FREE online courses on the Basics of a Computer - FOURTH GENERATION COMPUTERS

 

The dream of the Fairchild Corporation to put a whole computer onto a single chip heralded the entry of the microprocessor. This was made possible by Robert Nocye. The technology of large scale integration (LSI) technology. It is the LSI technology that led to the development of the microcomputer. It is expected that before 1990 more than one million components will be integrated onto a single chip. This will be known as the Very Large Scale Integration.

 

A microprocessor is a tiny solid state device, about the size of a thumb nail which in itself is a small computer capable of performing arithmetic and logical operations. The revolution brought about by the microprocessor led to the following developments:

 

Large computers that are much faster, less expensive and of much greater capacity than equivalent sized third generation computers.

 

Minicomputers that is equally capable but much less expensive.

 

Microcomputers which are even further miniaturized computers.

 

Among the advanced input-output devices employed by the fourth generation computers are the optical readers, by which whole documents can be led into the computer; audio response terminals, by which an operator can vocally communicate with the computer; and graphics display terminals by which pictures can be obtained from the computer.

 

In is predicted that in the future it will be possible to put more than 10 million components on a single chip. In other words, the size of today's mainframe computer will shrink to the size of a pocket calculator and still be many times more powerful!