THE HISTORY OF COMPUTERSLauren Clark

VACUUM TUBES – 1ND GEN.• (1940 – 1956) • Used vacuum tubes for circuitry and magnetic drums for memory.• Enormous and took up small rooms. • First computer was developed by Amy Ordnance• Invented to compute WWII ballistic firing tables

TRANSISTORS 2ND GEN.• (1956 – 1963)• smaller, faster, cheaper, more energy efficient, and more reliable • Developed for the atomic energy industry• Moved from magnetic drum to magnetic core technology• moved from cryptic binary machine language to symbolic

INTEGRATED CIRCUITS 3RD GEN.• (1964 – 1971)• Even smaller than transistors• Placed on silicon chips called semiconductors which increased speed of

computers• Users used keyboards and monitors • Could run multiple applications at one time

MICROPROCESSORS 4TH GEN.• (1971 – present)• Could be linked together to form networks• Lead to Development of internet • GUIs, the mouse and handheld devices were developed

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE 5TH GEN.

• (Present and Beyond)• Still developing• Voice recognition is an example that we use today• Parallel processing is helping to make AI possible.• goal is to develop devices that respond to natural language input and are capable of learning and self-organization.