The document provides an overview of computers including: 1) A definition of a computer as a device that transforms data into meaningful information by accepting, storing, processing, and retrieving data. 2) An overview of the five generations of computers from the first generation using vacuum tubes to the current fifth generation pursuing artificial intelligence. 3) Descriptions of important developments within each generation including the introduction of transistors, integrated circuits, microprocessors, and graphical user interfaces.

1. Submitted By: - Shruti Pendharkar

2. •What is Computer?
•Computer Evolution
•Computer Languages
•Language Translators
•Reference

4.  Computer is a device that transforms data into meaningful
Information.
 Data: the raw details that need to be processed to generate some
useful information.
 Computer can also be defined in terms of functions it can perform.
 A computer can
 accept data,
 store data,
 Process data as desired,
 retrieve the stored data as and when required and
 print the result in desired format.
INPUT
• KEYBOARD
• MOUSE
• JOYSTICK
PROCESS
• CPU (CENTRAL
PROCESSING
UNIT)
OUTPUT
• MONITOR
• PRINTER

6. Zero
generation
First
Generation
Second
Generation
Third Generation
Fourth Generation
Fifth Generation
500BC-1945
Machines
and gears
1946-1959
Vacuum
tube
1959-1965 Transistor
1959-1965
Integrated
Circuits
1971-1989 VLSI
1989-
onwards
Artificial
Intelligence

8. ERA TIME
PERIOD
DESCRIPTION EXAMPLE PICTURES
Manual era 500 BC-
800 BC
Used hands,
sticks, etc.
Salamis Tablet
(abacus)
developed in
500BC
Mechanical
era
1642 –
1937
Used machines
and gears
first multi-
purpose,,
computing device
was probably
Charles Babbage's
Difference
Engine
Electro
Mechanical
era
1938 –
1945
used electronic
tubes and
electrical relays.
Mark I made by
Howard Aiken

9. ABACUS OR
COUNTING FRAME
 It was invented around 500-
600 BC in an area around
China or Egypt.
 It was made of a wooden
rack holding two horizontal
wires with beads strung on
them.
THE CALCULATING
CLOCK
 first gear-driven calculating
machine
 Invented by: - German
professor Wilhelm Schickard
in 1623.

10.  A Scotsman named John Napier
invented logarithms in 1617 .
 It allows multiplication to be
performed via addition wherein
the logarithm of each operand,
was originally obtained from a
printed table.
 Napier also invented an
alternative to tables, where the
logarithm values were carved
on ivory sticks which are now
called Napier's Bones.

12.  Vacuum tubes were used for
circuitry and magnetic drums
for memory.
 Batch Processing is done
Executing a series of non
interactive jobs all at one time
 Machine language was used
for programming which
consisted of a series of zeroes
and ones, making machine
languages binary.

13. Punch cards also known as
Hollerith cards and IBM
cards are paper
cards containing several
punched holes that where
originally punched by hand
and later by computers that
represents data.
Punch cards were the
primary method of
storing and retrieving
data in the early 1900s

14. COLOSSUS
 Earliest Programmable
Electronic Computer.
 Designed by: - Dr Thomas
Flowers at The Post Office
Research Laboratories in
London in 1943.
ENIAC
 Electronic Numerical
Integrator and Calculator
 Designed By: -John Mauchly and
John Presper Eckert in 1946 the
University of Pennsylvania.
 Performed decimal arithmetic.

15. EDVAC
▪Designed By: -John Mauchly
and John Presper Eckert.
▪John Von Neumann,
developed the idea of Stored
Program Concept which was
not present in ENIAC.
▪Used binary system.
UNIVA
UNIVersal Automatic
Computer
first commercially general
purpose electronic computer.
Designed By: -John Mauchly
and John Presper Eckert in
1952.

16.  Some other computers of this generation are
 Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator (EDSAC)
 Bendix G-15
 SSEC (Selective Sequence Electronic calculator)
 And Some IBM computers series such as
▪ IBM 604
▪ IBM 650
▪ IBM 701
▪ IBM 702 etc.

17. ADVANTAGES
 These computers were
fastest of their time.
DISADVANTAGES
 Very big in size
 Not reliable
 Consumed large amount of
energy
 Constant maintenance required
 More heat generated and air-
conditioning was required
 More costly
 Very slow in speed (data
processing)
 It was difficult to
programmed, because they
used only machine language
 Non-portable
 Limited commercial use

19.  In this generation, magnetic
cores were used as primary
memory and magnetic tape
and magnetic disks as
secondary storage devices
 Transistors were used for
circuitry. Transistor was
invented in 1947 by three
scientists J. Bardeen, H.W.
Brattain and W. Shockley.

20. In 2nd generation there was a clear partition between designers,
builders, operators, programmers, and maintenance workers.
These machines, now called MAINFRAMES, were locked away
in especially air-conditioned computer rooms, with team of
professional operators to run them.

21.  Assembly language and High Level Programming Language like
ALGOL, FORTRAN, COBOL were used.
 ALGOrithmic Language (ALGOL): -
A computer language in which information is expressed in algebra
ic notation and according to the rules of Boolean algebra.
 FORmula TRANslation (FORTRAN): -
A high-level computer programming language for mathematical
and scientific purposes, designed to facilitate and speed up the
solving of complex problems.
 COmmon Business Oriented Language (COBOL): -
The first widely-used high-level programming language for
business applications invented in 1959.

22.  The second generation also
witnessed the development
of two supercomputers -
i.e. the most powerful
devices amongst the peers.
These two were the
Liverpool Atomic Research
Computer (LARC) and
IBM7030.
 Some of the important
commercial machines of
this era were IBM 704, 709
and 7094.

23. ADVANTAGES
 Faster, Smaller, Cheaper
 More energy-efficient and
more reliable than their first-
generation computers.
 They generated less heat
and were less prone to
failure.
 They took comparatively
less computational time.
 Better portability.
 Hardware failure was not so
frequent.
DISADVANTAGES
 Air-conditioning required.
 Frequent maintenance
required.
 Manual assembly of
components
 Special purpose computer
 Commercial production
was difficult and costly.

25.  IC was invented by Robert Noyce and Jack Kilby at Texas
Instruments in 1958-59.
 The basic idea behind the IC chip was to build a complete
electronic circuit into a single block of material, eliminating the
tangled mess of wiring needed to connect individual
transistors, resistors, capacitors, etc.
 This became known as "solid-state" technology.

26.  Keyboards and monitors
developed during third
generation.
 By this magnetic core memory
was replaced by microchip and
magnetic core and solid states
were used as main storage.
 High level language was
developed like C, C++, Java,
Visual Basic (VB), python,
Pascal etc.
FIRST MOUSE

27.  IBM 360: -
 Designed By:- IBM
(International Business
Machines ) in 1966.
 It was specifically designed
to handle high-speed data
processing for scientific
applications such as space
exploration, theoretical
astronomy, subatomic
physics and global weather
forecasting.

28. Examples of third generation
computers are
 PDP-8 (Personal Data Processor)
 PDP-11,
 ICL-1900 series,
 Honeywell Model 316,
 Honeywell -6000 series,
 ICL 2900
 CDC-1700 (Control Data
Corporation) and
 IBM 370 etc.

29. ADVANTAGES
 Smaller and Reliable than
 Lower heat generation
 Computational time got
reduced from microseconds to
nanoseconds.
 Maintenance cost is low
because hardware failures are
rare.
 Easily portable.
 Widely used for various
commercial applications all
over the world.
 Less power requirement
DISADVANTAGES
 Air-conditioning required
in many cases.
 Highly sophisticated
technology required for the
manufacture of IC chips.

31.  The fourth
generation computers
emerged with development
of LSI (Large Scale
Integration) and VLSI (Very
Large Scale Integration).
 With the help of VLSI
technology microprocessor
came into existence.
 Core memories now were
replaced by semiconductor
memories and high-speed
vectors dominated the
scenario .
 e.g.: - Cray1, Cray X-MP and
Cyber205.

32.  For the first time in 1981 IBM
introduced its computer for the home
user and in 1984 Apple introduced the
Macintosh Microprocessor.
 Many high-level languages were
developed in the fourth
generation such as COBOL,
FORTRAN, BASIC, PASCAL and C
language.
 Networking between the systems was
developed.
APPLE2 -1977

33. IBM 4341
STAR 1000
 RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Computers) microprocessor was
introduced.
 Improvement on distributed system, and network
communication system.
 Examples of fourth generation computers are
 IBM 4341,
 DEC 10,
 STAR 1000,
 PUP 11 and
 APPLE II

34. ADVANTAGES
 Smallest in size due to the use
of (VLSI).
 More reliable as compared to
previous generations.
 Heat generation is negligible.
 Hardware failure is
negligible.
 Easily portable.
 Hardware maintenance was
very rare.
 Computation is fast.
 These computers were
cheapest.
DISADVANTAGES
 Highly advanced
technology was required
to manufacture very
large scale integration.
 The working of these
computers is still
dependent on the
instructions given by the
programmer.

36.  Are in developmental stage
which is based on the artificial
intelligence.
 AI is the science and
engineering of making
intelligent machines, especially
intelligent computer programs.
 In the fifth generation, the
VLSI technology became
ULSI (Ultra Large Scale
Integration) technology.
 Resulting in the production
of microprocessor chips
having ten million electronic
components.

37.  Development of true artificial intelligence
 Are intended to work with natural language.
 Availability of very powerful and compact
computers at cheaper rates
 capabilities of reasoning . Aims to be able to
solve highly complex problem including
decision making, logical reasoning.
 They will be able to recognize image and
graphs.
 Will have their own thinking power, making
decisions themselves.
 capabilities of learning
 large capacity of internal storage
 extra high processing speed.
 They will be able to use more than one CPU for
faster processing speed.

38.  Fastest and powerful computers till date;
 Execute a large number of applications at the same time
and that too at a very high speed
 Decreasing the size of these computers to a large extent;
 The users of these computers find it very comfortable to use
them because of the several additional multimedia features;
 They are versatile for communications and resource
sharing.

40.  A set of rules and symbols used to operate a computer.
Whatever command we give to computer, it is first converted
in its own language.
 Each programming language has its own set of rules and
grammar. These are called the syntax rules of the language.
 These languages are classified under three categories:
Assembly languages
High Level Languages
Machine Language or Low
Level Languages1.
2.
3.

41.  Also called as Machine code.
 The fundamental language of the computer’s
processor, also called Low Level Language.
 All programs are converted into machine
language before they can be executed.
 Consists of combination of 0’s and 1’s that
represent high and low electrical voltage.
For example: -01011110, 10101100 etc.
 A group of such digits is called an
instruction and it is translated into a
command that the central processing unit or
CPU understands.

42.  Assembly language (ASL) is a low-
level programming language used to interface with computer
hardware.
 Assembly language is the symbolic representation of a
computer’s binary encoding-machine language.
 It use letters and symbols instead of binary numbers.
 These symbols are called as mnemonics. For example: -
 sub is for subtraction,
 add for addition,
 div for division etc
 It is easier to understand then machine language.

43.  High-level language is a programming language that enables
development of a program in much simpler programming
context and is generally independent of the computer's
hardware architecture.
 They are designed to be used by the human operator or the
programmer.
 Uses English like statements.
 BASIC, C/C++ and Java are popular examples of high-level
languages.
 The main advantage of high-level languages over low-level
languages is that they are easier to read, write, and maintain.

46.  Language translators convert programming source code into
language that the computer processor understands.
 Programming source code has various structures and
commands, but the computer processors understand only
machine language.
 Language translators are of three types: -
CompilerAssembler Interpreter

47.  A computer program that translates source code into object
code.
 Source code : - High-level language version of the program.
 Object code: -The resulting machine code program.
 Primary reason for compiling source code is to create an
executable program.
 It checks all kinds of limits, ranges, errors etc. before executing
it completely but the disadvantage is that when an error in a
program occurs it is difficult to pin-point its source in the
original program

48. Source Code
• High-
level
Language
• Like C,
C++, Java
etc.
Compiler
• It looks at the
entire piece /
program of
source code
collecting &
reorganizing
instructions.
Object Code
• Machine
Language
program.
• Eg: -
0101010
Error
Messages

49.  An interpreter is closely related to a compiler, but takes both
source program and input data.
 The basic purpose of interpreter is same as that of complier
but it can’t create a executable file like compiler.
Source Code
• High Level
Languages
Interpreter
• Translation
by line to
line
Object Code
• Machine
Language

50.  In compiler, the program is translated completely and directly
executable version is generated. Whereas interpreter translates
each instruction, executes it and then the next instruction is
translated and this goes on until end of the program.
 It is also called as LINE INTERPRETER because it is
interpreted line by line, it is a much slower way of running a
program than one that has been compiled but is easier for
learners because the program can be stopped, modified and
rerun without time-consuming compiles.
 Interpreters however are easier to use, particularly for
beginners, since errors are immediately displayed, corrected by
the user, until the program is able to be executed

51. COMPILER
 Fast, creates executable file that
runs directly on the CPU.
 Debugging is more difficult. One
error can produce many spurious
errors.
 Uses more memory - all the
execution code needs to be
loaded into memory, although
tricks like Dynamic Link
Libraries lessen this problem.
 Unauthorized modification to the
code more difficult. The
executable is in the form of
machine code. So it is difficult to
understand program flow.
INTERPRETER
 Slower, interprets code one line at
a time.
 Debugging is easier. Each line of
code is analyzed and checked
before being executed.
 Uses less memory, source code
only has to be present one line at a
time in memory.
 Easier to modify as the
instructions are at a high level and
so the program flow is easier to
understand and modify.

52.  Assembler is software or a tool that translates Assembly
language to machine code.
 Assembly is a human readable language but it typically has a
one to one relationship with the corresponding machine code.
Therefore an assembler is said to perform isomorphic (one to
one mapping) translation.
Source Code
• Assembly
Language
Assembler
• perform
isomorphic
(one to one
mapping)
translation
Object Code
• Machine
Language

53.  The translation process has two major parts.
 FIRST STEP : - To find memory locations with labels so the
relationship between symbolic names and addresses is
known when instructions are translated.
 SECOND STEP :- To translate each assembly statement by
combining the numeric equivalents of opcodes, register
specifier’s, and labels into a legal instruction
 Assembler checks each instruction for it’s correctness and
generates diagnostic message, if there are mistakes in the
program.
 Assembler directives (or pseudo instructions) provide
instructions to the assembler itself . They are not translated
into machine instructions. (e.g.: - START, ADD, SUB etc.)

54. Assembler
On the basis of
output
generated .
Self assembler
or resident
assembler
Cross
Assembler
On the basis of
steps taken to
generate the
output
One Pass
Assembler
Two Pass
Assembler

55.  Self assembler or Resident assembler: - If an assembler which
runs on a computer and produces the machine codes for the same
computer
 Cross Assembler: - If an assembler that runs on a computer and
produces the machine codes for other computer.
 One pass assembler : - It is the type of assembler which assigns the
memory addresses to the variables and translates the source code
into machine code in the first pass simultaneously.
 Two Pass Assembler : -It is the type of assembler which reads the
source code twice.
 First pass:- It reads all the variables and assigns them memory
addresses.
 Second pass: - It coverts the source code in object code.

57.  Also called link editor and binder.
 A linker is a program that combines object modules to form an
executable program.
 Many programming languages allow us to write different
pieces of code, called modules, separately.
 This simplifies the programming task because you can break a
large program into small, more manageable pieces.

58.  Combines all the module.
 replaces symbolic addresses with real addresses. Therefore,
you may need to link a program even if it contains only one
module.
 Linker combines object files into an executable file
 Relocate each object’s text and data segments
 Resolve as-yet-unresolved symbols
 Record top-level entry point in executable file
 End result: a program on disk, ready to execute

60.  Loader is the part of an operating system that is responsible for
loading programs from executable (i.e., executable files) into
memory, preparing them for execution and then executing
them.
 Loader is utility program which takes object code as input
prepares it for execution and loads the executable code into the
memory. Thus loader is actually responsible for initiating the
execution process.