Dynamic Glitter Text Generator at TextSpace.net">

Week 2

Computer Hardware Basics

       This is week 2, in this week I have learned computer hardware basics.Learning something new in Computer and Internet is very memorable for me who like using and interacting with computer. I want to share with you about what I have been learning in Computer and Internet lecture, especially in week two.

       First of all, I want to share some information regarding the history of computers. Even though, knowing computer history is not really important for us, but a history has created an invention. Many insventors contributed to the history of computer and that a computer is complex piece of mechinenery made up of many parts, each of which can be considered a separete invention. Nevertheless, there are five generations of computer as we can see now.


  • First Generation (1940-1950) :: Vacuum Tube 

  1. ENIAC [1945]: Designed by Mauchly & Echert, built by US army to calculate trajectories for ballistic shells during Worls War II. Around 18000 vacuum tubes and 1500 relays were used to build ENIAC, and it was programmed by manually setting switches.
  2. UNIVAC [1950]: the first commercial computer.
  3. John Von Neumann architecture: Goldstine and Von Neumann took the idea of ENIAC and developed concept of storing a program in the memory. Known as the Von Neumann's architecture and has been the basis for virtually every machine designed since then
  • Second Generation (1950-1964) :: Transistors



  1. William Shockley, John Bardeen, and Walter Brattain invent the transistor that reduce size of computers and improve reliability. Vacuum tubes have been replaced by transistors
  2. First operating Systems: handled one program at a time
  3. On-off switches controlled by electronically.
  4. High level languages (COBOL and FORTRAN)


  • Third Generation Computers (1960s – 1971s) Integrated Circuit ( IC )
•Microprocessor chips combines thousands of transistors, entire circuit on one computer chip.

           
•Semiconductor memory

                       
•Multiple computer models with different performance characteristics

                           
•The size of computers has been reduced drastically 

  • Fourth Generation Computers (1971s – Present) VLSI / ULSI

  1. Microprocessor chips combines thousands of transistors, entire circuit on one computer chip.
  2. Semiconductor memory
  3. Multiple computer models with different performance characteristics
  4. The size of computers has been reduced drastically 

  • Fifth Generation Computers (Now and Future)
Based on artificial intelligence - computers can think and learn. Primary means of input – voice and touch, •Different computers construct such as optical computers that utilizes nanotechnology, or as entire general-purpose computers.


05:10 | |

 

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)