Third Generation Computers (1964-1970) - Third Generation Computers were came into existence to be between 1901 and 1970. Integrated circuits (IC) began to be used in computers of this generation.
IC i.e., an integrated circuit is a complete electronic circuit that was built on a small silicon chip. This chip can be as large as an ant's size, in which thousands or millions of components are used. After the development of IC in 1965, the trend of transistors in computers almost stopped. Due to IC, the size of computers further reduced and computers started working at a faster pace.
These integrated chips were considered the discovery of the next generation because it had many features like small size, cheap and reliability as per the wishes of the people.
Early in the third generation IBM announced a computer called its 360 Series. These computers were designed for commercial and scientific use, and many models of these 360-series computer family were packed in blue boxes, due to which many people are known as it Blue.
In this generation, along with computers, external devices that store data, such as Disk, Tape, etc. also developed, which also reduced the pressure on computers' memory and due to this it became easier to write programs.
Multiprogramming (running multiple programs on the computer simultaneously) and Multiprocessing were also possible with this generation computers.
The computers of this generation were small in size as well as relatively cheap, due to which it was possible to install computers in many small companies and government offices as well. Some of the major computers of this generation were IBM360, IBM-370 series, ICL-1900 and ICL-2900 series, Uniq-9000 series etc.
