- In the last video in this series,
I posed a question to you,
did you know what computer generation we're currently in?
Now, you'll find out the answer to that later in the video.
My name's Tim Buchalka from the Learn Programming Academy
and this is video two in my Learn to Code series
here on YouTube.
So make sure you subscribe to be automatically notified
anytime I release a new video in this series.
So it's very useful when learning to programme
to understand the history of the computer.
We started doing just that in the previous video.
So click up to my left
if you haven't watched that first video.
So don't worry in terms of programming
because we'll actually get to the coding stuff really soon.
In this video, though,
we're gonna discuss the more commonly cited advancements
in the computer from the 1950s through to today
and actually to the foreseeable future, as well.
But starting with the 1950s,
computer scientists back then,
they began adopting a generational number
to the technologies used in a computer,
and that numbering actually continues as of today.
So as we go through this video,
keep in mind that the term computer
is now much broader today than it was back even as recently
as the turn of the 21st century.
So today, all kinds of electronic smart devices
can be classified as computers.
So we live in very interesting and exciting times indeed.
All right, so are you ready?
Let's go.
The 1950s kicked off the proliferation
of the stored programme computer as we know it today
and the generational labelling of computers
by computer scientists
based on various hardware technologies used.
So in answer to the question of which computer generation
we're presently in,
well, we're currently in what's known
as the fifth generation,
and we're moving slowly towards the sixth.
So let's look briefly now at what each computer generation
actually included and is all about.
The first generation in the 1950 utilised vacuum tubes
for processing and storage
and were massive in size,
consuming entire large rooms.
It could take days or even weeks for people to reconfigure
these massive devices in preparation
for another calculation to be done.
Magnetic tape became the storage device of this era.
The second generation in the late 1950s to mid 1960s
used transistors and magnetic cores
rather than the vacuum tubes,
which reduced their physical size somewhat.
Transistors supported two states.
For example, on-off, yes-no, open-closed, et cetera,
and are implemented as two binary digits, zero and one,
often referred to as bits.
IBM invented the magnetic hard disc around 1957
because of the need for real-time data storage
for accounting work used by businesses.
Its first disc consisted of 50 platters
with 100 writable surfaces
and could store a, wait for it,
whopping 3.75 megabytes of data.
Wow, that was a huge amount of data in that day.
Finally, the Fortran and Cobol programming languages
emerged during this decade.
The third generation emerged from 1965 through 1975
and was identified using integrated circuits or ICs
rather than transistors and magnetic cores.
These computers became known as mini computers
because their physical size shrunk
to about the size of a desk.
IBM introduced removable disc storage in 1970,
and it could hold 100 megabytes of data.
The floppy disc drive, FDD,
was invented at IBM by Alan Shugart in 1967
and used an eight-inch floppy.
Shugart went on to eventually form Seagate Technologies.
The first commercially available floppy discs
for data storage could store less than one megabyte of data.
Through the next 25 to 30 years,
the floppy disc drive and disc shrunk to 5.25-inch
and then to a hard cased 3.5-inch disc
capable of storing several million bits of data.
The fourth generation emerged from 1975 to 1985
and was known as the microcomputer desktop computers era.
It was also the beginning of the networked computer.
Steve Jobs and Stephen Wozniak
co-founded Apple Computer in 1976,
and IBM introduced its first desktop computer,
calling it a personal computer or PC, in 1981.
So this was the generation
that I got introduced to computers.
1980 was the year,
and I immediately found a passion for them,
and that's actually continued to this day.
The fifth generation has continued for over 30 years now
and includes massively parallel processors
capable of quadrillions--
that's 10 to the power of 15--
of computations per second.
Hand-held and body-wearing devices
to artificial intelligence, virtual reality,
and just about every type of computer
we see or hear about today.
Many of these computers are now intentionally
embedded within other devices,
such as an automobile, lodging house,
lighting systems in buildings,
and even home refrigerators.
Data storage capacity has risen
tremendously during this time,
and at the same time,
its cost has significantly decreased.
Memory sticks or thumb drives
have virtually replaced the floppy disc.
Cloud storage is quite prominent, as well,
with such thanks to Dropbox, iCloud, OneDrive, and others.
The sixth generation is slowly emerging,
and it may be characterised by a few very different
concepts and technologies.
For example, the use of gallium arsenide chips
rather than silicone wafer chips
and the notion of quantum computing,
which is based on quantum physics.
Quantum computers are not based on the use of binary codes,
zero and ones.
Binary code, though,
continues to be used in today's computers,
but quantum computers are not based on transistors,
but rather on the use of quantum bits.
So a quantum bit can have far more than two states.
A quantum bit is very different than a binary bit.
A quantum bit can store far more data than a binary bit.
So 100 quantum bits can theoretically contain
10 to the power of 30 individual pieces of information.
More importantly, however,
the way that quantum bits work
make parallel processing a necessity.
This means that mind-bogglingly massive calculations
could conceivably be performed in a fraction of a second
using only one CPU cycle.
Another technology being explored is DNA-based data storage.
A single gramme of synthetic DNA
can hold 215 petabytes of data.
Wow, oh my, that's a lot of data.
So researchers really do like to push the boundaries
of any existing theory, concept, or actual advancement,
and so it's certainly not that unusual
to see computing evolve in the same way.
As I've said before, we truly do live in exciting times.
All right, so we've come to the end of this video,
but I have got a question for you first.
Do you know what boolean operations are?
Now, they are foundational
for better understanding of today's computers,
but also programming in general.
So find out what they are
and what they're all about in the next video,
and thanks for watching.
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Thanks for watching.
See you in the next video.