The Generation of Computer

In recent years, the computer industry has grow at a phenomenal pace. In a short time of 35 years or so computers have improved tremendously. In the last decade the speed of computer has increase. The cast per unit of calculating has gone down by 500 times. The storage capacity is increasing so fast that now it seems that nothing is impossible to store. Large data can be stored in very small devices.

First Generation of computer(1942-1955):-

Until 1951, electronic computers were exclusive possession of scientists and the military. Till then nobody tried to use them for business purpose. The idea of marketing them was conceived mushily and Eckert, creators of ENIAC’S. as US census bureau was already using IBCP cards, they were the pioneers in US buying this computer for the first time in 1951. the company created by M and ETS become UNIVAC division of Sperry and Corporation (later known as UNISYS).

Computer belonging to this generation had the following characteristics:

1. Comparatively large in size as composed to present day computers.

2. Generated lot of heat, they were not consistent and reliable as the valves tended to fall frequently.

3. low capacity internal storage.

4. individual, non-related models.

5. processors operated in the milliseconds speed range.

6. internal storage consisted of magnetic drum and delay lines.

Second Generation (1955-1964):

FGC were very unreliable, mainly because of vacuum tubes which kept on burning out. Users had to be prepared all the time with dizen of extra tubes to replace them. The computers of this generation were characterized by the use of Solid State devices(transistors) misted of vacuum tubes. Transistorized circuits were smaller, generated little heat, were expensive and consumed less power than vacuum tube circuits and were much greater in processing capacity.

Since transistors had a faster switching action, this generation than first generation computers. The use of magnetic cores as the primary internal storage medium and the introduction of removable magnetic disc pack were other major developments of the second generation. Although magnetic tapes were still used commonly. These computers had built in error detecting devices and more efficient means were developed to input and retrieve from the computer.

Some of the popular models in this generation of computer systems, we IBM-1401, IBM-1620, BURROUGHS B-200 SERIES, HONEY-WELL H-400, these computers were used for business applications.

Third Generation of Computer(1964-1975)

A revolution in the computer developments took place with the development of integrated circuits (IC) on a single silicon chip. In 1958, jack St Clair Kebly and Robert Noyce invented the first IC. IC incorporated number of transistors and electronic circuits on a single wafer or chip of silicon IC is called chip beause of the way they are made. They are also called as semi conductors as combining layers of materials that have varying capacity to conduct electricity from them.

This ushered in the third generation of computer systems in 1964. the integrated circuits enhanced considerably the processing capability of placing 12 or more logic gates on a single chip was developed into a well-defined technology was redefined to a point where hundreds or more gates could be placed on a chip of silicon and incorporated as functional logic block in an overall system.

Computers of this generation have the following characteristicts:

1. Smaller in size as compared to second generation computers.

2. Higher capacity internal storage.

3. Remote communication facilities.

4. Multiprogramming facilities.

5. Reduced cost of access storage.

6. Processors, which operate in nanosecond speed range.

7. Use of high level languages such as COBOL.

8. Wide range of optional peripherals.

Fourth Generation of Computer (1975-1989)

The 1970’s marked the beginning of a new generation of computers, produced by computer giants like IBM, ICL, CNR and Burrought. From design viewpoint, the new generation provided increased input-output capability, longer component life as well as greater system reliability. From the functional view point, new powerful language were developed to broaden the use of multiprogramming and multiprocessing and major shift from batch processing to on line, remote interactive processing.

The development of microprocessor chip, which contains an entire Central Processing Unit(CPU) on a single silicon chip led to the mushroom growth of inexpensive computers. They are not computers by themselves but they can perform all the functions of arithmetic logic unit and control units of the CPU. When these microprocessor are connected with memory and input-output devices, they become microcomputers.

The use of very large integrated circuits (VLSI) has made the froth generation (micro) computers very compact, much less expensive, faster, more reliable and of much greater data processing capacity than equalized third generation computers.

Some computers belonging to fourth generation are DEC-10, STAR-1000, PDP-11 AND APPLE Series Personal computers.

Fifth Generation Computers (1989-Present)

Till fourth generation of computers, the major stress was on improving the hardware from values to transistors and then to integrated circuits, which resulted in miniaturization and fast speed of computers. Hardware, the lack of thinking power has forced the scientists to work further for fifth generation computers.

The concept of “Artificial Intelligence” is being used in these computers and Japanese call them “Knowledge Processors”. Automatic programming, computational logic, pattern recognition and control of robots, the processes and which need skill and intelligence are examples of Artificial Intelligence. These computers, when developed, will have be able to execute billion of instructions per second and will have unimaginable storage capacities. The present day high level languages will become obsolete on these machines and new computer language and related software will be needed.

Computers of this generation have the following characteristics:

1.Easy to computers with high intelligence and natural human input and output mechanism;

2.Reliable and efficient software development by new languages, new computer architectures and systems software which overcome previous problems;

3.Improved overall functions and performance aimed at making computers smaller, lighter, faster, faster, of greater capacity, more flexible and more reliable

MobileMe's '08 debacle: Apple's iCloud launch woes evoke

MobileMe's '08 debacle: Apple's iCloud launch woes evoke 

Computerworld - The launch of Apple's new iCloud service has been reminiscent of the fiasco 

three years ago when the company debuted MobileMe, according to users' complaints that describe a sweeping range of problems.

iCloud, which Apple launched Wednesday, is the free replacement for MobileMe, the sync service that had major teething troubles in 2008. MobileMe stumbled badly then, dogged by problems ranging from slow synchronization to an 11-day email outage

In June, Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs acknowledged MobileMe's troubles when he introduced iCloud at the company's annual developers conference.

"You might ask, 'Why should I believe them, they're the ones that brought me MobileMe?'" Jobs said to loud laughter from the crowd as he touted iCloud. "It wasn't our finest hour, just let me say that. But we learned a lot."

Apparently not, at least by the volume and variety of complaints users have posted to Apple's support forums for iCloud.

Those reports have detailed a large number of issues with the service, ranging from an inability to log on using long-owned Apple IDs and overloaded servers that won't process MobileMe migration requests to iOS online backup failures and duplicating Safari bookmarks.

Several Computerworld staffers have encountered many of the same problems detailed in the support forums.

One of the fastest-growing complaints, however, is about iCloud's failure to deliver emails, or let users log onto their .me or .mac accounts.

"Don't upgrade [to iCloud] unless you want to do without email for a few days," said someone identified as "Roger Tennessee" earlier today. "This is a disaster if you depend on your .mac or .me [account] for mail. WARNING!!!!"

"Ever since moving to iCloud with my MacBook Pro and iPad, Apple's Mail App on both the iPad and my MBP are telling me that they cannot access my me.com email," echoed"papa-kostas."

Source: from new site

Samsung Ban: Australia court bans sale of Samsung tablet in Apple dispute

In series of bitter patent disputes that span four continents, chalk this up as a victory for Apple: An Australian court has temporarily banned the sale of rival Samsung's latest tablet computer pending resolution of a case involving touch-screen technology.

The federal court judge granted Apple a temporary injunction against Samsung blocking the sale of its Galaxy Tablet 10.1 during a legal battle centering on patents, Reuters reported.

In August, Samsung agreed to suspend sales in Australia of the tablet until the dispute was resolved with either a settlement or court order. Although on the surface that means the judge's decision won't have an immediate effect on Samsung, it could deal the company a serious blow in the Australian market at the cusp of the crucial holiday shopping season.

The patent wars between the tech companies began in April after Apple sued Samsung in San Francisco for alleged patent infringements over its lines of Galaxy tablets and phones, arguing that they resembled the look and feel of the iPad and iPhone.

The tit for tat spread to Europe, as well as Japan and South Korea. The patent suits have prompted a temporary sales ban on Samsung's Galaxy S, Galaxy S II and Ace smartphones across 30 European countries. Samsung said this month that it would request a preliminary sales ban on Apple's iPhone 4S in France and Italy because of patent infringement.

The Generatio of Computer

Second Generation (1956-1963) Transistors

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 tube, allowing computers to become smaller, faster, cheaper, more energy-efficient and more reliable than their first-generation predecessors. Though the transistor still generated a great deal of heat that subjected the computer to damage, it was a vast improvement over the vacuum tube. Second-generation computers still relied on punched cards for input and printouts for output.

Second-generation computers moved from cryptic binary machine language to symbolic, or assembly, languages, which allowed programmers to specify instructions in words. High-level programming languages were also being developed at this time, such as early versions of COBOL and FORTRAN. These were also the first computers that stored their instructions in their memory, which moved from a magnetic drum to magnetic core technology.

The first computers of this generation were developed for the atomic energy industry.

Third Generation (1964-1971) Integrated Circuits

The development of the integrated circuit was the hallmark of the third generation of computers. Transistors were miniaturized and placed on silicon chips, called semiconductors, which drastically increased the speed and efficiency of computers.

Instead of punched cards and printouts, users interacted with third generation computers through keyboards and monitorsand interfaced with an operating system, which allowed the device to run many different applications at one time with a central program that monitored the memory. Computers for the first time became accessible to a mass audience because they were smaller and cheaper than their predecessors.

Fourth Generation (1971-Present) Microprocessors

The microprocessor brought the fourth generation of computers, as thousands of integrated circuits were built onto a single silicon chip. What in the first generation filled an entire room could now fit in the palm of the hand. The Intel 4004 chip, developed in 1971, located all the components of the computer—from the central processing unit and memory to input/output controls—on a single chip.

In 1981 IBM introduced its first computer for the home user, and in 1984 Apple introduced the Macintosh. Microprocessors also moved out of the realm of desktop computers and into many areas of life as more and more everyday products began to use microprocessors.

As these small computers became more powerful, they could be linked together to form networks, which eventually led to the development of the Internet. Fourth generation computers also saw the development of GUIs, the mouse and handheld devices.

Fifth Generation (Present and Beyond) Artificial Intelligence

Fifth generation computing devices, based on artificial intelligence, are still in development, though there are some applications, such as voice recognition, that are being used today. The use of parallel processing and superconductors is helping to make artificial intelligence a reality. Quantum computation and molecular and nanotechnology will radically change the face of computers in years to come. The goal of fifth-generation computing is to develop devices that respond to natural language input and are capable of learning and self-organization.

Secound Generation of Cmpouter

 By 1948, the invention of the transistor greatly changed the computer's development.  The transistor replaced the large, cumbersome vacuum tube in televisions, radios and computers.  As a result, the size of electronic machinery has been shrinking ever since.  The transistor was at work in the computer by 1956.  Coupled with early advances in magnetic-core memory, transistors led to second generation computers that were smaller, faster, more reliable and more energy-efficient than their predecessors.  The first large-scale machines to take advantage of this transistor technology were early supercomputers, Stretch by IBM and LARC by
Sperry-Rand.  These computers, both developed for atomic energy laboratories, could handle an enormous amount of data, a capability much in demand by atomic scientists.  The machines were costly, however, and tended to be too powerful for the business sector's computing needs, thereby limiting their attractiveness.  Only two LARCs were ever installed: one in the Lawrence Radiation Labs in Livermore, California, for which the computer was named (Livermore Atomic Research Computer) and the other at the U.S. Navy Research and Development Center in Washington, D.C.  Another addition in second generation computers was the introduction of assembly language.  When assembly language replaced machine language,  abbreviated programming codes to replaced long, difficult binary codes (Gersting 35).

    Throughout the early 1960's, there were a number of commercially successful second generation computers used in businesses, universities, and government from companies such as Burroughs, Control Data, Honeywell, IBM, Sperry-Rand, and others.  These second generation computers were also of solid state design, and contained transistors in place of vacuum tubes.  They also contained all the components we associate with the modern day computer: printers, tape storage, disk storage, memory, and stored programs.  One important example was the IBM 1401, which was universally accepted throughout industry, and is considered by many to be the Model T of the computer industry.  By 1965, most large business routinely processed financial information using second generation computers (Gersting 218).

    It was the stored program and programming language that gave computers the flexibility to finally be cost effective and productive for business use.  The stored program concept meant that instructions to run a computer for a specific function (known as a program) were held inside the computer's memory, and could quickly be replaced by a different set of instructions for a different function.

A computer could print customer invoices and minutes later design products or calculate paychecks. More sophisticated high-level languages such as COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language) and FORTRAN (Formula Translator) came into common use during this time, and have expanded to the current day.  These languages replaced cryptic binary machine code with words, sentences, and mathematical formulas, making it much easier to program a computer.  New types of careers (programmer, analyst, and computer systems expert) and the entire software industry began with second generation computers (Gersting 131).

Secound Generation of Cmpouter

 By 1948, the invention of the transistor greatly changed the computer's development.  The transistor replaced the large, cumbersome vacuum tube in televisions, radios and computers.  As a result, the size of electronic machinery has been shrinking ever since.  The transistor was at work in the computer by 1956.  Coupled with early advances in magnetic-core memory, transistors led to second generation computers that were smaller, faster, more reliable and more energy-efficient than their predecessors.  The first large-scale machines to take advantage of this transistor technology were early supercomputers, Stretch by IBM and LARC by
Sperry-Rand.  These computers, both developed for atomic energy laboratories, could handle an enormous amount of data, a capability much in demand by atomic scientists.  The machines were costly, however, and tended to be too powerful for the business sector's computing needs, thereby limiting their attractiveness.  Only two LARCs were ever installed: one in the Lawrence Radiation Labs in Livermore, California, for which the computer was named (Livermore Atomic Research Computer) and the other at the U.S. Navy Research and Development Center in Washington, D.C.  Another addition in second generation computers was the introduction of assembly language.  When assembly language replaced machine language,  abbreviated programming codes to replaced long, difficult binary codes (Gersting 35).

    Throughout the early 1960's, there were a number of commercially successful second generation computers used in businesses, universities, and government from companies such as Burroughs, Control Data, Honeywell, IBM, Sperry-Rand, and others.  These second generation computers were also of solid state design, and contained transistors in place of vacuum tubes.  They also contained all the components we associate with the modern day computer: printers, tape storage, disk storage, memory, and stored programs.  One important example was the IBM 1401, which was universally accepted throughout industry, and is considered by many to be the Model T of the computer industry.  By 1965, most large business routinely processed financial information using second generation computers (Gersting 218).

    It was the stored program and programming language that gave computers the flexibility to finally be cost effective and productive for business use.  The stored program concept meant that instructions to run a computer for a specific function (known as a program) were held inside the computer's memory, and could quickly be replaced by a different set of instructions for a different function.

A computer could print customer invoices and minutes later design products or calculate paychecks. More sophisticated high-level languages such as COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language) and FORTRAN (Formula Translator) came into common use during this time, and have expanded to the current day.  These languages replaced cryptic binary machine code with words, sentences, and mathematical formulas, making it much easier to program a computer.  New types of careers (programmer, analyst, and computer systems expert) and the entire software industry began with second generation computers (Gersting 131).

First Generation of Computer

It is the Bendix G-15 General Purpose Digital Computer, a First Generation computer introduced in 1956.

Another picture (66k). And another (105k). And you can download larger versions of the following pictures on this page by clicking on them. (But be aware, they vary in size between 0.5MB and 1.5MB and downloading will be slow).

Why this interest in the Bendix G-15?

Against the odds, the Western Australian branch of The Australian Computer Museum Inc has rescued one from the scrap heap. That's it, over on the right.
It is in pretty good condition, considering its age, and we hope one day we can get it working again. We also have various programming, operating and technical manuals, and schematics. They have been scanned and you can download them here.
This web site started life in 1998 as a sort of begging letter, seeking more information about the maintenance procedures. We have since been told that there was no formal maintenance manual and that our documentation is complete so far as maintaining the machine is concerned. Still, if you can help with some of the other items we are missing or add anything at all to our store of knowledge about the Bendix G-15, please get in touch with me, David Green at . 

First Generation Computers.

The first generation of computers is said by some to have started in 1946 with ENIAC, the first 'computer' to use electronic valves (ie. vacuum tubes). Others would say it started in May 1949 with the introduction ofEDSAC, the first stored program computer. Whichever, the distinguishing feature of the first generation computers was the use of electronic valves.My personal take on this is that ENIAC was the World's first electronic calculator and that the era of the first generation computers began in 1946 because that was the year when people consciously set out to build stored program computers (many won't agree, and I don't intend to debate it). The first past the post, as it were, was the EDSAC in 1949. The period closed about 1958 with the introduction of transistors and the general adoption of ferrite core memories.
OECD figures indicate that by the end of 1958 about 2,500 first generation computers were installed world-wide. (Compare this with the number of PCs shippedworld-wide in 1997, quoted as 82 million by Dataquest).
Two key events took place in the summer of 1946 at the Moore School of Electrical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania. One was the completion of the ENIAC. The other was the delivery of a course of lectures on "The Theory and Techniques of Electronic Digital Computers". In particular, they described the need to store the instructions to manipulate data in the computer along with the data. The design features worked out by John von Neumann and his colleagues and described in these lectures laid the foundation for the development of the first generation of computers. That just left the technical problems!
One of the projects to commence in 1946 was the construction of the IAS computer at the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton. The IAS computer used a random access electrostatic storage system and parallel binary arithmetic. It was very fast when compared with the delay line computers, with their sequential memories and serial arithmetic.
The Princeton group was liberal with information about their computer and before long many universities around the world were building their own, close copies. One of these was the SILLIAC at Sydney University in Australia.
I have written an emulator for SILLIAC. You can find it here, along with a link to a copy of the SILLIAC Programming Manual.

First Generation Technologies

In 1946 there was no 'best' way of storing instructions and data in a computer memory. There were four competing technologies for providing computer memory: electrostatic storage tubes, acoustic delay lines (mercury or nickel), magnetic drums (and disks?), and magnetic core storage.A high-speed electrostatic store was the heart of several early computers, including the computer at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton. Professor F. C. Williams and Dr. T. Kilburn, who invented this type of store, described it in Proc.I.E.E. 96, Pt.III, 40 (March, 1949). A simple account of the Williams tube is given here.
The great advantage of this type of "memory" is that, by suitably controlling the deflector plates of the cathode ray tube, it is possible to redirect the beam almost instantaneously to any part of the screen: random access memory.
Acoustic delay lines are based on the principle that electricity travels at the speed of light while mechanical vibrations travel at about the speed of sound. So data can be stored as a string of mechanical pulses circulating in a loop, through a delay line with its output connected electrically back to its input. Of course, converting electric pulses to mechanical pulses and back again uses up energy, and travel through the delay line distorts the pulses, so the output has to be amplified and reshaped before it is fed back to the start of the tube.
The sequence of bits flowing through the delay line is just a continuously repeating stream of pulses and spaces, so a separate source of regular clock pulses is needed to determine the boundaries between words in the stream and to regulate the use of the stream.
Delay lines have some obvious drawbacks. One is that the match between their length and the speed of the pulses is critical, yet both are dependent on temperature. This required precision engineering on the one hand and careful temperature control on the other. Another is a programming consideration. The data is available only at the instant it leaves the delay line. If it is not used then, it is not available again until all the other pulses have made their way through the line. This made for very entertaining programming!
A mercury delay line is a tube filled with mercury, with a piezo-electric crystal at each end. Piezo-electric crystals, such as quartz, have the special property that they expand or contract when the electrical voltage across the crystal faces is changed. Conversley, they generate a change in electrical voltage when they are deformed. So when a series of electrical pulses representing binary data is applied to the transmitting crystal at one end of the mercury tube, it is transformed into corresponding mechanical pressure waves. The waves travel through the mercury until they hit the receiving crystal at the far end of the tube, where the crystal transforms the mechanical vibrations back into the original electrical pulses.
Mercury delay lines had been developed for data storage in radar applications. Although far from ideal, they were an available form of computer memory around which a computer could be designed. Computers using mercury delay lines included the ACE computer developed at the National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, and its successor, the English Electric DEUCE.
A good deal of information about DEUCE (manuals, operating instructions, program and subroutine codes and so on) is available on the Web and you can find links to it here.
Nickel delay lines take the form of a nickel wire. Pulses of current representing bits of data are passed through a coil surrounding one end of the wire. They set up pulses of mechanical stress due to the 'magnetostrictive' effect. A receiving coil at the other end of the wire is used to convert these pressure waves back into electrical pulses. The Elliott 400 series, including the 401, 402, 403 used nickel delay lines. Much later, in 1966, the Olivetti Programma 101 desk top calculator also used nickel delay lines.
The magnetic drum is a more familiar technology, comparable with modern magnetic discs. It consisted of a non-magnetic cylinder coated with a magnetic material, and an array of read/write heads to provide a set of parallel tracks of data round the circumference of the cylinder as it rotated. Drums had the same program optimisation problem as delay lines.
Two of the most (commercially) successful computers of the time, the IBM 650 and the Bendix G-15, used magnetic drums as their main memory.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology Whirlwind 1 was another early computer and building started in 1947. However, the most important contribution made by the MIT group was the development of the magnetic core memory, which they later installed in Whirlwind. The MIT group made their core memory designs available to the computer industry and core memories rapidly superceded the other three memory technologies.

Where Does the Bendix G-15 Fit In?

Table 1 shows, in chronological order between 1950 and 1958, the initial operating date of computing systems in the USA. This is not to suggest that all of these computers were first generation computers, or that no first generation computers were made after 1958. It does give a rough guide to the number of first generation computers made.Bendix introduced their G-15 in 1956. It was not the first Bendix computing machine. They introduced a model named the D-12, in 1954. However, the D-12 was a digital differential analyser and not a general purpose computer.
We don't know when the last Bendix G-15 was built, but about three hundred of the computers were ultimately installed in the USA. Three found their way to Australia. The one we have was purchased by the Department of Main Roads in Perth in 1962. It was used in the design of the Mitchell Freeway, the main road connecting the Northern suburbs to the city.
The G-15 was superceded by the second generation (transistorised) Bendix G-20.
Table 2 shows the computers installed or on order, in Australia, about December 1962. The three Bendix G-15s were in Perth (Department of Main Roads), Sydney (A.W.A. Service Bureau) and Melbourne (E.D.P Pty Ltd).

Overview of the G-15

The Bendix G-15 was a fairly sophisticated, medium size computer for its day. It used a magnetic drum for internal memory storage and had 180 tube packages and 300 germanium diode packages for logical circuitry. Cooling was by internal forced air.Storage on the Magnetic Drum comprised 2160 words in twenty channels of 108 words each. Average access time was 4.5 milliseconds. In addition, there were 16 words of fast-access storage in four channels of 4 words each, with average access time of 0.54 milliseconds; and eight words in registers consisting of 1 one-word command register, 1 one-word arithmetic register, and 3 two-word arithmetic registers for double-precision operations.
A 108-word buffer channel on the magnetic drum allowed input-output to proceed simultaneously with computation.
Word size was 29 bits, allowing single-precision numbers of seven decimal digits plus sign during input-output and twenty nine binary digits internally, and double-precision numbers of fourteen decimal digits plus sign during input-output, fifty eight binary digits internally.
Each machine language instruction specified the address of the operand and the address of the next instruction. Double-length arithmetic registers permitted the programming of double-precision operations with the same ease as single-precision ones.
An interpreter called Intercom 1000 and a compiler called Algo provided simpler alternatives to machine language programming. Algo followed the principles set forth in the international algorithmic language, Algol, and permitted the programmer to state a problem in algebraic form. The Bendix Corporation claimed to be the first manufacturer to introduce a programming system patterned on Algol.
The basic computation times, in milliseconds, were as follows (including the time required for the computer to read the command prior to its execution). The time range for multiplication and division represents the range between single decimal digit precision and maximum precision.