Q1: Which of the following machines are characterised by electronic tube circuitry, delay line, rotating or electrostatic memory.

ANS:A - First generation

First generation of computers : started in 1946 with ENIAC, the first 'computer' to use electronic valves (ie. Vacuum tubes).

Second Generation (1956-1963) : Transistors replace vacuum tubes and ushered in the second generation of computers.

Third generation (1965-1971) : used integrated circuits (IC's) in place of transistors. A single IC has many transistors, resistors and capacitors along with the associated circuitry.

The fourth generation computers : uses microprocessor, microprocessor is a silicon chip contains millions of transistors. These computers uses LSI (Large Scale Integration) and VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) technology. That was designed using LSI and VLSI technology.

Fifth generation computing devices : based on artificial intelligence, some applications, such as voice recognition, that are being used today.

The use of parallel processing and superconductors is helping to make artificial intelligence a reality.