Generation of the Computer

First Generation (1943-1958

The storage media or memory used in the first generation computer was vacuum tube. ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was the first electronic general computer. It used vacuum tubes (18,000) and could do 300 multiplications per second.

Second Generation (1958-1965)
The computers using transistors as storage media were classified as second Generation computers. One transistor could do the task of 1000 vacuum tubes. Second generation computers were relatively smaller than the first generation computers. Computers were much faster and reliable. They had greater computing capacity.

Third Generations (1965-1973)

Third Generation computers were general-purpose computers. In 1964, International Business Machines (IBM) Corporation announced its system 360 family of mainframe computers. They are much faster as they used small chips containing thousands of parts integrated in them. Floppy disks. Hard disk, taps of card were used in this generation of computers. Large scale integration (LSI) about 20,000 transistors.

Fourth Generation (1973- Now)

While third generation computers saw the use of integrated circuits in building computers, the fourth generation is characterized by the increased number of circuits, allows more data to be stored on a memory chip. Lare Scale Integration (LSI) and very large scale integration (VLSI), allows memory chips having thousands of storage locations. Fourth generation computers have microprocessor, which have serial numbers. The serial numbers indicates the capability of computer and speed as well.

Fifth Generation

There are three factors that are said to characterize the fifth generation of computers; mega-chip memories, advanced parallel processing, and artificial intelligence. A mega-chip can have more than one million storage locations. With parallel data processing thousands of instructions can be processed simultaneously. Fifth generation computers are expected to have artificial intelligence.