Fourth Generation Computers

Then, in 1971 Intel created the first microprocessor.²² The microprocessor was a large-scale integrated circuit which contained thousands of transistors. The transistors on this one chip were capable of performing all of the functions of a computer's central processing unit. The reduced size, reduced cost, and increased speed of the microprocessor led to the creation of the first personal computers. In 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak built the first Apple computer in a garage in California.²³ Then, in 1981, IBM introduced its first personal computer.²⁴ The personal computer was such a revolutionary concept and was expected to have such an impact on society that in 1982, "Time" magazine dedicated its annual "Man of the Year Issue" to the computer.²⁵

When personal computers first came into use, many people did not know what they were. Some people were amazed by these new tools and others did not like them.

Uncle Murph: He put it down on the conference room table in the board room and he said "What do you think about this?" I said "What do I think about what? What is it?" We didn't know what it was, but talk about revolutions.

Mom: When I started teaching in the early eighties, we had just the beginning of computers in the classrooms. The Apple computer company offered an Apple computer to every school in the country because they felt there was going to be a large market for computer software and computers, and they wanted to get their foot in the door. Their way of doing this was to offer any school who would like one an Apple computer. So, we happened to have an Apple computer in the school I was in. I was teaching basic skills and I was fortunate enough to have an Apple computer in my classroom to use with the children.

Aunt Dorothy: I hated them. In guidance, we had to use them for scheduling. At first, I thought I could do it a lot faster by hand than by the computer. But now that I'm used to it, I learned Word Perfect. We now do our recommendations on Word Perfect. So, it's a big asset and time saver, now that you know how to do it. But in the beginning, oh, I would hate it. Every time I made a mistake, I would somehow clap my hands because it would make me so angry and everybody would laugh in the office.

Mom: A newspaper reporter called and asked if I would allow my children to be interviewed by him because he wanted to write an article on the use of computers in the classroom. I said "certainly." He came in and he spoke to the children. He asked them if they were frightened because they were going to use computers, did they picture this huge machine that was the size of a room and would this be a frightening aspect to them. The children were quite baffled by the whole situation because he was thinking of the computers of ten or fifteen years before then. The children were accustomed to a much smaller computer. They said no, they weren't frightened at all by the use of computers, that they looked forward to their time on the computer, and they thought that computers were really a great deal of fun.

Within a matter of years, computers spread from the work place into the home.

Mom: When we got a computer in our home, it was probably in the mid-80s. My children were in elementary school at the time, and we used the computer mainly for games and for fun activities like that. And then, as they got a little older and they had to write reports, they started using the computer as a word processing tool. In later years, it has received more use in that area than an activity center for games or that type of thing.

Personal computers have changed a great deal since the early eighties. The hardware has definitely changed, the computers are faster now, have more memory, and are relatively inexpensive. But the large increase in home use of computers has come about as the result of an increase in the quantity and quality of the software available. Originally, there was no software available and so some people wrote their own. Companies now produce software to help people do word processing, balance their check book, and store phone numbers.

Mom: There were not too many programs available at the time, so some of the teachers would have to try and write their own programs, or we were able to get some prepackaged programs.

Jim: I used to use word processing on the computer and it was real simple: just type it, capitalize it, and have your mom come down and read it to make sure it's correct. Now, you can run it through all kinds of grammar checks, all kinds of spelling checks, and basically you really don't need to know much grammar or spelling anymore cause you just type it out and the computer fixes it for you.

In addition to the many programs designed for adults, many software products are geared towards children, in particular, video games. The first video games appeared in 1975, but they were nothing like the games of today.²⁶ The increased processing speed and memory in computers has led to an increase in the quality of computer graphics.

Jim: We played it all the time. We used to sit around the TV and play Pacman. That was just a great game. We thought: "Oh, look at this. This is great graphics. Look how quick he moves and look at the little ghosts blinking and flashing. You have got to gobble them up." But, now I've seen some of the graphics on the new computer games. There's a game out called Doom and it's almost realistic, the graphics. The change, it's unreal. Some of the sports games, they used to have with stick figures and a little square ball that would go across the screen real slow. This was the highest there was when I was young. This was the highest technology in video games. Now, anything you want is there, anything. There's nothing you can't do with the graphics on video games.

The introduction of the integrated circuit and its development into the very-large scale integrated circuit started a technological revolution which caused computers to invade almost every aspect of our society. This phenomena occurred because of the increased performance, reduced size, and reduced cost of the newer computers.

Uncle Murph: Today, I think, I don't know, it's almost perfect, almost perfect. I mean, you have unlimited disk. If you run out, you just buy more. If you want more lines, you just add more lines. You don't have time division multi-plexing anymore because the hardware is so fast you don't have to worry about who gets a slice of time when they need it. The machine goes in and just like a multiplex, it just serves everybody. The software's so good, I mean, the response time at EDS from here to Dallas and back is less than 2 seconds. The large database has more than 171 million rows, db2, less than two seconds on 171 million rows, that's pretty good. It doesn't get much faster than that. I don't think it can cause we have got to send the signal down, we have got to send it back. How fast can it be? It can't be zero.

1 "Early Vacuum Tube Devices," The On-line Encyclopedia Britannica. 2 Harpur 133. 3 Williams, Science 128. 4 "Information Age." 5 Harpur 133. 6 Harpur 135. 7 Harpur 139. 8 Williams, Science 128. 9 "First Generation Computer," The On-line Encyclopedia Britannica. 10 Harpur 143. 11 AT&T. 12 Harpur 144. 13 Harpur 153. 14 Andrew S. Tanenbaum, Modern Operating Systems (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1992) 6. 15 Williams, Science 164-5. 16 "Third Generation Computer," The On-line Encyclopedia Britannica. 17 Harpur 173. 18 Harpur 176. 19 Williams, Science 125. 20 Williams, Science 125. 21 Harpur 188. 22 Williams, Science 164-5. 23 Harpur 209. 24 Williams, Science 194. 25 Apple Computer, Inc., Corporate Fact Sheet (on-line). 26 Harpur 205.