History of computer

First Generation (1941-1956)

World War gave rise to numerous developments and started off the computer age. Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC) was produced by a partnership between University of Pennsylvania and the US government. It consisted of 18,000 vacuum tubes and 7000 resistors. It was developed by John Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly and was a general purpose computer. "Von Neumann designed the Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer (EDVAC) in 1945 with a memory to hold both a stored program as well as data." Von Neumann's computer allowed for all the computer functions to be controlled by a single source.
Second Generation Computers (1956-1963)
The invention of Transistors marked the start of the second generation. These transistors took place of the vacuum tubes used in the first generation computers. First large scale machines were made using these technologies to meet the requirements of atomic energy laboratories. One of the other benefits to the programming group was that the second generation replaced Machine language with the assembly language. Even though complex in itself Assemly language was much easier than the binary code.


Third generation was during 1964-1974 in this year the size of computer has reduced.

Fourth Generation (1971-Present)

Fourth Generation computers are the modern day computers. The Size started to go down with the improvement in the integerated circuits. Very Large Scale(VLSI) and Ultra Large scale(ULSI) ensured that millions of components could be fit into a small chip. It reduced the size and price of the computers at the same time increasing power, efficiency and reliability. "The Intel 4004 chip, developed in 1971, took the integrated circuit one step further by locating all the components of a computer (central processing unit, memory, and input and output controls) on a minuscule chip.
Fifth Generation (Present and Beyond)

Fifth generations computers are only in the minds of advance research scientists and being tested out in the laboratories. These computers will be under Artificial Intelligence(AI), They will be able to take commands in a audio visual way and carry out instructions. Many of the operations which requires low human intelligence will be performed by these computers. 
Characteristic of fifth generation computer
1) The fifth generation computers will use super large scale integrated chips.
2) They will have artificial intelligence.
3) They will be able to recognize image and graphs.
4) Fifth generation computer aims to be able to solve highly complex problem including decision making, logical reasoning.
5) They will be able to use more than one CPU for faster processing speed.
6) Fifth generation computers are intended to work with natural language.