Third generation

Third generation

The mass increase in the use of computers accelerated with 'Third Generation' computers. These generally relied on Jack St. Clair Kilby's invention of the integrated circuit (or microchip), starting around 1965. However, the IBM System/360 used hybrid circuits, which were solid-state devices interconnected on a substrate with discrete wires.

The first integrated circuit was produced in September 1958 but computers using them didn't begin to appear until 1963. Some of their early uses were in embedded systems, notably used by NASA for the Apollo Guidance Computer and by the military in the LGM-30 Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missile.

By 1971, the Illiac IV supercomputer, which was the fastest computer in the world for several years, used about a quarter-million small-scale ECL logic gate integrated circuits to make up sixty-four parallel data processors.^[1]

While large 'mainframes' such as the System/360 increased storage and processing capabilities, the integrated circuit also allowed the development of much smaller computers. The minicomputer was a significant innovation in the 1960s and 1970s. It brought computing power to more people, not only through more convenient physical size but also through broadening the computer vendor field. Digital Equipment Corporation became the number two computer company behind IBM with their popular PDP and VAX computer systems. Smaller, affordable hardware also brought about the development of important new operating systems like Unix.

Large scale integration of circuits led to the development of very small processing units, an early example of this is the processor was the classified CADC used for analyzing flight data in the US Navy's F14A Tomcatfighter jet. This processor was developed by Steve Geller, Ray Holt and a team from AiResearch and American Microsystems.

In 1966, Hewlett-Packard entered the general purpose computer business with its HP-2116, offering a computational power formerly found only in much larger computers. It supported a wide variety of languages, among them BASIC, ALGOL, and FORTRAN.