History of computer

History of computer                

The computer or computer is not a figment of someone, but the evolutionary result of ideas and achievements of many people related to areas such as electronics, mechanics, semiconductor materials, logic, algebra and programming.

First Generation (1951 to 1958)
the first generation computers used to process information bulbs.
Programming is done through the machine language. The memories were made of thin tubes of liquid mercury and magnetic drums. The operator enters the data and programs in special code via punched cards. Internal storage was achieved by rapidly revolving drum on which a device read / write magnetic marks placed. These computers used vacuum valve. As computers were very large, heavy and generated much heat. The first generation starts with the UNIVAC commercial facility built by Eckert and Mauchly. The UNIVAC processor weighed 30 tons and required the entire space of a room 20 by 40 feet.

Second Generation (1959-1964) 
Limited compatibility Transistor replaced the vacuum tube used in the first generation. The second generation computers were faster, smaller and with less need for ventilation. These computers also used magnetic core networks instead of rotating drums for primary storage. These nuclei contain small rings of magnetic material, linked together, where they could store data and instructions.
Computer programs also improved. COBOL developed during the 1st generation was already commercially available. Programs written for a computer could be transferred to another with minimal effort. Writing a program is no longer required to fully understand the computer hardware.

Third Generation (1964-1971)
Integrated Circuits, Computer Support Staff, Multiprogramming, Minicomputer
The computers of the third generation emerged with the development of integrated circuits (silicon chips) that are placed in thousands of electronic components, integration in miniature. New computers became smaller, faster, gave off less heat and they were more energy efficient.
Before the advent of integrated circuits, computers were designed for math or business applications, but not both. Integrated circuits enabled computer manufacturers to increase the flexibility of programs and standardize their models.
The IBM 360 one of the first commercial computer that used integrated circuits, numerical analysis was performed either as management or file processing.Customers were able to scale their systems IBM 360 models were larger and still run your existing programs. The computers work so fast that provided the ability to run more than one program simultaneously (multiprogramming).

Fourth Generation (1971 to 1981)
Microprocessor, memory chips, microminiaturization
Two improvements in computer technology marks the beginning of the fourth generation: the replacement of magnetic core memories with, for the silicon chip and the placement of many more components on a Chip: microminiaturization product of the electronic circuit . The small size of chip microprocesadory made possible the creation of personal computers (PC)
In 1971, Intel Corporation, which was a small manufacturing company in Silicon Valley semiconductors ubicada introduced the first microprocessor chip or 4 bits, in a space of approximately 4 x 5 mm containing 2 250 transistors. The first microprocessor shown in Figure 1.14 was named the 4004.
Silicon Valley (Silicon Valley) was an agricultural region south of San Francisco Bay, which by its very production of silicon from 1960 becomes a fully industrialized area on which sits a large number of semiconductor companies and microprocessors. Is now known worldwide as the most important region for industries related to computing: software development and component manufacturing.
These days there is a huge number of manufacturers of microcomputers or personal computers, which use different architectures estructuraso literally fight the computing market, which has come to grow so that it is one of the largest worldwide, above all, Since 1990, when achieved with advances in Internet.
This generation of computers is characterized by great technological advances in a very short time. In 1977 appeared the first microcomputers, including the most famous were those manufactured by Apple Computer, Radio Shack and Commodore Business Machines. IBM joins the microcomputer market with its Personal Computer (Figure 1.15), where they have become as synonymous with the name of PC, and most importantly, it includes a standardized operating system, MS-DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System).

Generating FIFTH "NY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (1982-1989)


It is becoming more difficult to identify the generations of computers, because the major advances and new discoveries are no longer strike us as happened in the mid twentieth century. Some consider that the fourth and fifth generations are over, and place them between the years 1971-1984 the fourth, and fifth from 1984-1990.They believe that the sixth generation is in development since 1990 to date.
Following the track of technological developments in computer and information, we can point out some dates and features which could be the fifth generation of computers.
Based on the major technological developments in microelectronics and computer science (software) and CADI CAM, CAE, CASE, artificial intelligence, expert systems, neural networks, chaos theory, genetic algorithms, fiber optics, telecommunications, etc.., A the decade of the eighties laid the foundation of what can be known as the fifth generation of computers.
We must mention two major technological advances, to serve as a parameter for the start of this generation: the creation in 1982 of the first supercomputer with parallel processing capability, designed by Seymour Cray, who has experimented since 1968 with supercomputers, and based on 1976, Cray Research Inc., and the announcement by the Japanese government of the "fifth generation", which was established in the agreement with six of the largest Japanese computer companies, should be completed in 1992.
The parallel process is one that takes place on computers that have the ability to work simultaneously with multiple microprocessors. While in theory work with multiple microprocessors should be much faster, it is necessary to conduct a special program that allows you to assign different tasks of the same process to the various chips involved.
You should also adjust the memory so you can meet the requirements of the processors at the same time. To solve this problem had to design modules able to allocate shared memory cache area for each processor.
Under this project, which was joined by more technologically advanced countries to keep pace in Japan; the main feature would be the application of artificial intelligence (Al, Artificial Intelligence). The computers of this generation containing a large number of microprocessors working in parallel and can recognize voices and images. They also have the ability to communicate with a natural language and will acquire the ability to make decisions based on learning processes grounded in expert systems and artificial intelligence.
The storage is done in magneto-optical devices with capacities of tens of Gigabytes, you set the DVD (Digital Versatile Disk or Digital Videodisk) as a standard for storing video and audio, the data storage capacity is growing exponentially allowing store more information in one of these units that all that was in the Library of Alexandria. The components of current microprocessors use technologies and ultra-high integration, called VLSI (Very Large Sca / e Integration) and ULSI (Ultra Large Scale Integration).
However, regardless of these "miracles" of modern technology, the gap does not distinguish where he finished fifth and sixth generation begins. I personally have not seen the full realization of what transpired in the Japanese project because of the failure, perhaps momentary, artificial intelligence.
The only forecast that has been going on without interruption during this generation, is the connectivity between computers, that from 1994, with the advent of the Internet and World Wide Web, has become vital in large , medium and small enterprises and between individual users of computers.
The purpose of AI is to equip computers with "human intelligence" and the ability to reason to find solutions. Another key design factor, the capacity of the computer to recognize patterns and sequences of processing that has been found previously (scheduling heuristics) that allows the computer to recall previous results and include them in the processing, in essence, the computer will learn from their own experiences will use their original data to get the answer by reasoning and keep those results for further processing tasks and decision making.

Generating SIXTH "N 1990 TO DATE
As supposedly the sixth generation of computers has been underway since the early nineties, we should at least outline the features that should have the computers of this generation. Also mentioned are some of the technological advances of the last decade of the twentieth century and what is expected to achieve in the XXI century. The computers of this generation have combined architectures Parallel / Vector, Vector microprocessors with hundreds of working at the same time have created computers capable of performing more than one million floating point arithmetic operations per second (teraflops) networks Global Area (Wide Area Network, WAN) continue to grow exorbitantly using media through fiber optics and satellites, with bandwidths impressive. This generation technologies have been developed or are give in that process. Some of them are: intelligence / artificial distributed, chaos theory, fuzzy systems, holography, optical transistors, and so on.