Future Generations of Computers

What will future generations of computers be like? Computers will respond to a human voice, rather than ordinary input devices such as a keyboard, tape recorder, or disk drive. There are already some computers which can "understand" a small spoken vocabulary. Some computers can "speak" certain sounds through voice synthesizers. These output units are being improved so that computers will be able to "talk" and sound almost human.

Scientists are already trying to fit millions of circuits on one chip. That will make computers even smaller and faster than they are now. Small pocket-size computers are already being sold. Some days, computers more powerful than today's will be as common and as small as tiny calculators.

From the time people counted on their fingers to the time world's first electromechanical computer was built, thousands of years went by. Yet, it took only thirty years from the invention of the big, expensive, and "slow" ENIAC, to the development of small, inexpensive, and fast microcomputers. What caused the rapid changes in those thirty years? New inventions usually open up new areas to explore. They bring about even more new inventions. This has been true with computers. Computers are used to design new computers. When a new and better computer has been built, it can be used to help design an even better computer. What will smaller, more powerful, less expensive computers mean to us? Perhaps, some day, there will be a computer in every home or in every student's school bag!

II. Answer the following questions:

1. Why are the improvements in computers taking place at a faster and faster rate?

2. What is the name of the world's first electromechanical computer?

3. What name is given to electronic computers that translate information into digits to store and process?

4. What devices were used to conduct electricity in the first-generation computers?

5. What devices were used to conduct electricity in second-generation computers?

6. What devices were used to conduct electricity in third-generation computers?

7. What device is used to conduct electricity in fourth-generation computers?

III. Match the electrical device with the computer generation.

a. integrated circuit 1. first generation

b. vacuum tube 2. second generation

c. integrated circuit chip 3. third generation

d. transistor 4. fourth generation

IV. Topics for discussion.

1. Pretend you are the president of a large company during the 1950s. Name one advantage and one problem in buying a UNIVAC for your company.

2. If a computer was small enough and inexpensive enough for you to own and carry to university, what would you use it for?

3. Why are fourth-generation computers used by many companies?

V. Find proper English terms to the following explanations: