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-The first computers used vacuum tubes for circuitry and magnetic drums for memory, and were often enormous, taking up entire rooms.
-They were expensive to operate, using a lot of electricity, generate a lot of heat which was often the cause of malfunctions.
-Use machine language, they only can solve one problem at a time.
-Input was basen on puched card and paper tape, and output was displayed on printouts.
-The UNIVAC and ENIAC computers are examples of first-generation computing devices. -
-Transistors replace vacuum tubes and ushered in the second generation of computers.
-The transistor was invented in 1947 but did not see widespread use in computers until the late 1950s.
-The transistor allow computers to become smaller, faster, cheaper, more energy-efficient and more reliable. Still genrete heat.
- The computers still relied on punched cards for input and printouts for output.
-Computers moved from cryptic binary machine language to symbolic, or assembly languages. -
-The integrated circuit was the hallmark of the third generation of computers.
-Transistors were miniaturized and placed on silicon chips, called semiconductors, which drastically increased the speed and efficiency of computers.
- Users interacted with third generation computers through keyboards and monitors and interfaced with an operating system.
-Computers for the first time became accessible to a mass audience because they were smaller and cheaper than their predecessors. -
-The microprocessor brought the fourth generation of computers, as thousands of integrated circuits were built onto a single silicon chip.
-The Intel 4004 chip, developed in 1971, located all the components of the computer from the central processing unit and memory to input/output controlson a single chip.
-In 1981 IBM introduced its first computer for the home user.
-Fourth generation computers also saw the development of GUIs, the mouse and handheld devices. -
-Fifth generation computing devices, based on artificial intelligence, are still in development, though there are some applications, such as voice recognition, that are being used today.
-The use of parallel processing and superconductors is helping to make artificial intelligence a reality.
-The goal of fifth-generation computing is to develop devices that respond to natural language input and are capable of learning and self-organization.
