!

" # $

How Computers Evolved:

A look at all the
generations
( Team Storyweavers ) 30th Sep 2019 * Knowledge

Vine +2

It’s 1795 and you’re the captain of a ship at

sea. The sea in front of you is inky black. How
do you know which direction your ship is
going in? Simple! You estimate your location
by the position of the stars above! You have a
mathematical book that helps you with this,
but there’s only one problem. These
calculations are made by human
mathematicians and they’re not always
accurate. Wouldn’t that frustrate you?

That’s exactly what the British scientist

Charles Babbage, the father of computers,
thought too. Babbage wanted to build a
machine that could perform accurate
calculations quickly to avoid errors in
navigation and engineering. This is when he
came up with the design for the first
computer called the Difference Engine in
1822.

But did you know that Babbage never actually

built a computer? Babbage’s design for the
computer was built nearly 120 years after he
designed it! Today, computers are
indispensable and help us in almost every
aspect of our lives. Using the mathematical
language called binary (which only uses the
digits 0 and 1), computers store huge amounts
of information and help us make lightning-fast
calculations which we could have not done
ourselves.

Let’s look at the journey of the computer

right from the start and see how it has
evolved to help us practically do everything.

First-generation
computers were built
using vacuum tubes as
the main technology.
These computers were
very fragile and were
as big as a room! They
could roughly perform
5000 additions or subtractions per second!
These computers consumed a lot of electricity
and produced a lot of heat. The heat
generated by the computer would also attract
insects into the machine which would make
the machine malfunction. This is why when
computers have an error we still say “There’s
a bug in it!”. These computers were used
during the Second World War to calculate the
aim of ballistic weapons and decode
messages.

Second-generation
computers were built
using transistors. Most
of the development of
transistors happened in
Santa Clara Valley in
the USA. And because
transistors used silicon,
this place was soon called Silicon Valley!
Second-generation computers could perform
roughly 5000 additions in a second but they
were way more accurate! The only way to
make transistor computers more powerful is
to keep adding more transistors. This meant
that a good transistor computer would need
thousands of discrete parts to work well.

∠
Third-generation
computers used
integrated circuits that
were made by fitting
many transistors onto one
chip. The development of
ICs also gave rise to
Moore’s Law that believes that every two
years, twice the number of transistors can be
fitted into ICs while the cost of the ICs
reduces by half. Since the circuits in the ICs
are very close to each other, the electricity in
the circuit needs to travel a very small
distance. This led to faster calculations! The
computer still needed an air-conditioned
environment to function in.

Fourth-generation
computers run on
microprocessors which
are stamp-sized chips
that contain all the
important circuits
needed for the computer
to run. One of the earliest companies that
made microprocessors was formed by
combining the words integrated and
electronics – Intel! These computers were also
sometimes called microcomputers because
they were so small compared to the
computers in the past. The Apple II made by
Apple is one of the earliest fourth-generation
personal computers ever made and was hugely
popular for personal use.

Fifth-generation computers
may use neural networks
and artificial intelligence
and try to make decisions
that mimic human beings.
They can interpret
information and make decisions. Since these
computers can learn on their own, we are still
figuring out the full extent of how to control
them. These computers are used everywhere
from entertainment, medicine, research and
more. The world’s smallest computer (that
can measure the temperature of cell clusters)
is smaller than a grain of rice.

With computers going from the size of a room

to being smaller than a grain of rice, what do
you think will come next in modern
computing? Would you like to be a future
computer scientist?

Let us know in the comments.

Author

Deepthi Chakravarthy
Deepthi is an ambivert who
is on a steady diet of good
food, filter coffee,Read
andMore
self-improvement. Being an
ardent reader, storytelling
Share: has been her first love and
she enjoys exploring how
to convey stories
compellingly. Having
studied psychology and
Tags: experienced the learning
and development field,
Deepthi is
' #theevolutionofeverything ' driven
BYJU'S to ' BYJU'SApp

understand human
' BYJU'Sstudents ' byjus students
behavior and to know what
makes each of us unique.
' evolutionofeverything ' knowledge vine
You are most likely to find
' learning tree her tucked
' loveformath into a cozy
corner at a local cafe with
a Kindle or a book in hand.
If you find her there, stop
by and say hello, she’d be
Comments eager to learn your story
too. Until then, you can
ping her at
September 30, 2019 at 4:28 pm
Lakshya says: In [email protected]
future computers will be like
for they
human beings. And anything you
will be ourmay like
friends.
to share.
. Reply

October 2, 2019 at 12:43 pm

Anshuman says: He is right

. Reply

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