There are five
generations of
computers.
1. The First Generation: Vacuum Tubes and Plug boards (1951 -1958)
2. The Second Generation: Transistors and Batch Filing (1959 -1963)
3. The Third Generation: Integrated Circuits and Multi-Programming
(1964 - 1979)
4. The Fourth Generation: The Microprocessor, OS and GUI (1979 to Present)
5. The Fifth Generation: The Present and The Future (present)
The first generation
computers were slow, huge and expensive. In
these computers, vacuum tubes were used as
the basic components of CPU and memory.
These computers were mainly depended on
batch operating system and punch cards.
Magnetic tape and paper tape were used as
output and input devices in this generation;
Vacuum Tubes and Plug boards
Vacuum Tubes and Plug boards
Some of the popular first generation computers are;
•ENIAC ( Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer)
•EDVAC ( Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer)
•UNIVAC( Universal Automatic Computer)
•IBM-701
•IBM-650
Vacuum Tubes and Plug boards
World's First Computer, the
In 1945 Von Neumann wrote a
Electronic Numerical
sorting algorithm for the EDVAC
Integrator and Calculator (Electronic Discrete Variable
(ENIAC) Automatic Computer) This sorting
algorithm later became known as
Merge sort
IBM 701 Electronic Data IBM 650 Magnetic Drum Data-
Processing Machine, known as Processing Machine is an early digital
the Defense Calculator computer
COBOL and FORTRAN are high-level
programming languages,
1959 -1963)
Some of the popular second generation compute
CDC 1604
CDC 3600
IBM 7094
UNIVAC 1108
IBM 1620
The third generation computers used
integrated circuits (ICs) instead of
transistors. A single IC can pack huge
number of transistors which increased
the power of a computer and reduced
the cost.
(1964 - 1979
Multi-Programming
Some of the popular third
generation computers are;
•IBM-360 series
•Honeywell-6000 series
•PDP(Personal Data Processor)
•IBM-370/168
•TDC-316
1979 to Present
The Microprocessor, OS and GUI
•