INTRODUCTION

 The use of Information Technology (IT) is well recognised. This

has become must for the survival of business houses with the
growing information technology trends. Computer is one of the
major component of an Information Technology network and
gaining increasing popularity. Today, computer technology has
permeated every sphere of existence of modern man. From
railway reservations to medical diagnosis, from TV programmes
to satellite launching, from match-making to criminal catching -
everywhere we witness the elegance, sophistication and
efficiency possible only with help of computers.

In this block, we will introduce you to the computer hardware

technology, how does it work and what is it? In addition we will
also try to discuss some of the terminology closely linked with
Information Technology and computers. Please note that these
terms are very commonly used and will be provided with only
limited details. More details on these terms can be obtained
from the further reading.
 WHAT IS A COMPUTER?

 Let first define the term computer. Computer is defined in the

Oxford dictionary as "An automatic electronic apparatus for
making calculations or controlling operations that are
expressible in numerical or logical terms".

The basic function performed by a computer is the execution of

a program. A program is a sequence of instructions which
operates on data to perform certain tasks. In modern digital
computers data is represented in binary form by using two
symbols 0 and 1 which are called binary digits or bits.
 COMPUTERS: THEN AND NOW
 Let us discuss the history of computers because this will give
the basic information about the technological development
trends in computer in the past and its projections in the future. If
we want to know about computers completely then we must
start from the history of computers and look into the details of
various technological and intellectual breakthrough. These are
essential to give us the feel of how much work and effort has
been done to get the computer in this shape.

The ancestors of modern age computer were the mechanical

and electromechanical devices. This ancestry can be traced as
back and 17th Century, when the first machine capable of
performing four mathematical operations, viz. addition,
subtraction, division and multiplication, appeared.
 First Generation Computers
 The ENIAC (the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator)
was designed in 1945 at the university of Pennsylvania to
calculate figures for thousands of gunnery tables required by the
US army for accuracy in artillery fire. The ENIAC ushered in the
era of what is known as first generation computers. It could
perform 5000 additions or 500 multiplications per minute. It was,
however, a giant machine, occupying a number of rooms, and
needed a great amount of electricity and emitted excessive
heat.

- ENIAC was a general purpose computing machine in which
vacuum tube technology was use.
 Second Generation Computers
 The second generation computers started with the advent of
transistors. A transistor is a two state device made from silicon.
It is cheaper, smaller and dissipates less heat than vacuum tube
but can be utilized in a similar way as that of vacuum tubes.
Unlike vacuum tubes, a transistor do not require wires, metal
glass capsule and vacuum, therefore, is called a solid state
device. The transistors were invented in 1947 and had launched
the electronic revolution in 1950.
 Third Generation Computers
 A single self-contained transistor is called discrete component.
In 1960s, the electronic, equipments were made from the
discrete components such as transistors, capacitors, resistors
and so on. These components were manufactured separately
and used to be soldered on circuit boards which then can be
used for making computers of the electronic components. Since
computer can contain around 10,000 of these transistors,
therefore, the entire mechanism was cumbersome.

Then started the era of micro-electronics (small electronic) with

the invention of Integrated Circuits (ICs). Use of ICs in computer
defines the third generation of computers.
 Later Generations

 As discussed earlier with the growth in micro-electronics the IC

technology evolved rapidly. One of the major milestone in this
technology was the very large scale integration where
thousands of transistors can be integrated on a single chip.

 It was possible to produce a complete CPU or main memory or

other similar devices on a single IC chip.
 Microprocessors
 Keeping pace with electronics as more and more component
were fabricated on single chip, fewer chips were needed to
construct a single processor. Intel in 1971 achieved the
breakthrough of putting all the components on a single chip. The
single chip processor is known as a microprocessor. The Intel
4004 was the first microprocessor. It was a primitive
microprocessor designed for a specific application.

Intel 8080 which came in 1974 was the first general purpose
microprocessor. It was an 8 bit microprocessor. Motorola is
another manufacturer in this area. At present 32 and 64 bit
general purpose microprocessors are already in the market.
 Type Of Computers
Microcomputers
 A microcomputer's CPU is a microprocessor. The microcomputer
originated in late 1970s. The first microcomputers were built around 8-
bit microprocessor chips. What do we mean by an 8-bit chip? It means
that the chip can retrieve instructions/data from storage, manipulate,
and process an 8-bit data at a time or we can say that the chip has a
built-in 8-bit data transfer path. A few 8-bit microprocessor chips are:
 Minicomputer :
 The term minicomputer originated in 1960s when it was realised that many
computing tasks do not require an expensive contemporary mainframe
computers but can be solved by a small, inexpensive computer. Initial
minicomputers were 8 bit and 12 bit machines but by 1970s almost all
minicomputers were 16 bit machines.

The 16 bit minicomputers have the advantage of large instruction set and
address field; and efficient storage and handling of text, in comparison to
lower bit machines. Thus, 16 bit minicomputer was more powerful machine
which could be used in variety of applications and could support business
applications alongwith the scientific applications.

With the advancement in technology the speed, memory size and other
characteristics developed and the minicomputer was then used for various
stand alone or dedicated applications. The minicomputer was then used as
a multi-user system, which can be used by various user at the same time.

Gradually the architectural requirement of minicomputers grew and a 32-bit

minicomputer which was called supermini was introduced. The supermini
had more peripheral devices, large memory and could support more users
working simultaneously on the computer in comparison to previous
minicomputers.
 Mainframes :
 Mainframe computers are generally 32-bit machines or on the
higher side. These are suited to big organisations, to manage
high volume applications. Few of popular mainframe series are
MEDHA, Sperry, DEC, ICL, etc. Mainframes are also used as
central host computers in distributed systems. Libraries of
applications programs developed for mainframe computers are
much large than those of the micro or minicomputers because
of their evolution over several decades as families of computing.
All these factors and many more make the mainframe
computers indispensable even with the popularity of
microcomputers.
 Supercomputer :

 The upper end of the state of the art mainframe machine are the
supercomputer. These are amongst the fastest machines in
terms of processing speed and use multiprocessing techniques,
were a number of processors are used to solve a problem.

 Supercomputer are mainly being used for weather forecasting,

computational fluid dynamics, remote sensing, image
processing, biomedical applications, etc. In India, we have one
such mainframe supercomputer system-CRAY XMP-14, which
is at present, being used by meteorological Department