Steve Lewis wrote: > I always considered a mainframe to basically be a "fully decked out" > minicomputer.
You may find people will disagree with that. I'm not sure what mainframe means either, but I'm asking around. Pysical size, I/O capacity, CPU offload to front ends, and users served seem to factor into it. > Actually, to answer my own question: if "main frame" refers to the actual > framing... well the PDP-1, PDP-10, PDP-10 were minicomputers and still > required a lot of metal "framing" to set up. So, can't they be considered > mainframes? I believe the term minicomputer was first applied to the PDP-8. It was kind of retroactively applied going back to the PDP-1. Whether the PDP-10 is a mini is sometimes hotly debated. IBM people say no, DEC peole say yes. > another notion is that mainframes are "multi-user" -- most early > microcomputers were not multi-user, as they just barely supported the needs > of one user; I'm not sure if the very first minicomputers were > multi-user? Kind of yes, but recally early computers were often operated in batch mode. Minis would typically do one task, or handle a few users. > The term minicomputer has always been awkward to me -- "mini" in my > head just means something smaller than me, which most minicomputers > aren't Consider that a minicomputer is larger than microcomputer. > But to say "mainframe" when showing a minicomputer I don't think that does a service to anyone.
