Generations of Computers Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clarke

Charles Babbage 1822 - The Difference Engine Babbage invented a mechanical "difference engine" for the calculation of arithmetical functions and set out plans for an "analytical engine" whose operation would have included logarithmic and trigonometric functions as well. 1991 Reproduction of the Difference Engine Babbage invented a mechanical "difference engine" for the calculation of arithmetical functions and set out plans for an "analytical engine" whose operation would have included logarithmic and trigonometric functions as well.

Mark 1 - 1944 Mark I The Mark 1 is seen as the first full-sized digital computer. It weighed 5 tons, had 500 miles of wiring, was used only for numeric calculations, and took three seconds to carry out one multiplication computation. The first large scale, automatic, general purpose, electromechanical calculator was the Harvard Mark I (AKA IBM Automatic Sequence Control Calculator [ASCC]) conceived by Howard Aiken in the late 1930's and implemented by IBM. The machine, sponsored by the US Navy, was intended to compute the elements of mathematical and navigation tables -- the same purpose as intended by Babbage for the Difference Engine. Aiken dedicated his early reports to Babbage, having been made aware of the piece of the Difference Engine at Harvard in 1937. The ASCC was not a stored program machine but instead was driven by a paper tape containing the instructions. The Mark 1 is seen as the first full-sized digital computer. It weighed 5 tons, had 500 miles of wiring, was used only for numeric calculations, and took three seconds to carry out one multiplication.

1st Generation of Computers Vacuum Tubes

ENIAC 1945 The ENIAC was 1,000 times faster than the Mark 1. introduced the vacuum tube technology. No longer were mechanical moving parts used to perform operations. The massive ENIAC, which weighed 30 tons and filled an entire room, used some 18,000 vacuum tubes, 70,000 resistors, and 10,000 capacitors. In December 1945 it solved its first problem, calculations for the hydrogen bomb. After its official unveiling in 1946, it was used to prepare artillery-shell trajectory tables and perform other military and scientific calculations. [Reference ID: 389042]

ENIAC could add, subtract, multiply, divide, and extract square roots ENIAC could add, subtract, multiply, divide, and extract square roots. ENIAC stored a maximum of twenty 10-digit decimal numbers. Its accumulators combined the functions of an adding machine and storage unit. It contained 20,000 vacuum tubes.

1947 IBM SSEC The IBM Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator IBM's Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator (SSEC), built at IBM's Endicott facility under the direction of Columbia Professor Wallace Eckert and his Watson Scientific Computing Laboratory staff in 1946-47, shown here after it was moved to the new IBM Headquarters Building at 590 Madison Avenue in Manhattan [4], where it occupied the periphery of a room 60 feet long and 30 feet wide [42] (Herb Grosch [59] estimates the dimensions of its "U" shape at 60 + 40 + 80 feet, 180 feet in all, about half a football field!) 1947

UNIVAC 1951 The UNIVAC I (the name stood for Universal Automatic Computer) was delivered to the Census Bureau in 1951. It weighed some 16,000 pounds, used 5,000 vacuum tubes, and could perform about 1,000 calculations per second. It was the first American commercial computer, as well as the first computer designed for business use. (Business computers like the UNIVAC processed data more slowly than the IAS-type machines, but were designed for fast input and output.) The first few sales were to government agencies, the A.C. Nielsen Company, and the Prudential Insurance Company. The first UNIVAC for business applications was installed at the General Electric Appliance Division, to do payroll, in 1954. By 1957 Remington-Rand (which had purchased the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation in 1950) had sold forty-six machines. Later modificaitons of the UNIVAC were the first computers to use transistors instead of vacuum tubes. A Later modification of the UNIVAC was the first computer to make use of transistors instead of vacuum tubes.

IBM 702 The 702, which operated on the decimal system, incorporated a central arithmetical and logical unit capable of performing more than 10 million operations in an hour. The memory unit of the 702 contained a bank of 84 cathode ray tubes, on the faces of which thousands of decimal digits could be stored through the presence or absence of charged spots. Reels of magnetic tape fed data to the machine and recorded answers at the rate of 15,000 letters or numbers a second. One 2,400-foot reel of tape held information from 25,000 fully punched cards. 1955

From Vacuum Tubes to Transistors 1959-1964 Text p. 21 - The second Generation of Computers 2nd Generation of Computers

IBM 1401 Model T of computers

3rd Generation of Computers 1964-1975 Integrated Circuits

Digital PDP Programmed Data Processor The PDP was the first commercial computer that came with a monitor

Circuitry encased in chips Computers produce less heat and run many programs with a central program to coordinate the computer’s memory and components.

1969 1969: The US Department of Defense commissions Arpanet for research networking, and the first four nodes come operations al UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, SRI, and the University of Utah. Arpanet laid the foundation for the Internet. Here we have the first true computer network. Since it is all still fairly basic, it is worth considering the underlying principles have basically remained the same (even if they, mercifully, operate far faster and look much prettier). We start off with a passive terminal and an active host, a keyboard and a computer. They are linked together by a cable. By typing in commands recognised by a computer, you can use the programs stored in its computer, access its files (and modify them and print them out as desired). Most people can envisage this arrangement within a single building, or complex of buildings. In order to access another computer, at a completely different facility, we have first to reach it. This was usually done in these times over a (high speed) telephone line (or lines). Once you arrive at the new 'host' you have to convince it to treat you in the same way as someone behind a terminal within its own system. Hence the need of an interface message processor (IMP) and for the same IMP to be installed in both computers! Now you can access its files. Of course, order to preserve confidentiality, all computers differentiated between 'open' files and those that were password protected. If you wanted to transfer a file or program to your own computer, the host computer uses a program to break it down into 'packages' attaching to each the address and its original position. It then sends them to your 'home' computer where a mirror program reassembles the message in the original order. In future, you could then access them from your home base. When dealing with a 'simple' network like ARPANET it is difficult to see what the real advantage of this process was. But this would soon change...In 1973, work began on tcp-ip to make this process easier.

Moore’s Law Gordon Moore Cost of 1 MHz of Processing Power 1970 – $7,601.00 1999 - $ .17 Cost of 1 mb Storage 1970 – 5.257.00 1999 - $ .17 Cost of sending 1 trillion bits 1970 - $150,00.00 1999 - $ .12 Gordon Moore

1971 – The First Microprocessor Intel 4004 dubbed “a computer on a chip” The Pioneer 10 spacecraft used the 4004 microprocessor. It was launched on March 2, 1972.

1972 - Pong

1973 - Large scale integration 10,000 components are placed on a 1cm2 chip While attending Harvard, Bill Gates and Paul Allen developed a version of the programming language BASIC for the first microcomputer, the MITS Altair. The 1975 Altair (kit) used large scale integration

4th Generation of Computers Mid – 1970’s – Current Large-Scale Integration

1976 CRAY I

1977 – Apple II

Radio Shack TRS - 80 1977 – Tandy Commodore

Microsoft - 1977

1977 – Cellphones

1981 - IBM PC The first open architecture computer goes mainstream

1984 – Apple MacIntosh

1984 – CD ROM

1985- Intel 386

1985 – Windows 1.0

1989 – Intel 486 1.2 Million Transistors

1989 Tim Berners-Lee World Wide Web URL HTML HTTP://

1993 – Intel Pentium 3.5 million transistors

1994 Marc Andreeson Netscape

1995 – Windows 95

1995 – Amazon.com First large internet site for commerce

1996 – Windows CE

1997 – IBM’s “Big Blue” beat world chess champion Garry Kasparov in only 62 minutes.

1997 Intel Pentium II 233 MHz

1999 – Intel Pentium III 500 MHz

Pentium IV Today's microprocessors contain tens of millions of microscopic transistors.

Artificial Intelligence Fifth Generation Voice Recognition Artificial Intelligence