Five Generations of Computers

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S.No	Generation	Time Period	Technology Used
1	First	1946-1959	Vacuum Tubes
2	Second	1959-1965	Transistors
3	Third	1965-1971	Integrated Circuits
4	Fourth	1971-1980	LSI
5	Fifth	1980-Present	VLSI & ULSI

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First Generation of Computers (1946-1959)

The main electronic component used in the computers from 1946 to 1959 were vacuum tubes.

The main memory storing units were magnetic tapes and magnetic drums.

The machine language / binary Language was used as the programming language.

The sizes used to be very large which could take up entire rooms.

The speed of Computers was very slow.

The only input/output devices were paper tape and punched cards.

Around 100 different vacuum tubes were used in order to produce the computers.

Examples are ENIAC, UNIVAC1, IBM 701 and IBM 650, etc.

Second Generation of Computers (1959-1965)

The main electronic component used in the computers of the 1959 to 1965 were transistors.

The main memory storing units were magnetic tape or disk and magnetic core.

The assembly language was used as the programming language.

The sizes were smaller as compared to those of the first generation and they used to consume low power and generate less heat comparatively.

There was an improvement in speed as compared to first generation of computers.

The input/output devices were magnetic tape and punched cards.

Examples are IBM 1401, IBM 7094 AND IBM 7090, UNIVAC 1107, and so on.

Third Generation of Computers (1965-1971)

The main electronic components used in the computers of the era 1065 to 1971 were integrated circuits (IC's).

The memory storing units were the magnetic disk or take and a large magnetic core.

High-level languages such as BASIC, COBOL, Pascal were used as the programming language.

The sizes were smaller and efficient and the computers were called minicomputers.

There was an improvement in reliability and speed as compared to the second generation of computers.

The input/output devices were keyboards, magnetic tape monitor, printer, etc.

1. Examples are IBM 370, IBM 360, UNIVAC 1108 and so on.

Fourth Generation of Computers (1971-1980)

1. The main electronic components used in the fourth generation of computers are microprocessors and very large scale integration (VLSI).

2. When thousands of transistors are attached to a single microchip, it is known as VLSI.

3. Semiconductor memory storage units such as RAM, ROM, etc were introduced.

4. RAM (random-access memory)- Temporarily stores the programs and data and the contents are lost when the computer is shut down.

5. ROM (read-only memory)- Permanently stores the data and programs and the contents are retained even after shutting down the computer.

6. High-level languages such as C#, JAVA, Python, JavaScript are used as programming languages.

7. The sizes are smaller and the speed has improved.

8. The input/output devices are a monitor, mouse, keyboard, printer, and so on.

9. Examples are STAR 1000, APPLE II, IBM PC, and so on.

Fifth Generation of Computers (1980-Present)

1. The main electronic components that are used in the present generation of computers is Artificial Intelligence which uses the parallel processing method and the Ultra-Large Scale Integration (ULSI).

2. The fifth generation of computers understands the natural human language.

3. The speeds are really fast and the sizes are also small.

4. The fifth-generation computers are portable and have a huge storage capacity.

5. The input/output devices are keyboards, monitors, touchscreen pens, printers, light scanners, and so on.

6. Examples are laptops, desktops, tablets, smartphones, etc.