[ Generations of

Computers ]
[ Computer Generations ]
1. Vacuum Tube
2. Transistor
3. Integrated Circuit
4. Microprocessors
5. Artificial Intelligence
[ Vacuum Tube] 1940-1956

The first computers used vacuum tubes for circuitry

and magnetic drums for memory, and were often enormous,
taking up entire rooms. The UNIVAC and ENIAC computers
are examples of first-generation computing devices.
[ Transistors ] 1956-1963

Transistors replaced vacuum tubes and ushered in the

second generation of computers. The transistor was invented
in 1947 but did not see widespread use in computers until the
late 1950s. The transistor was far superior to the vacuum
tubes. Second-generation computers still relied on punched
cards for input and printouts for output.
[ Integrated Circuits] 1964-1971

The third generation of computers used semiconductors. Instead

of punched cards and printouts, users interacted with third
generation computers through keyboards and monitors
and interfaced with an operating system.
[ Microprocessor ] 1971-Present

The fourth generation used microprocessors as the CPU.

The Intel 4004 chip, developed in 1971, was the first
microprocessor. Fourth generation computers also saw the
development of GUIs, the mouse and handheld devices.
[ Artificial Intelligence]Present-Future

The fifth generation of computers involve the usage of AI. It

is still in development. Typical usage of AI today includes
voice recognition, such as in the iPhone4s and the Xbox
Kinect version of the video game, TESV: Skyrim.
[Types of Computers based on
Principles of Operation]
Analog
Computer
Digital
Computer
Hybrid
Computer
 [ Analog Computers]
Analog Computers: These are almost extinct
today. These are different from a digital computer
because an analog computer can perform several
mathematical operations simultaneously. It uses
continuous variables for mathematical operations
and utilizes mechanical or electrical energy.
 [ Digital Computer]
Digital Computers: They use digital circuits and are
designed to operate on two states, namely bits 0 and 1.
They are analogous to states ON and OFF. Data on these
computers is represented as a series of 0s and 1s. Digital
computers are suitable for complex computation and have
higher processing speeds. They are programmable.
 [ Digital Computer]
Digital computers are either general purpose computers
or special purpose ones.
Special purpose computers, as their name suggests, are
designed for specific types of data processing.

General purpose computers General purpose computers

are used for any type of applications.

They can store different programs and do the jobs as per the
instructions specified on those programs. Most of the computers
that we see today, are general purpose computers.
 [ Hybrid Computer]
Hybrid Computers: These computers
are a combination of both digital and
analog computers. In this type of
computers, the digital segments
perform process control by conversion
of analog signals to digital ones.
 [ Hybrid Computer]
For example, in hospital’s ICU, analog devices might
measure the patients temperature, blood pressure and
other vital signs. These measurements which are in
analog might then be converted into numbers and
supplied to digital components in the system. These
components are used to monitor the patient’s vital sign
and send signals if any abnormal readings are detected.
Hybrid computers are mainly used for specialized tasks.
[ Hybrid Computer]
[ Digital Computer]
[ Analog Computer]
[Types of Computers based on Configuration]

There are four different types of computers when we

classify them based on their performance and capacity.
The four types are

1. Super Computers
2. Mainframe Computers
3. Mini Computers
4. Micro Computers
[Types of Computers based on Configuration]
Supercomputers: The highly calculation-
intensive tasks can be effectively performed by
means of supercomputers. Quantum physics,
mechanics, weather forecasting, molecular
theory are best studied by means of
supercomputers. Their ability of parallel
processing and their well-designed memory
hierarchy give the supercomputers, large
transaction processing powers.
Supercomputers: 
As of July 2009, the IBM Roadrunner, located at Los Alamos
National Laboratory, is the fastest super computer in the world.

A Chinese supercomputer is the fastest in the world as of June 19,

2013, according to survey results announced Monday, comfortably
overtaking a US machine (TITAN) which now ranks second.

Tianhe-2, a supercomputer developed by China's National

University of Defense Technology, achieved processing speeds of
33.86 petaflops (1000 trillion calculations) per second on a
benchmarking test, earning it the number one spot in the Top 500
survey of supercomputers.

The tests show the machine is by far the fastest computer ever
constructed. Its main rival, the US-designed Titan, had achieved a
performance of 17.59 petaflops per second, the survey's website
said.
Supercomputers: 

Five of the world's 10 fastest computers are

installed in the US, the survey said, with the two in
China, two in Germany and one in Japan.

The recognition of Tianhe-2, meaning Milky Way-2,

as the world's fastest computer marks the return
of the title to China after the machine's
predecessor, the Tianhe-1 was ranked the world's
fastest in November 2010, only to be overtaken by
a machine from the US.
 MILKY WAY-2(2016)

FASTEST SUPERCOMPUTER TO DATE

Sunway [TaihuLight] 2017
 FASTEST SUPERCOMPUTER
• As of June 2018, the fastest
Supercomputer on the
TOP500 supercomputer list is the Summit, in
the United States, with a LINPACK benchmark
score of 122.3 PFLOPS, exceeding the previous
record holder, Sunway TaihuLight, by around
29 PFLOPS.
 2019 - The world's new fastest supercomputer is named Fugaku, powered by
Fujitsu's 48-core A64FX SoC. It is installed at the RIKEN Center for
Computational Science (R-CCS) in Kobe, Japan.

2020 - The new top system, Fugaku, turned in a High Performance Linpack (HPL) result of
415.5 petaflops, besting the now second-place Summit system by a factor of 2.8x.  Fugaku,
is powered by Fujitsu’s 48-core A64FX SoC, becoming the first number one system on the
list to be powered by ARM processors. In single or further reduced precision, which are
often used in machine learning and AI applications, Fugaku’s peak performance is over
1,000 petaflops (1 exaflops). The new system is installed at RIKEN Center for
Computational Science (R-CCS) in Kobe, Japan.
2021 - 1 teraflop = 1,000,000,000,000 (1 trillion)
flops. Supercomputer Fugaku was completed in March 2021,
and is officially the world's most powerful supercomputer.

2022 - Since June 2022, USA's Frontier is the most

powerful supercomputer on TOP500, reaching 1102
petaFlops (1.102 exaFlops) on the LINPACK benchmarks.
Mainframe Computers: Large
organizations use mainframes for highly
critical applications such as bulk data
processing and ERP. Most of the
mainframe computers have capacities to
host multiple operating systems and operate
as a number of virtual machines. They can
substitute for several small servers.
Minicomputers: In terms of size and processing
capacity, minicomputers lie in between mainframes and
microcomputers. Minicomputers are also called mid-
range systems or workstations. The term began to be
popularly used in the 1960s to refer to relatively smaller
third generation computers. They took up the space that
would be needed for a refrigerator or two and used
transistor and core memory technologies. The 12-bit
PDP-8 minicomputer of the Digital Equipment
Corporation was the first successful minicomputer.
Microcomputers: A computer with a microprocessor
and its central processing unit is known as a
microcomputer. They do not occupy space as much as
mainframes do. When supplemented with a keyboard
and a mouse, microcomputers can be called personal
computers. A monitor, a keyboard and other similar
input-output devices, computer memory in the form of
RAM and a power supply unit come packaged in a
microcomputer. These computers can fit on desks or
tables and prove to be the best choice for single-user
tasks.
[Other Types of Computers ]
Workstation
It is a type of computer used for engineering
applications (CAD/CAM), desktop
publishing, software development, and
other types of applications that require a
moderate amount of computing power and
relatively high quality graphics capabilities.
 [Other Types of Computers ]
Workstation
Workstations generally come with a large, high-resolution graphics
screen, at large amount of RAM, built-in network support, and a
graphical user interface. Most workstations also have a mass storage
device such as a disk drive, but a special type of workstation, called a
diskless workstation, comes without a disk drive. The most common
operating systems for workstations are UNIX and Windows NT. Like
personal computers, most workstations are single-user computers.
However, workstations are typically linked together to form a local-
area network, although they can also be used as stand-alone
systems.

N.B.: In networking, workstation refers to any computer connected

to a local-area network. It could be a workstation or a personal
computer.
 [SERVERS]
Servers: They are computers designed to provide
services to client machines in a computer network.
They have larger storage capacities and powerful
processors. Running on them are programs that
serve client requests and allocate resources like
memory and time to client machines. Usually they
are very large in size, as they have large processors
and many hard drives. They are designed to be fail-
safe and resistant to crash.
LE FIN