What is meant by “fifth generation computers”? What are the other four generations?
The term “generations,” describing similar groups of computers, reflects the rapid advance of computer technology over the past few decades. There have been five generations of computers from 1945 to the mid-1990s. First generation computers—the earliest electronic computers, constructed from the end of World War II in 1945 until 1957. These computers were huge and very slow. They used bulky vacuum tubes as a means of transmitting electrical impulses and were programmed in machine code. (A vacuum tube is an electron tube from which all or most of the gas has been removed, permitting electrons to move through freely.) The earliest first generation computers stored information in tubes of mercury; subsequent computers used rotating magnetic drums. Univac 1 (Universal Automatic Computer), introduced in 1951, is…
