The next jump in the development of computer technology came with the introduction of large-scale ICs. Using less-expensive silicon chips, engineers managed to place more and more electronic components on each chip. Whereas the older ICs contained hundred of transistors, the new ones contained thousands or tens of thousands (modern microprocessors can contain more than 40 million transistors).
It was the large-scale ICs that made possible to produce the microprocessor and the microcomputer. The price of computers then fell; more and more small businesses and individuals could afford to buy them. Microcomputers – systems no larger than portable television sets yet with large computing power – began to be called the personal computers (PCs). All these recent developments have resulted in a microprocessor revolution, which began in the middle 1970s and for which there is no end in sight.
The Fourth Generation (1980s and beyond)
By the beginning of the 1980s, integrated circuitry had advanced to very large-scale integration (VLSI). This technology greatly increased the circuit density of microprocessor, memory and support circuitry – i.e. those that serve to interface microprocessors with input-output devices. By the 1990s, some VLSI circuits had contained more than 3 million transistors on a silicon chip less than 2 square cm in area.
The digital computers using VLSI technologies are frequently referred to as fourth-generation systems. These computers are hundred times smaller than those of the first generation and a single chip is far more powerful than the whole ENIAC. They are characterized by low cost, ease of use and large capabilities.
This fourth generation is the first in which a lot of computers are widely used in business, science, industry, medicine, education, or for home use. In addition to the common applications in digital watches, pocket calculators and personal computers, there are microprocessors in practically every machine at home or business – from microwave ovens and cellular telephones to spacecrafts and Global Positioning System3 (GPS) devices.
The Fifth Generation
The computer revolution is very dynamic. We are on the threshold4of the fifth generation of computers. The term was devised by the Japanese to describe the powerful, intelligent computers they wanted to build by the mid-1990s. Since then it has become an umbrella term5, encompassing many research fields in the computer industry. Today researchers in the USA, Western Europe, Japan work on the problems of artificial intelligence, the application of natural languages for inputting data, ultra-large-scale integration (ULSI) technologies, etc.
Notes: 1priesthood – высшая каста, сленг спецы, асы, гуру;
2far-fetched – "притянутый за уши", нереальный;
3Global Positioning System – глобальная система навигации и определения положения;
4threshold – порог, преддверие, канун;
5umbrella term – всеохватывающий термин (номинация).