Part III: Transistors Assemble!

The 3rd Generation –Integrated Circuits

• (1964 to 1971)
• Software Technology - The keyboard and the monitor were interfaced through the operating system. Operating system allowed different applications to run at the same time.High-level languages were used extensively for programming, instead of machine language and assembly language.
• Computing Characteristics - The computation time was in nanoseconds.
• Physical Appearance - The size of these computers was quite small compared to the second generation computers.
• Application - Computers became accessible to mass audience. Computers were produced commercially, and were smaller and cheaper than their predecessors.
• Examples - IBM 370, PDP 11.

In an IC chip, multiple transistors are placed on a silicon chip. Silicon is a type of semiconductor. The use of IC chip increased the speed and the efficiency of computer, manifold. The keyboard and monitor were used to interact with the third generation computer, instead of the punched card and printouts.