 in 1941. Z3 is designed to solve engineering equations rather than basic arithmetic problems.
• Howard Aiken built the Mark I which is The First Stored Program Computer. It can calculate for about 3- 5 seconds.
  
• John Atanasoff and Clifford berry completed the first all-electronic computer the ABC (Atanasoff-Berry computer) in 1942. ABC was the first computer to use electricity in the form of vacuum tubes to make electric computation possible.

The First generation of Computers (1951- 1958)
- Used vacuum tubes as their main logic elements. Computers had vacuum tubes, resistors, and welded metal joints. They were large, slow, expensive and produced a lot of heat.

• lProgram written: machine language (instructions written as a string of 0s and 1s)

  lAssembly language (a language that allowed the programmer to write instructions in a kind of shorthand that would then be "translated" by another program called a compiler into machine language).
• In 1945, Presper Eckert and John Mauchly developed the first operational electronic digital computer, called ENIAC, for US Army. ENIAC was over 1000 times faster than Mark 1, and could perform 5000 additions per second. It had more than 1800 vacuum tubes, and took up to 1800 square feet of space.
• In 1951 the UNIVAC-1 became the first commercially available electronic computer. This computer was designed by Eckert and Mauchly (the designers of the ENIAC) and built by the Remington Rand corporation.
  
• Between 1951 and 1953 magnetic core memory was developed. This memory consists of tiny ferrite “donuts” that were arranged on a lattice of wires. It was the fastest type of memory until the late 1980s.
• IBM 701, IMB’s first electronic business computer.

The second generation of computers (1959- 1963)
- replaced vacuum tubes by transistors( John Barden, Walter Brattain and William Shockley of Bell Telephone Laboratories invented the transistor. A transistor is a small, solid-state component designed to monitor the flow of the electric current) as a main logic element

because it is faster and more reliable than the first generation.

• High-level programming languages (program instructions that could be written with simple words and mathematical expressions), like FORTRAN and COBOL, made computers more accessible to scientists and businesses.

• lUnlike first generations computers, second generations computers could run multiple programs (parallel processors) and could address input and output at the same time (multiprogramming).
  
• In 1961, Grace hopper, the woman that found the first computer bug, finishes developing COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language).
• In 1964, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), founded by Ken Olsen, release the first minicomputer, the PDP-8. IBM unveils the System/360, the first family of computers.
• In 1965, Thomas Kurtz and John Kemeny of Dartmouth College developed BASIC (Beginners All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) as a computer language to help teach people how to program.

Without our teacher, I won't learn all of these I have right now. I know, this is not the last, there are many more learnings to come...

♣Learnings of the Week♣

The third generation of computers (1963- 1974)
- Computers relied on a new technology called the Integrated Circuits (IC's). The Integrated Circuit is a single wafer or chip that can hold many transistors and electronic circuits.

• Jack Kilby invented the monolithic integrated circuit in 1959, which is still widely used in electronics system.
• Robert noyce founded Intel in 1968. He is one of the inventors of the IC.
• In 1969, ARPANET ( Advance Research Project Agency Network) was set- up. It later becomes the Internet.
• The C (combined) programming language was developed in 1972 at AT&T Bell Labs by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritche. The UNIX operating system( more stable compared to Windows) , also written at Bell Labs, is written using C.

The fourth generation of computers (1979- present)

• Microprocessor- designed by Intel Corporation. It was the first tiny computer on a chip. It is an integrated circuit built on a tiny piece of silicon. It made computers the fastest and the most powerful they have ever been. It is composed of two or more IC's.
  
• In 1971, 4004 was released. It was the first microprocessor. It served as a brain of the computer.
  
• In 1975, Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems or MITS produced the first PC. They named the computer kit Altair 8080, after the Star Trek episode, "A Voyage to Altair". Altair 8080 made computers available to everyone. Also in this year was when Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded the Microsoft.
• In April 1976, Steve jobs and Steven Wozniak founded the Apple Computers.
• In 1978, Visicalc is released. This is the first spreadsheet program and it made microcomputers useful to business.
• In 1979, the first microcomputer word processor, Word Star, is released.
• Amiga was the first multimedia computer. The A1000 was the first Amiga model, which was introduced in 1985 by Commodore. For years, Amiga's were considered the best example of affordable graphics computers, providing sophisticated features available only on much higher-priced systems.
• In 1984, Apple Macintosh was introduced.
  

l

Learnings of the Week (June 6 - 28, 2008) (Renz Paula E. Rollorata)

RENZY says = = >

Computer Education in the fourth year is indeed far different from the lessons in our lower years. I've gained much awareness about the fundamentals of technologically advanced devices used nowadays, especially the computer. Honestly, I am used in disregarding the minutiae of everything I use these days. Yet, these small details about every huge things do mean a lot. History is exceptionally boring for me. As a matter of fact, I had a hard time studying all those itsy bitsy facts on the HISTORY of COMPUTER.

Primarily, we started on the rudiments of communication. The way of conveying of thoughts used by the ancient people. Notions of the people who lived during the 3000 B.C. – 1450 A.D. were shared through signs and symbols. The petroglyths were the very first type of communication. They are signs or simple figures carved in rock.

PETROGLYTH

Years passed by until the ancient people already had developed signs corresponding to spoken sounds, instead of pictures, to express words. Starting in 3100 B.C., the Sumerians in Mesopotamia (southern Iraq) devised cuneiform –the first true written language and the first real information system.

I thought computer began in the 20th century yet computing already started when our ancestors created the basics of counting methods. I was well-oriented with the methods used by the ancient people particularly the Egyptians and Chinese that led to the development of alphabet and numbers. Of course, I will not discuss the specific contributions of these people anymore. I would just generalize the concepts for a brief yet succinct paperback.

Let us now assess my learnings on the Mechanical Age

During this period, inventions were wide spreading and advances began. The first information explosion took place through the creation of the movable metal-type printing process in 1450 by Johann Guttenburg which led to the development of book indexes and the widespread use of page numbers. The first general purpose "computers” were introduced as one who works with numbers.

Innovations of devices were made by Johann Gutenberg , John Napier , WilhelmShickard, William Oughtred, Blaise Pascal , Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Charles Xavier Thomas de Colmar, Charles Babbage and Ada Augusta Lovelace from 1450 – 1840.

The Electromechanical Age 1840-1940 is the discovery of ways to harness electricity was the key advance made during this period. Knowledge and information could now be converted into electrical impulses.

This was the period were the beginnings of telecommunications were built up. These were the Voltaic battery, telegraph, telephone and radio.Electromechanical computing instigated through tabulating machine, comptometer, comptograph and punched cards. Tabulating machine was made-up by Herman Hollerith, the father of information processing. Comptometer is a key driven adding and subtracting calculator devised by Dorr Felt. Comptograph has the same abilities with the comptometer and has a built-in printer. Punched Cards were adapted for use in early computers and provided computer programmers with a new way to put information into their machine.

PUNCHED CARDS

And the last epoch in the progression of Information Technology is the Electronic Age. Devices shrunk. Information dwindled. Machines flinched. In this age, electrical and digital computers came across. In 1941, Konrad Zuse built the first programmable computer called Z3. Z3 is designed to solve engineering equations rather than basic arithmetic problems. Howard Aiken a PhD student of Harvard University built the Mark I " The First Stored Program Computer". In 1942, John Atanasoff and Clifford berry completed the first all-electronic computer the ABC (Atanasoff-Berry computer). ABC was the first computer to use electricity in the form of vacuum tubes to make electric computation possible.

In such a short span of time, I was already acquainted with the growth and expansion of Information Technology and System. In this instant, let me utter the knowledge I’d gained on the First and Second Generation Computers.

The elaboration of computers never sticks to the status quo. Generation by generation, lots of research are conducted to improve and innovate every machine and device.

The first generation of computers used vacuum tube; punched card; and rotating magnetic drums. In 1945, Presper Eckert and John Mauchly developed the first operational electronic digital computer, called ENIAC. In 1951 the UNIVAC-1 became the first commercially available electronic computer. This computer was designed by Eckert and Mauchly. Between 1951 and 1953 magnetic core memory was developed. This memory consists of tiny ferrite "donuts" that were arranged on a lattice of wires.

The first completely transistorized computers—so-called second-generation computers—begin to be introduced by Control Data Corporation, IBM, and other manufacturers. A transistor is a small, solid-state component designed to monitor the flow of the electric current. Transistors allowed computers to communicate over telephone lines.

With their increasing power and versatility, computers simplify day-to-day life. Unfortunately, as computer use becomes more widespread, so do the opportunities for misuse. Computers will become more advanced and they will also become easier to use. Improved speech recognition will make the operation of a computer easier. Well, those are the eruditions for this week. Wooh, mind-boggling, right? I think I should get use to it and look forward to a more intricate and complex Computer Education days. =)

5 Cybergenerations

First Generation Computers (1951-1958)

The first generation of computers used vacuum tubes as their main logic elements; punched cards to input and externally store data; and rotating magnetic drums for internal storage of data in programs written in machine language (instructions written as a string of 0s and 1s) or assembly language (a language that allowed the programmer to write instructions in a kind of shorthand that would then be "translated" by another program called a compiler into machine language).

In addition, first-generation computers often broke down because of burned-out vacuum tubes.

First generation computers also needed many experts to operate them.

In 1945, Presper Eckert and John Mauchly developed the first operational electronic digital computer, called ENIAC, for US Army. ENIAC was over 1000 times faster than Mark 1, and could perform 5000 additions per second.

ENIAC had more than 1800 vacuum tubes, and took up to 1800 square feet of space. In addition, the electrical current ENIAC required could power more than a thousand modern computers. Today, ENIAC’s technology could fit in a modern wristwatch.

In 1951 the UNIVAC-1 became the first commercially available electronic computer. This computer was designed by Eckert and Mauchly (the designers of the ENIAC) and built by the Remington Rand corporation. The first of these computers was delivered to US. Census Bureau.

Between 1951 and 1953 magnetic core memory was developed. This memory consists of tiny ferrite “donuts” that were arranged on a lattice of wires. The polarity of their magnetization could be change or detected by passing current through the wires. This allowed each lattice point store one “bit” – either 0 or 1. Magnetic core memory was the fastest type of memory until the late 1980’s.

Second Generation Computers (1959-1963)

In the 1940s, discovered that a class of crystalline mineral materials called semiconductors could be used in the design of a device called a transistor to replace vacuum tubes. Magnetic cores (very small donut-shaped magnets that could be polarized in one of two directions to represent data) strung on wire within the computer became the primary internal storage technology. Magnetic tape and disks began to replace punched cards as external storage devices.

High-level programming languages (program instructions that could be written with simple words and mathematical expressions), like FORTRAN and COBOL, made computers more accessible to scientists and businesses.

instead of vacuum tubes, second generation computers used transistors an exiting new invention at the time. John Barden, Walter Brattain and William Shockley of Bell Telephone Laboratories invented the transistor. A transistor is a small, solid-state component designed to monitor the flow of the electric current.

Transistor

nWere smaller, faster, cheaper, required less power, and produce less heat than vacuum tubes. In computers, a transistor functions as an electronic switch or bridge. Transistors play an important role in electronic circuits. Circuits help make up electronic systems, and electronic systems are what make electronic computing possible. Transistors allowed computers to communicate over telephone lines. The transistor gave way to the concept of parallel processor and multiprogramming.

1961 - Grace hopper, the woman that found the first computer bug, finishes developing COBOL.

1964 - Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), founded by Ken Olsen, release the first minicomputer, the PDP-8.


1965 - Thomas Kurtz and John Kemeny of Dartmouth College developed BASIC (Beginners All Purpose Symbolic Instruction Code) as a computer language to help teach people how to program.

The THIRD GENERATION (1963-1974)

•Individual transistors were replace by integrated circuits.

•Magnetic tape and disks completely replace punch cards.

•Magnetic core internal memories began to give way to new form, metal-oxide semiconductor.


Third-generation computers were built between 1963-1974.

In the third generation, computers relied on a new technology called the integrated circuits. The integrated circuit is a single wafer or chip that can hold many transistors and electronic circuits.

1959

Jack Kilby invented the monolithic integrated circuit which is still widely used in electronics system.

1968

Intel was founded by Robert Noyce. He is one of the inventors of the integrated circuit.

1969 - ARPANET is set-up. ARPANET later becomes the Internet.

1972 - The C programming language is developed at AT&T Bell Labs by Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritche. The UNIX operating system, also written at Bell Labs, is rewritten using C.

The FOURTH GENERATION (1979)

•

Intel Corporation designed the first tiny computer on a chip, it was called the microprocessor.
•Microprocessor is an integrated circuit built on a tiny piece of silicon.

1975

Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems or MITS produced the first PC. They named the computer kit Altair 8080, after the Star Trek episode, “A Voyage to Altair”.

•Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded the Microsoft.

•In April 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded APPLE COMPUTERS.

1978

VisiCalcis released. This is the first spreadsheet program and it made microcomputers useful to business.

1979 - The first microcomputer word processor, Word Star, is released.

Fifth Generation (Present and Beyond)

Fifth generations computers are only in the minds of advance research scientiets and being tested out in the laboratories. These computers will be under Artifical Intelligence(AI), They will be able to take commands in a audio visual way and carry out instructions. Many of the operations which requires low human intelligence will be perfomed by these computers.

Parallel Processing is coming and showing the possibiliy that the power of many CPU's can be used side by side, and computers will be more powerful than thoes under central processing. Advances in Super Conductor technology will greatly improve the speed of information traffic. Future looks bright for the computers.