In recent decades, humanity has entered the computer age. Smart and powerful computers, based on the principles of mathematical actions, work with information, manage the activities of individual machines and entire factories, control the quality of products and various products. Nowadays, computer technology is the basis for the development of human civilization. On the way to this situation I had to go a short but very stormy path. And for a long time these machines were called not computers, but computers (computers).
Computer classification
According to the general classification, computers are distributed over a number of generations. The defining properties when assigning devices to a specific generation are their individual structures and modifications, such requirements for electronic computers as speed, memory size, control methods and data processing methods.
Of course, the distribution of computers will in any case be conditional - there are a large number of machines that, according to some criteria, are considered models of one generation, and according to others, belong to a completely different one.
As a result, these devices can be reckoned among the mismatching stages of the formation of models of electronic computing type.
In any case, the improvement of computers goes through a series of stages. And the generation of computers of each stage has significant differences from each other in terms of elemental and technical bases, a certain provision of a specific mathematical type.
First generation of computers
A generation of 1 computers developed in the first post-war years. Not very powerful electronic computers were created, based on lamps of the electronic type (the same as in all TV sets of the models of those years). To some extent, this was the stage in the development of such a technique.
The first computers were considered experimental types of devices that were formed to analyze existing and new concepts (in different sciences and in some complex industries). The volume and mass of computer machines, which were quite large, often required very large rooms. Now it seems like a fairy tale of bygone and even not quite real years.
Data input into first-generation machines was a way of loading punch cards, and program management of sequences of decisions of functions was carried out, for example, in ENIAC - by way of inputting plugs and shapes of a typesetting sphere.
Despite the fact that such a programming method delayed a large amount of time in order to prepare the unit, for connections on typesetting fields of machine blocks it provided all the possibilities to demonstrate the mathematical "abilities" of ENIAC, and with significant benefits it had differences from the method of software punched tape which is suitable for relay type devices.
The principle of "thinking"
The employees who worked on the first computers did not come off, were constantly near the machines and monitored the efficiency of the existing electronic lamps. But as soon as at least one lamp failed, ENIAC instantly rose, everyone in a hurry searched for a broken lamp.
The leading cause (albeit an approximate one) of the very frequent replacement of lamps was the following: the heating and radiance of the lamps attracted insects, they flew into the internal volume of the apparatus and “helped” create a short circuit. That is, the first generation of these machines was very vulnerable to external influences.
If you imagine that these assumptions could be true, then the concept of "bugs" ("bugs"), which means errors and mistakes in software and hardware computer equipment, gets a completely different meaning.
Well, if the lamps of the machine were in working condition, maintenance personnel could configure ENIAC for another task, manually rearranging the connections of about six thousand wires. All these contacts had to be switched again when a different type of task arose.
Serial machines
The first electronic computer to be mass-produced was UNIVAC. It became the first type of multi-purpose electronic digital computer. UNIVAC, the creation of which dates back to 1946-1951, required a period of addition of 120 μs, total multiplications of 1800 μs and divisions of 3600 μs.
Such machines required a large area, a lot of electricity and had a significant number of electronic tubes.
In particular, the Soviet Strela electronic computer had 6400 of these lamps and 60 thousand copies of semiconductor type diodes. The speed of such generation of computers was not higher than two or three thousand operations per second, the size of RAM was not more than two Kb. Only the M-2 unit (1958) reached RAM of about four Kb, and the speed of the machine reached twenty thousand operations per second.
Second generation computer
In 1948, the first working transistor was obtained by several scientists and inventors of the West. This was a point-contact mechanism in which three thin metal wires were in contact with a strip of polycrystalline material. Consequently, the computer family improved in those years.
The first models of computers released, which operated on the basis of transistors, indicate their appearance in the last segment of the 1950s, and five years later, external forms of a digital computer with significantly expanded functions appeared.
Architecture features
One of the important principles of the operation of the transistor is that in a single copy it will be able to carry out certain work for 40 conventional lamps, and even then it will maintain a higher functioning speed. The machine generates a minimum amount of heat, and almost will not use electric sources and energy. In this regard, the requirements for personal electronic computers have grown.
In parallel with the gradual replacement of conventional electric-type lamps with efficient transistors, there was an increase in the improvement of the method of storing the available data. The memory is expanding, and the modified magnetic tape, which was first used in the first-generation UNIVAC computer, began to improve.
It should be noted that in the mid-sixties of the last century, the method of storing data on disks was used. Significant advances in the use of computers made it possible to get a speed of a million operations in one second! In particular, “Stretch” (Great Britain), “Atlas” (USA) can be ranked as ordinary transistor computers of the second generation of electronic computers. At that time, the USSR also produced high-quality computer models (in particular, BESM-6).
The release of computers, which are based on transistors, caused a reduction in their volume, weight, electricity costs and the cost of machines, and reliability and efficiency also improved. This made it possible to increase the number of users and the list of tasks to be solved. Taking into account the features that distinguished the second generation of computers, the developers of such machines began to design algorithmic forms of languages for engineering and technical (in particular, ALGOL, FORTRAN) and economic (in particular, COBOL) type of calculations.
Hygienic requirements for electronic computers are also increasing. In the fifties, another breakthrough occurred, but still it was still far from the modern level.
OS Importance
But even at that time, the leading task in the computing technologies was the reduction of resources — working time and memory. To solve this problem, then began to build prototypes of current operating systems.
The types of the first operating systems (OSs) made it possible to improve the automation of computer users, which was aimed at performing certain tasks: entering program data into the machine, calling the necessary translators, calling the modern library routines necessary for the program, etc.
Therefore, in addition to the program and various information, it was necessary to leave a special instruction in the second generation computer, where the processing steps and a list of data about the program and its developers were indicated. After that, a certain number of tasks for operators (sets of tasks) began to be introduced into machines in parallel, in these forms of operating systems it was necessary to separate the types of computer resources between certain forms of tasks - a multi-program way of working to study data appeared.
Third generation
Due to the development of the technology for creating integrated circuits (IC) of computers, it was possible to accelerate the speed and reliability of existing semiconductor circuits, as well as another reduction in their size, used power and price.
Integrated forms of microcircuits have now begun to be made from a fixed set of electronic-type parts that were placed in rectangular elongated silicon wafers and had a side length of not more than 1 cm. This type of wafer (crystals) is placed in a small plastic housing, the dimensions in it can be calculated only by highlighting the so-called "Legs".
Because of these reasons, the pace of computer development began to increase rapidly. This allowed not only to improve the quality of work and reduce the cost of such machines, but also to form devices of small, simple, inexpensive and reliable mass type - mini-computers. These machines were initially designed to solve highly technical problems in various exercises and techniques.
The leading moment in those years was considered the possibility of unification of machines. The third generation of computers is created taking into account compatible individual models of different types. All other accelerations in the development of mathematical and various softwares contribute to the formation of batch form programs for solving standard problems of a problem-oriented programming language. Then, software packages first appear — forms of operating systems on which the third generation of computers develops.
Fourth generation
Active improvement of electronic devices of computers has contributed to the emergence of large integrated circuits (LSI), where each crystal contained several thousand parts of electrical type. Thanks to this, the next generation of computers began to be produced, the elemental base of which received a larger amount of memory and shorter cycles of command execution: the use of memory bytes in one machine operation began to decrease significantly. But, since programming costs almost did not decrease, the tasks of reducing resources of a purely human, rather than machine type, as before, came to the fore.
The operating systems of the next types were produced, which enabled operators to improve their programs directly behind the computer displays, this simplified the work of users, as a result of which the first developments of the new software base soon appeared. This method is absolutely contrary to the theory of the initial stages of information development, which used first-generation computers. Now computers began to be used not only for recording large volumes of information, but also for automation and mechanization of various fields of activity.
Changes in the early seventies
In 1971, a large integrated circuit for computers was released, where the entire computer processor of conventional architectures was located. Now it was possible to arrange in one large integrated circuit almost all electronic circuits that were not complex in a typical computer architecture. So, the opportunities for mass production of conventional devices at low prices have grown. This was the new, fourth generation of computers.
Since that time, a lot of inexpensive (used in compact keyboard computers) and control circuits that fit on one or several large integrated circuit boards with processors, sufficient RAM and the structure of communications with executive-type sensors in control mechanisms have been produced.
Programs that worked with the regulation of gasoline in car engines, with the transmission of certain electronic information or with fixed modes of washing clothes, were introduced into the computer's memory either using various types of controllers, or directly at the enterprises.
The seventies saw the beginning of the production of universal computing systems that combined a processor, a large amount of memory, circuits of different interfaces with an input-output mechanism located in a common large integrated circuit (the so-called single-chip computers) or, in other versions, large integrated circuits located on a common printed circuit board. As a result, when the fourth generation of computers became widespread, a repetition of the situation prevailing in the sixties began, when modest mini-computers did part of the work in large universal computers.
Fourth Generation Computer Properties
The fourth-generation electronic computers were complex and had ramified capabilities:
- normal multiprocessor mode;
- parallel-sequential programs;
- high-level types of computer languages;
- the emergence of the first computer networks.
The development of the technical capabilities of these devices was marked by the following provisions:
- Normal signal latency at 0.7 ns / V.
- The leading type of memory is a typical semiconductor. The period of information generation from a memory of this type is 100–150 ns. Memory - 1012–1013 characters.
Application of hardware implementation of operational systems
Modular systems began to be used for software type tools.
For the first time, a personal electronic computer was created in the spring of 1976. On the basis of integral 8-bit controllers of a conventional electronic game circuit, scientists produced the usual Apple-type game machine programmed in BASIC, which gained great popularity. In early 1977, Apple Comp. Appeared, and production began on the world's first Apple personal computers. The history of this computer level highlights this event as the most important.
Today, Apple manufactures Macintosh personal computers that outperform IBM PC models in many ways . New Apple models differ not only in exceptional quality, but also in extensive (by modern standards) capabilities. A special operating system for computers from Apple has also been developed, which takes into account all their exceptional features.
The fifth kind of computer generation
In the eighties, the process of computer development (computer generation) enters a new stage - fifth-generation machines. The appearance of these devices is associated with the development of microprocessors. From the point of view of systemic constructions, absolute decentralization of work is characteristic, and when considering software and mathematical bases, it is characterized by movement to the level of work in the program structure. The organization of work of electronic computers is growing.
The efficiency of the fifth generation of computers is one hundred eight to one hundred and nine operations in one second. This type of machine is characterized by a multiprocessor system located on weakened microprocessors of which the plural is used immediately. Now there are electronic computing types of machines that are aimed at high-level types of computer languages.