We already know about some of the early computers - ENIAC , EDVAC ,
EDSAC , UNIVAC I and IBM . These machines and others of their time used
thousands of vacuum tubes . A vacuum tube was a fragile glass device ,
which used filaments as a source of electronics and could control and
amplify electronic signals . It was the only high-speed electronic
switching device available in those days . These vacuum tube computers
could perform computations in milliseconds and were referred to as first
generation computers.
The memory of these computers used
electromagnetic relays , and all data and instructions were fed into the
system from munched cards . The instructions were written in machine
and assembly languages because high-level programming languages were
introduced much later . Since machine and assembly languages are very
difficult to work with , only a few specialists understood how to
program these early computers.
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Friday, February 17, 2012
Information Age
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The microprocessor inaugurated the fourth generation of computers. The integrated circuit had miniaturized the circuitry of a computer, but the microprocessor was a small chip that contained all of the basic functions of a computers (processing, memory and input/ouput). Intel introduced the first microprocessor in 1980--the Intel 4004. The reduction of size made possible by the microprocessor permitted the building of smaller computers, leading directly to the personal computer that dominates today as well as the Information Age.
Athough the computer is a 20th-century invention, its predecessors reach
as far back as the 17th century. Computers have undergone four
generations of development, with the first computers of the 1940s
launching the first generation. Each generation of computer has become
smaller, more versatile and more powerful. The most recent generation
resulted in the rise of the personal computer, ushering in the
information age.
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