Third generation

First integrated circuits

Invention of integrated circuits has led to the emergence of third-generation computers, which lasted from 1964 to 1969. Integrated circuit contains the equivalent of a few hundred transistors miniature piece of material. This contributed to the dimensions of these computers a lot to reduce the so called mini computers. Their speed increased, the price fell and therefore their use has expanded in many areas of human activity. With the overall operation of computers of this generation managed specially written program called OS. In 1971, a team from IBM led by Alan Shugart produces the first floppy disk (memory disk or floppy disk), with the dimension of 8 inches (20 cm). Figure 13 shows the three generations of disks with the dimension of 8, 5 ¼ and 3 ½ inchi. Computers integrated circuits were short on the market. The crucial invention that has caused their withdrawal were integrated circuits that contain more transistors on a chip. The number of transistors grew under Moore's law, and for 10 years their number reached 1000.

Modern integrated circuits