Pre-Computer- need for calculation & automatic decisions develops

• Government- Census Data, Military Calculations
• Census of 1880 completed in 1887; use Hollerith paper cards
• Telephone Company- Automatic Switching
• (Business might sometimes be large, but it has existing methods)

First Generation (1944-1559)- All Electronic

• Switching: vacuum tubes; large, hot, use power; burn out
• Storage: Often None; Magnetic Tape begins mid 1950s
• Interface: dials and switches; paper cards; scientists
• Examples: Colossus (British Code Breaker) ENIAC (Univ. of Penn., 1946)
• Era of the Mainframe begins- 30 tons, large as a house

Second Generation (1959-1964)

• Switching: transistors developed by Bell Labs- less heat and power; smaller
• Storage: paper or magnetic tape drives
• Interface: paper cards; paper or magnetic tape; print outs; specialist "systems or computer operator"

Third Generation (1964-1972)

• Switching: Integrated Circuits place 1000s transistors on a chip (Bell Labs)
• Produced by photographic etching; no soldering of circuits; reliable
• Storage: paper or magnetic tape drives;
• Interface: the above plus Command Line Driven TV like Terminal; specialist code writer "computer programmer"

Fourth Generation (1972-present)

• Switching: Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI)- computers on a chip
• Storage- CD-Roms, Floppy Disks; Hard Disk Drives;
• Interface- Beginnings of Graphic User Interface (GUI)- Xerox, later Apple Mouse, Desktop with icons; "every day people"
• 'Computers' can develop everywhere; 'supercomputers' also develop

Projected "Fifth Generation" (1979-present)

• Use of artificial intelligence; neuro-computers; sharing
• Interface- multimedia; neural; who?
• Computers become part of a smart environment; linked
• Who? [Where will the intelligence of the system reside? With the end-user or 'on the network']