Computers Have Changed The World. Along With The Internet, Advanced Te

Computers have changed the world. Along with the Internet, advanced telecommunications easier travel. A global community has been created in the past 50 years. Using satellite technology and fiber-optics it is possible to communicate instantaneously anywhere in the world, using the Internet it is possible to use visual-telephones with almost no lag and this technology is available to almost everyone. If there is one field of social change that is on the fast track, then it is the field of technology, specifically computers, telecommunications and the Internet. Computers There are five recognized generations of the modern computer. The first is from 1945-1956, World War II lead governments to research the potential of computers in strategic combat. A computer development spurred by the war was the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC), produced by a partnership between the U.S. government and the University of Pennsylvania. Consisting of 18,000 vacuum tubes, 70,000 resistors and 5 million soldered joints, the computer was such a massive piece of machinery that it consumed 160 kilowatts of electrical power, enough energy to dim the lights in an entire section of Philadelphia. Developed by John Presper Eckert (1919-1995) and John W. Mauchly (1907-1980), ENIAC, unlike the Colossus and Mark I, was a general-purpose computer that computed at speeds 1,000 times faster than Mark I. First generation computers were characterized by the fact that operating instructions were made-to-order for the specific task for which the computer was to be used. Second Generation was from 1956-1963, By 1948, the invention of the transistor greatly changed the computer's development. The transistor replaced the large, cumbersome vacuum tube in televisions, radios and computers. As a result, the size of electronic machinery has been shrinking ever since. The transistor was at work in the computer by 1956. Coupled with early advances in magnetic-core memory, transistors led to second generation computers that were smaller, faster, more reliable and more energy-efficient than their predecessors. The third generation 1964-1971 saw creation of the quartz rock. This eliminated the problem of transistors overheating and destroying a computer from the inside out. Jack Kilby, an engineer with Texas Instruments,developed the integrated circuit (IC) in 1958. The IC combined three electronic components onto a small silicon disc, which was made from quartz. Scientists later managed to fit even more components on a single chip, called a semiconductor. As a result, computers became ever smaller as more components were squeezed onto the chip. Another third-generation development included the use of an operating system that allowed machines to run many different programs at once with a central program that monitored and coordinated the computer's memory. The fourth generation is 1971-present, after the integrated circuits, the only place to go was down - in size, that is. Large scale integration (LSI) could fit hundreds of components onto one chip. By the 1980's, very large scale integration (VLSI) squeezed hundreds of thousands of components onto a chip. Ultra-large scale integration (ULSI) increased that number into the millions. The ability to fit so much onto an area about half the size of a U.S. dime helped diminish the size and price of computers. It also increased their power, efficiency and reliability. The Intel 4004 chip, developed in 1971, took the integrated circuit one step further by locating all the components of a computer (central processing unit, memory, and input and output controls) on a minuscule chip. We are currently living the fifth generation, many advances in the science of computer design and technology are coming together to enable the creation of fifth-generation computers. Two such engineering advances are parallel processing, which replaces von Neumann's single central processing unit design with a system harnessing the power of many CPUs to work as one. Another advance is superconductor technology, which allows the flow of electricity with little or no resistance, greatly improving the speed of information flow. Computers today have some attributes of fifth generation computers. For example, expert systems assist doctors in making diagnoses by applying the problem-solving steps a doctor might use in assessing a patient's needs. It will take several more years of development before expert systems are in widespread use. Telecommunications Webster's Dictionary defines Telecommunications as "the transmission of words, sounds, images, or data in the form of electronic or electromagnetic