UITM SHAH ALAM

TERM PAPER : A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF COMPUTERS AND ITS IMPACT ON SOCIETY.

NAME : NURUL ATHIRAH BINTI AB RAHMAN UITM NO : 2013264868 PROGRAM : CS248 GROUP : CS2481A NAME OF LECTURER : PROF. HJ SHAFIE MEHAD

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Evolution of computers and its impact on society. The history of computer development is often referred to in reference to the different generations of computing devices. Each of the five generations of computers is characterized by a major technological development that fundamentally changed the way computers operate, resulting in increasingly smaller, cheaper, more efficient and reliable computing devices. Furthermore, every generation have a extreme improvement over the previous era in the technology used in the manufacturing process, the internal layout of computer systems, and programming language. There has also been a steady improvement in algorithms, including algorithms used in computational science, eventhough it not usually associated with computer generations. The evolution of modern computers is divided into a few different generations. The following timeline has been organized using a logical breakdown of events and discoveries. Nowadays, as we know there has five generations computing devices that start from a big size to a smaller to make it more sophisticated and easier to used at everywhere.
Computer graphics matured over many years and played an important role in the development of engineering products like automotive and aircraft components. The current CAx (CAD/ CAM/ CAE) tools use computer graphics extensively, while helping in conceiving better designs with improved quality. Nowadays, engineering product development is being done concurrently and collaboratively, due to the advances in computer graphics. This paper presents a brief overview on evolution of computer graphics over the years. It also attempts to present, how advances in computer graphics, have revolutionized the current engineering product development and what future technologies will offer.

First Generation (1940-1956) : Vacuum tubes. The first computers used vacuum tubes for circuitry and magnetic drums for memory and it is more enormous for taking up entire rooms. They were very expensive to operate and in addition to using a great deal of electricity, generated a lot of heat, that was the cause of malfunctions. The IBM pioneered the arrangement of vacuum tubes in pluggable modules. First generation computers relied on machine language, lowest-level programming language to understood by computers, to perform operation. Beside that, they could only save one problem at a time because the first generation only use machine language and lowest-level programming language that difficult to computer understand. Input was based on punched cards and paper tape, and output was displayed on print out.

Second Generation (1956-1963) : Transistors. After a few years, the programmers was found a new electronic devices that is transistors marked the second generation for upgrade the systems more sophisticated. A transistor is a semiconductor device used to amplify and switch electronic signals and electrical power. It is composed of semiconductor material with at least three terminals for connection to an external circuit. The transistor is the basic device used in miniaturized electronic systems, such as portable radios, or as a fast switch in computers. These transistors took place of the vacuum tubes that was used in the first generation computers. The transistors was far superior to the vacuum tubes, allowing computers to become smaller, faster, cheaper, more energyefficient and more reliable than first generation previous. The transistor can be used for a variety of different things including amplifiers and digital switches for computer microprocessors. Some transistor are individually packaged, so they can handle high power and most are inside integrated circuits. One of the other benefits to the programming group was that the second generation replaced machine language with the assembly language which allowed programmers to specify instructions in words. At the same time, high-level programming language were also produced. Even though complex in itself assembly language was much easier than the binary code.

Moreover, these were also the first computers that stores their instructions in their memory, which moved from a magnetic drum to magnetic core technology. First large scale machines were made using these technologies to meet the requirements of atomic energy laboratories. The first computers of this generation were also developed for the atomic energy industry. In second generation computers also started showing the characteristics of modern computers with utilities such as printers, disk storage and operating systems. Since the new generation start many financial information was processed using these computers to modified. In this generation, instruction could be stored inside the computers memory. Second generation was changed machine language to the assembly language that was used a high-level language such as COBOL (Common Business-Oriented Language) and FRONTON (Formula Translator) and sometime they are still used for some applications.