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While first-generation computers typically had a small number of index registers or none, several lines of second-generation computers had large numbers of index registers, e.g., Atlas, Bendix G-20, IBM 7070. The first generation had pioneered the use of special facilities for calling subroutines, e.g., TSX on the IBM 709. In the second ...
A human computer, with microscope and calculator, 1952. It was not until the mid-20th century that the word acquired its modern definition; according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the first known use of the word computer was in a different sense, in a 1613 book called The Yong Mans Gleanings by the English writer Richard Brathwait: "I haue [] read the truest computer of Times, and the best ...
A vacuum-tube computer, now termed a first-generation computer, is a computer that uses vacuum tubes for logic circuitry. While the history of mechanical aids to computation goes back centuries , if not millennia , the history of vacuum tube computers is confined to the middle of the 20th century.
The "third-generation" of digital electronic computers used integrated circuit (IC) chips as the basis of their logic. The idea of an integrated circuit was conceived by a radar scientist working for the Royal Radar Establishment of the Ministry of Defence, Geoffrey W.A. Dummer.
Fourth generation computers(1971–present): It uses Microprocessors, as millions of ICs were built onto a single silicon-based chip. Since then form factor of computers reduced, task processing & graphic rendering improved and it became more battery-powered with the advent of personal mobile devices such as laptops, tablets, smartphones etc.
Unlike modern digital computers, analog computers are not very flexible and need to be reconfigured (i.e., reprogrammed) manually to switch them from working on one problem to another. Analog computers had an advantage over early digital computers in that they could be used to solve complex problems using behavioral analogues while the earliest ...
The fourth generation computers began with the shipment of CPS-1, the first commercial microprocessor microcomputer in 1972 and for the purposes of this list marks the end of the "early" third generation computer era. Note that third generation computers were offered well into the 1990s.
Timeline of computing presents events in the history of computing organized by year and grouped into six topic areas: predictions and concepts, first use and inventions, hardware systems and processors, operating systems, programming languages, and new application areas.