- The third generation computers were developed during 1965-1974. The integrated circuit, or as it is sometimes referred to as semiconductor chip, packs a huge number of transistors onto a single wafer of silicon. Rebert Noyce of Fairchild Corporation and Jack Kilby of Texax Intruments independently discovered the amazing attributes of integrated circuits. Placing such large numbers of transistors on a single chip vastly increased the power of a single computer and lowered its cost consisderably.
- The features of this generation of computers were:
- Integrated circuits were used
- Power consumption was low
- High level languages were used
- More reliable and better in performance
- Magnetic disks were used for auxiliary memory
- The examples of third generation computers were IBM system/360, Honeywell 200 series, National Cash Register Century Series, ICL 1900 series and IBM 370 series.
