Computing Generations

(1946-1959) First sparks of what we currently consider “computing”. The ENIAC and Colossus used vacuum tubes for data storage, ran slow and hot under a lot of power, and were large enough to occupy a whole warehouse. Low memory, unreliable, and manually programmed in machine language.

(1959-Mid 60s) These computers used transistors which were much smaller and ran cooler than vacuum tubes and on less power. Only large enough to occupy a whole room. They were called “mainframes” and used assembly language over words.

(Mid 60s-Early 70s) The beginning of “modern computing”. These computers ran on multiple transistors holding 1 and 0 bits and crammed together onto “chips”. Still quite large and expensive for quite low memory. Early Apollo space missions used these chips.

(Early 70s-……..) “Age of the microprocessors” The chips were reduced from several square inches in size down to between 7-14 nanometers (billionths of a meter).Gone are mainframes, in lieu of PCs, laptops, and PIMs.

(Early 80s-……..) Age of A.I. Amazon Alexa, OK Google… both examples of “machine learning”