Transcript Document
Generational Computing CSCI 1060 Fall 2006 First Generation • Large computers, difficult to program • Primarily used by scientists and engineers for faster and accurate calculations • Vacuum tube technology, software was in machine language (0s and 1s) • Algorithms were translated into binary or hardwired • First electronic digital computer was built in the late 1930s by Atanasoff & Berry CSCI 1060 — Fall 2006 — 2 First Generation • ABC was used as a basis for a generalpurpose computer, the ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) in 1944 by Dr. John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert • First commercial computer was the UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer) delivered to the U.S. Census Bureau in 1951 CSCI 1060 — Fall 2006 — 3 Second Generation • Took place in the 1950s improving hardware and software • Transistors allowed faster calculations with lower power consumption in a smaller space • The transistor was developed in 1947 by John Bardeen, Walter Brattain, and William Shockley at Bell Telephone Laboratories • Assembly Language helped bolster software • Compare binary to assembly, advantages? CSCI 1060 — Fall 2006 — 4 Third Generation • Hardware continues to improve with the development of the integrated circuit (IC) in 1958 at Texas Instruments and Fairchild Semiconductor • Small scale integration (SSI) and medium scale integration (MSI) become common terms • SSI – fewer than 100 components on a chip • MSI – hundreds to a thousand components CSCI 1060 — Fall 2006 — 5 Third Generation • Third generation languages (or High Level Languages, HLL) appeared for software • FORTRAN (FORmula TRANslator), COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language), C, Pascal, Ada, and others • More code with fewer errors • Compare to assembly CSCI 1060 — Fall 2006 — 6 Fourth Generation • Continued miniaturization of transistors • LSI (Large Scale Integration) – thousands to ten thousands components • VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) – 104 to 109 components • Entered the market in the late 1970s to early 1980s CSCI 1060 — Fall 2006 — 7 Fourth Generation • Fourth generation languages useful to businesses for storing records and generating reports began to appear • Often built using third generation languages • Very similar to databases, but more powerful • Users could generate application programs using menus • Could generate very complex reports through the same menu system CSCI 1060 — Fall 2006 — 8 Fifth Generation • Parallel processing and distributed computing using networks is becoming popular • Advancements in artificial intelligence, speech synthesis, and natural language recognition also become important CSCI 1060 — Fall 2006 — 9