Generational Computing CSCI 1060 Fall 2006

CSCI 1060 — Fall 2006 — 2 First Generation Large computers, difficult to program Primarily used by scientists and engineers for faster and accurate calculations Vacuum tube technology, software was in machine language (0s and 1s) Algorithms were translated into binary or hardwired First electronic digital computer was built in the late 1930s by Atanasoff & Berry

CSCI 1060 — Fall 2006 — 3 First Generation ABC was used as a basis for a general- purpose computer, the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) in 1944 by Dr. John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert First commercial computer was the UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) delivered to the U.S. Census Bureau in 1951

CSCI 1060 — Fall 2006 — 4 Second Generation Took place in the 1950s improving hardware and software Transistors allowed faster calculations with lower power consumption in a smaller space The transistor was developed in 1947 by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley at Bell Telephone Laboratories Assembly Language helped bolster software Compare binary to assembly, advantages?

CSCI 1060 — Fall 2006 — 5 Third Generation Hardware continues to improve with the development of the integrated circuit (IC) in 1958 at Texas Instruments and Fairchild Semiconductor Small scale integration (SSI) and medium scale integration (MSI) become common terms SSI – fewer than 100 components on a chip MSI – hundreds to a thousand components

CSCI 1060 — Fall 2006 — 6 Third Generation Third generation languages (or High Level Languages, HLL) appeared for software FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslator), COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language), C, Pascal, Ada, and others More code with fewer errors Compare to assembly

CSCI 1060 — Fall 2006 — 7 Fourth Generation Continued miniaturization of transistors LSI (Large Scale Integration) – thousands to ten thousands components VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) – 10 4 to 10 9 components Entered the market in the late 1970s to early 1980s

CSCI 1060 — Fall 2006 — 8 Fourth Generation Fourth generation languages useful to businesses for storing records and generating reports began to appear Often built using third generation languages Very similar to databases, but more powerful Users could generate application programs using menus Could generate very complex reports through the same menu system

CSCI 1060 — Fall 2006 — 9 Fifth Generation Parallel processing and distributed computing using networks is becoming popular Advancements in artificial intelligence, speech synthesis, and natural language recognition also become important