The First Generation of Computers

 According to the history of computer in the Generation of Computers, the first computer was build and designed by the English mathematical professor Charles Babbage during the year 1792 to 1871. The Babbage machine used a language that was purely mechanical and analytical engine. In fact, among the many computer machine developed it was one of the computers that had no operating system, which is it had to be managed manually. The discovery of the Babbage machine led to the development of less complex and easier machine during the generation of computers. Engineering in Kenya has more information.

The First  Generation of Computers

The first generation of computers, which was emerged during 1945 and 1955, used vacuum tubes and plug boards. During at around 1940s Howard Aiken at Harvard university, John Von Nerman of the institute of advanced study in Princeton, J Presper Eccert and Milliam Mancotey at the university of Pennsylvania and Konrad Zurse in Germany are the among those who succeeded in building calculating engines as the generation of computers developed. The first one used mechanical relays but was slow with cycles times measured in seconds; all programming was done in absolute machine language used by wiring up plug boards to the machine language basic function during the Generation of Computers.

Programming languages were unknown during the Generation of Computers; virtually all the problems were straight forward numerical calculating grounding out tables of sine’s, cosine and tangents. By early 1950’s punched card debuted and the routine of operating with computers improved. It was now possible during this generation of computers to write programs on cards and read them instead of plug board.

The second generation of computers, in the mid 1950’s, led to the introduction of the transistors that changed the computers radically. Computers became more reliable enough that they could be manufactured and be sold to buying customers who were mainly large corporations and universities. For the first time during the generation of computer there was separation between the designer, builders, operators, programmers and maintenance personnel. These types of computer which were mainly the mainframe type processed their jobs in batch system; this is whereby a collection of tray full of jobs and then processing them all at once. The computer that used to process batch jobs in this Generation of Computers were IBM 1401 and IBM 7094

The Third  Generation of Computers

By 1960’s most computer manufacturers had two distinct and totally incompatible products lines during the early generation of computers. The IBM Company attempted to solve this by introducing a system which was a server of software compatible machines that were large in size and more powerful than the earlier productions. This machine only differed on in price depending on performance of the computer accessories, maximum memory processor speed, number of input and output devices permitted. Since all machines in the generation of computers had the same architecture and instruction set programs written for one machine could run on all others at least in theory.

Furthermore during this Generation of Computers, the model, IBM 360 was designed to handle both scientific that is numerical and commercial computing. On subsequent years IBM came out with compatible successors to the 360 lines using more modern and sophisticated technology known as the 370, 4300, 3080 and 3090 series that were the first Generation of Computers to use small scale integrated circuits. Multiprogramming techniques emerged also during this generation of computer whereby it was done through memory partitioning; also the computers were able to read from card onto disk as soon as they were brought to the computer room. Spooling, from simultaneous peripheral operating online, whereby  whenever the operating system finished running one job it take the next one online also emerged during the third generation of computers.

During also the third generation of computers the first serious time sharing system (Compatible Time Sharing System CTSS) was developed in MIT. After the success of the compatible time sharing system in MIT, Bell labs and General Electric decided to embark on the development of a “computer utility” named (MULTICS) Multiplexed Information and Computer Service envisioned as a large type of mainframe computer. Mini computers also emerged in the mid of this Generation of Computers this were the DEC and PDP-1. The Bell labs used thePDP-7 minicomputer to write down a stripped version of Multiplexed Information and Computer Service for a single use which later developed into the UNIX operating system, which became very popular in academic world, government agencies and among many private companies during the third generation of computers.

The Latest Generation of Computers

This is the latest generation of computers is  the fourth Generation of Computers and it is this age that of personal computer downed with the development of very large scale integration circuit chips containing thousands of transistors on a square centimeter of silicon. In terms of architecture personal computer (initially called microcomputer) were not all that different from minicomputers of the PDP-11 class.

The first microcomputer with a built in disk using 8080 processor was built in 1971 during the fourth Generation of Computers with the operating system written by Killdall and his friends called control program for microcomputer. In 1980’s during the development of fourth generation of computers, IBM personal computer debuted with a different type of operating system the disk operating system (DOS) written by William Itnery.

Gates Company, Microsoft was founded also during this same Generation of Computers. Gates later leaved T Peterson to revise the original disk operating system initially acquired from Seattle computer product and the revised edition was renamed Microsoft disk operating system which came to dominate the IBM personal computer catapulting Microsoft to fame. Research in the 1960’s by Doug Engelbalt at Stanford Research Institute led to discovery of the Graphical User Interface (GUI) complete with windows. The first graphical user interface based computer was developed by Steve Jobs who after visiting Xerox realized the potential of graphical user interface. The success of Apple Macintosh, Microsoft produced graphical user interface based operating system named windows which originally run on top of Microsoft disk operating system which is the biggest achievement made during all the Generation of Computers.