From the birth of the first computer in 1946 to the present, according to the electronic devices used in computers, the development of computers has roughly gone through four stages. Namely:

The first generation, electronic tube computer with electronic tube as the main component (1946 ~1958);

Electron tube is the basic electronic device; Use machine language and assembly language; Mainly used for national defense and scientific calculation; The operation speed ranges from thousands to tens of thousands of times per second.

The second generation, transistor computer with transistor as the main component (1958 ~1964);

Transistor is the main device; The operating system and algorithm language appeared on the software; The operation speed ranges from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of times per second.

The third generation computers adopt integrated circuits (1964 ~1971);

Integrated circuits are widely used; The volume of transactions has shrunk; The operation speed ranges from hundreds of thousands to millions of times per second.

The fourth generation computer adopts large-scale and ultra-large-scale integrated circuits (197 1~).

Large-scale integrated circuit is the main device; The operation speed ranges from one million times per second to hundreds of millions of times.

Now, the computer has entered the development stage of the fifth generation computer which is different from the previous four generations in technology, concept and function. In a word, with the development of computer technology, the volume of computers is getting smaller and smaller, and the capacity is getting bigger and bigger. The function is getting stronger and stronger, and it is more and more convenient to use and maintain.