- For small modern computers, see Small form factor
A small form factor is a computer form factor designed to minimize the volume of a desktop computer. For comparison purposes, the size of an SFF case is usually measured in litres. SFFs are available in a variety of sizes and shapes, including shoeboxes, cubes, and book-sized PCs...
, nettopNettop may refer to:*Nettop, a type of computer*NetTop, a NSA project...
, etc.
A
minicomputer (colloquially,
mini) is a class of multi-user
computerA computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
s that lies in the middle range of the computing spectrum, in between the largest multi-user systems (
mainframe computerMainframes are powerful computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.The term originally referred to the...
s) and the smallest single-user systems (
microcomputerA microcomputer is a computer with a microprocessor as its central processing unit. They are physically small compared to mainframe and minicomputers...
s or personal computers). The class at one time formed a distinct group with its own hardware and operating systems, but the contemporary term for this class of system is
midrange computerMidrange computers, or midrange systems, are a class of computer systems which fall in between mainframe computers and microcomputers.The class emerged in the 1960s and machines were generally known at the time as minicomputers - especially models from Digital Equipment Corporation , Data General,...
, such as the higher-end
SPARCSPARC is a RISC instruction set architecture developed by Sun Microsystems and introduced in mid-1987....
,
POWERPOWER is a reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by IBM. The name is an acronym for Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC....
and
ItaniumItanium is a family of 64-bit Intel microprocessors that implement the Intel Itanium architecture . Intel markets the processors for enterprise servers and high-performance computing systems...
-based systems from
Sun MicrosystemsSun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
,
IBMInternational Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
and
Hewlett-PackardHewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
.
1960s: Origin; 1970s: Market entrenchment
The term evolved in the 1960s to describe the "small" third generation computers that became possible with the use of
integrated circuitAn integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit is an electronic circuit manufactured by the patterned diffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material...
and core memory technologies. They usually took up one or a few cabinets the size of a large refrigerator or two, compared with
mainframesMainframes are powerful computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.The term originally referred to the...
that would usually fill a room. The first successful minicomputer was
Digital Equipment CorporationDigital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
’s 12-bit
PDP-8The 12-bit PDP-8 was the first successful commercial minicomputer, produced by Digital Equipment Corporation in the 1960s. DEC introduced it on 22 March 1965, and sold more than 50,000 systems, the most of any computer up to that date. It was the first widely sold computer in the DEC PDP series of...
, which cost from
US$The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
16,000 upwards when launched in 1964. The important precursors of the PDP-8 include the PDP-5,
LINCThe LINC was a 12-bit, 2048-word computer. The LINC can be considered the first minicomputer and a forerunner to the personal computer....
, the
TX-0The TX-0, for Transistorized Experimental computer zero, but affectionately referred to as tixo , was an early fully transistorized computer and contained a then-huge 64K of 18-bit words of magnetic core memory. The TX-0 was built in 1955 and went online in 1956 and was used continually through the...
, the
TX-2The MIT Lincoln Laboratory TX-2 computer was the successor to the Lincoln TX-0 and was known for its role in advancing both artificial intelligence and human-computer interaction.- Specifications :...
, and the
PDP-1The PDP-1 was the first computer in Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP series and was first produced in 1960. It is famous for being the computer most important in the creation of hacker culture at MIT, BBN and elsewhere...
. Digital Equipment gave rise to a number of minicomputer companies along Massachusetts Route 128, including
Data GeneralData General was one of the first minicomputer firms from the late 1960s. Three of the four founders were former employees of Digital Equipment Corporation. Their first product, the Data General Nova, was a 16-bit minicomputer...
,
Wang LaboratoriesWang Laboratories was a computer company founded in 1951 by Dr. An Wang and Dr. G. Y. Chu. The company was successively headquartered in Cambridge , Tewksbury , and finally in Lowell, Massachusetts . At its peak in the 1980s, Wang Laboratories had annual revenues of $3 billion and employed over...
,
Apollo ComputerApollo Computer, Inc., founded 1980 in Chelmsford, Massachusetts by William Poduska and others, developed and produced Apollo/Domain workstations in the 1980s. Along with Symbolics and Sun Microsystems, Apollo was one of the first vendors of graphical workstations in the 1980s...
, and
Prime ComputerPrime Computer, Inc. was a Natick, Massachusetts-based producer of minicomputers from 1972 until 1992. The alternative spellings "PR1ME" and "PR1ME Computer" were used as brand names or logos by the company.-Founders:...
.
Mini computers were also known as midrange computers. They had relatively high processing power and capacity that mostly fit the needs of mid range organizations. They were used in manufacturing processes or handling email that was sent and received by a company. In the 70's they were the hardware that was used to launch the computer aided design, CAD, industry and other similar industries where a smaller dedicated system was needed.
The
7400 seriesThe 7400 series of transistor-transistor logic integrated circuits are historically important as the first widespread family of TTL integrated circuit logic. It was used to build the mini and mainframe computers of the 1960s and 1970s...
of
TTLTransistor–transistor logic is a class of digital circuits built from bipolar junction transistors and resistors. It is called transistor–transistor logic because both the logic gating function and the amplifying function are performed by transistors .TTL is notable for being a widespread...
integrated circuitAn integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit is an electronic circuit manufactured by the patterned diffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material...
s started appearing in minicomputers in the late 1960s. The
74181The 74181 is a bit slice arithmetic logic unit , implemented as a 7400 series TTL integrated circuit. The first complete ALU on a single chip, it was used as the arithmetic/logic core in the CPUs of many historically significant minicomputers and other devices.The 74181 represents an evolutionary...
arithmetic logic unitIn computing, an arithmetic logic unit is a digital circuit that performs arithmetic and logical operations.The ALU is a fundamental building block of the central processing unit of a computer, and even the simplest microprocessors contain one for purposes such as maintaining timers...
(ALU) was commonly used in the
CPUThe central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...
data paths. Each 74181 had a bus width of four bits, hence the popularity of
bit-slice architecture. The 7400 series offered data-selectors,
multiplexerIn electronics, a multiplexer is a device that selects one of several analog or digital input signals and forwards the selected input into a single line. A multiplexer of 2n inputs has n select lines, which are used to select which input line to send to the output...
s, three-state buffers, memories, etc. in
dual in-line packageIn microelectronics, a dual in-line package is an electronic device package with a rectangular housing and two parallel rows of electrical connecting pins. The package may be through-hole mounted to a printed circuit board or inserted in a socket.A DIP is usually referred to as a DIPn, where n is...
s with one-tenth inch spacing, making major system components and architecture evident to the naked eye. Starting in the 1980s, many minicomputers used VLSI circuits.
As microcomputers developed in the 1970s and 80s, minicomputers filled the mid-range area between low powered microcomputers and high capacity mainframes. At the time microcomputers were single-user, relatively simple machines running simple program-launcher operating systems like
CP/MCP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
or
MS-DOSMS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...
, while minis were much more powerful systems that ran full multi-user, multitasking operating systems like
VMSOpenVMS , previously known as VAX-11/VMS, VAX/VMS or VMS, is a computer server operating system that runs on VAX, Alpha and Itanium-based families of computers. Contrary to what its name suggests, OpenVMS is not open source software; however, the source listings are available for purchase...
and
UnixUnix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
, often with
timesharingTime-sharing is the sharing of a computing resource among many users by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking. Its introduction in the 1960s, and emergence as the prominent model of computing in the 1970s, represents a major technological shift in the history of computing.By allowing a large...
versions of
BASICBASIC is a family of general-purpose, high-level programming languages whose design philosophy emphasizes ease of use - the name is an acronym from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code....
for application development (
MAI Basic FourMAI Basic Four refers to a variety of Business Basic, the computers that ran it, and the company that sold them .Basic/Four Corporation was created as a subsidiary of Management Assistance, Inc. in Irvine, California...
systems being very popular in that regard). The classical mini was a
16-bit-16-bit architecture:The HP BPC, introduced in 1975, was the world's first 16-bit microprocessor. Prominent 16-bit processors include the PDP-11, Intel 8086, Intel 80286 and the WDC 65C816. The Intel 8088 was program-compatible with the Intel 8086, and was 16-bit in that its registers were 16...
computer, while the emerging higher performance
32-bitThe range of integer values that can be stored in 32 bits is 0 through 4,294,967,295. Hence, a processor with 32-bit memory addresses can directly access 4 GB of byte-addressable memory....
minis were often referred to as superminis.
At the launch of the MITS Altair 8800 in 1975,
Radio Electronics*For the magazine, see Radio-ElectronicsRadio electronics is the sub-field of electrical engineering concerning itself with the class of electronic circuits which receive or transmit radio signals....
magazine referred to the system as a "minicomputer", although it would properly be called a
microcomputerA microcomputer is a computer with a microprocessor as its central processing unit. They are physically small compared to mainframe and minicomputers...
; as it was the first commercially available personal computer based on the single-chip
microprocessorA microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and...
from Intel.
Mid-1980s, 1990s: The minis give way to the micros
The decline of the minis happened due to the lower cost of microprocessor based
hardwarePersonal computer hardware are component devices which are typically installed into or peripheral to a computer case to create a personal computer upon which system software is installed including a firmware interface such as a BIOS and an operating system which supports application software that...
, the emergence of inexpensive and easily deployable
local area networkA local area network is a computer network that interconnects computers in a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, or office building...
systems, the emergence of the 68020, 80286 and the 80386 microprocessors, and the desire of end-users to be less reliant on inflexible minicomputer manufacturers and IT departments/“data centers”—with the result that minicomputers and
computer terminalA computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that is used for entering data into, and displaying data from, a computer or a computing system...
s were replaced by networked
workstationA workstation is a high-end microcomputer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by one person at a time, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems...
s and
serverIn the context of client-server architecture, a server is a computer program running to serve the requests of other programs, the "clients". Thus, the "server" performs some computational task on behalf of "clients"...
s and
PCIBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to...
s in the latter half of the 1980s.
During the 1990s the change from minicomputers to inexpensive PC networks was cemented by the development of several versions of
UnixUnix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
to run on the Intel x86 microprocessor
architectureIn computer science and engineering, computer architecture is the practical art of selecting and interconnecting hardware components to create computers that meet functional, performance and cost goals and the formal modelling of those systems....
, including Solaris,
FreeBSDFreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via BSD UNIX. Although for legal reasons FreeBSD cannot be called “UNIX”, as the direct descendant of BSD UNIX , FreeBSD’s internals and system APIs are UNIX-compliant...
,
NetBSDNetBSD is a freely available open source version of the Berkeley Software Distribution Unix operating system. It was the second open source BSD descendant to be formally released, after 386BSD, and continues to be actively developed. The NetBSD project is primarily focused on high quality design,...
and
OpenBSDOpenBSD is a Unix-like computer operating system descended from Berkeley Software Distribution , a Unix derivative developed at the University of California, Berkeley. It was forked from NetBSD by project leader Theo de Raadt in late 1995...
. Also, the Microsoft Windows series of operating systems, beginning with
Windows NTWindows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was intended to complement...
, now included server versions that supported preemptive multitasking and other features required for servers.
As
microprocessorA microprocessor incorporates the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit, or at most a few integrated circuits. It is a multipurpose, programmable device that accepts digital data as input, processes it according to instructions stored in its memory, and...
s have become more powerful,
CPUsThe central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...
built up from multiple components—once the distinguishing feature differentiating mainframes and midrange systems from microcomputers—have become increasingly obsolete, even in the largest
mainframe computerMainframes are powerful computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.The term originally referred to the...
s.
Digital Equipment CorporationDigital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
was the leading minicomputer manufacturer, at one time the second largest computer company after
IBMInternational Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
. But as the minicomputer declined in the face of generic UNIX servers and Intel-based PCs, not only DEC, but almost every other minicomputer company including
Data GeneralData General was one of the first minicomputer firms from the late 1960s. Three of the four founders were former employees of Digital Equipment Corporation. Their first product, the Data General Nova, was a 16-bit minicomputer...
,
PrimePrime Computer, Inc. was a Natick, Massachusetts-based producer of minicomputers from 1972 until 1992. The alternative spellings "PR1ME" and "PR1ME Computer" were used as brand names or logos by the company.-Founders:...
,
ComputervisionComputervision, Inc. was an early pioneer in turnkey Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing . Computervision was founded in 1969 by Marty Allen and Philippe Villers, and headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts, USA. Its early products were built on a Data General Nova platform...
,
HoneywellHoneywell International, Inc. is a major conglomerate company that produces a variety of consumer products, engineering services, and aerospace systems for a wide variety of customers, from private consumers to major corporations and governments....
and
Wang LaboratoriesWang Laboratories was a computer company founded in 1951 by Dr. An Wang and Dr. G. Y. Chu. The company was successively headquartered in Cambridge , Tewksbury , and finally in Lowell, Massachusetts . At its peak in the 1980s, Wang Laboratories had annual revenues of $3 billion and employed over...
, many based in
New EnglandNew England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
also collapsed. DEC was sold to
CompaqCompaq Computer Corporation is a personal computer company founded in 1982. Once the largest supplier of personal computing systems in the world, Compaq existed as an independent corporation until 2002, when it was acquired for US$25 billion by Hewlett-Packard....
in 1998.
The minicomputer's industrial impact and heritage
Several pioneering computer companies first built minicomputers, such as
DECDigital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
,
Data GeneralData General was one of the first minicomputer firms from the late 1960s. Three of the four founders were former employees of Digital Equipment Corporation. Their first product, the Data General Nova, was a 16-bit minicomputer...
, and
Hewlett-Packard (HP)Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
(who now refers to its HP3000 minicomputers as “servers” rather than “minicomputers”). And although today’s PCs and servers are clearly microcomputers physically, architecturally their CPUs and operating systems have evolved largely by integrating features from minicomputers.
In the software context, the relatively simple OSs for early microcomputers were usually inspired by minicomputer OSs (such as
CP/MCP/M was a mass-market operating system created for Intel 8080/85 based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc...
's similarity to Digital's
RSTSRSTS is a multi-user time-sharing operating system, developed by Digital Equipment Corporation , for the PDP-11 series of 16-bit minicomputers. The first version of RSTS was implemented in 1970 by DEC software engineers that developed the TSS-8 time-sharing operating system for the PDP-8...
) and multiuser OSs of today are often either inspired by or directly descended from minicomputer OSs (
UNIXUnix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
was originally a minicomputer OS, while
Windows NTWindows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released in July 1993. It was a powerful high-level-language-based, processor-independent, multiprocessing, multiuser operating system with features comparable to Unix. It was intended to complement...
—the foundation for all current versions of
Microsoft WindowsMicrosoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
—borrowed design ideas liberally from
VMSOpenVMS , previously known as VAX-11/VMS, VAX/VMS or VMS, is a computer server operating system that runs on VAX, Alpha and Itanium-based families of computers. Contrary to what its name suggests, OpenVMS is not open source software; however, the source listings are available for purchase...
and UNIX). Many of the first generation of PC programmers were educated on minicomputer systems.
List of some notable minicomputers
- Control Data’s CDC 160A
The CDC 160 and CDC 160-A were 12-bit minicomputers built by Control Data Corporation from 1960 to 1965. The 160 was designed by Seymour Cray - reportedly over a long three-day weekend...
and CDC 1700The CDC 1700 was a 16-bit word minicomputer, manufactured by the Control Data Corporation with deliveries beginning in May, 1966. The 1700 used ones' complement arithmetic and an ASCII-based character set, and supported memory write protection on an individual word basis...
- DEC
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...
PDPProgrammed Data Processor was the name of a series of minicomputers made by Digital Equipment Corporation. The name 'PDP' intentionally avoided the use of the term 'computer' because, at the time of the first PDPs, computers had a reputation of being large, complicated, and expensive machines, and...
and VAXVAX was an instruction set architecture developed by Digital Equipment Corporation in the mid-1970s. A 32-bit complex instruction set computer ISA, it was designed to extend or replace DEC's various Programmed Data Processor ISAs...
series
- Data General
Data General was one of the first minicomputer firms from the late 1960s. Three of the four founders were former employees of Digital Equipment Corporation. Their first product, the Data General Nova, was a 16-bit minicomputer...
NovaThe Data General Nova was a popular 16-bit minicomputer built by the American company Data General starting in 1969. The Nova was packaged into a single rack mount case and had enough power to do most simple computing tasks. The Nova became popular in science laboratories around the world, and...
- Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
HP 3000The HP 3000 series is a family of minicomputers released by Hewlett-Packard in 1973. It was designed to be the first minicomputer delivered with a full featured operating system with time-sharing. The first models were withdrawn from the market until speed improvements could be made. It ultimately...
series, HP 2100The HP 2100 was a series of minicomputers produced by Hewlett-Packard from the mid-1960s to early 1990s. The 2100 was also a specific model in this series. The series was renamed HP 1000 by the 1970s and sold as real-time computers, complementing the more complex IT-oriented HP 3000, and would be...
series, HP1000 series.
- Honeywell
Honeywell International, Inc. is a major conglomerate company that produces a variety of consumer products, engineering services, and aerospace systems for a wide variety of customers, from private consumers to major corporations and governments....
-Bull-External links:* * — Friends, co-workers and former employees of Bull and Honeywell* *...
Level 6/DPS 6/DPS 6000 series
- IBM
International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...
midrange computers
- Norsk Data
Norsk Data was a computer manufacturer located in Oslo, Norway. Existing from 1967 to 1992, it had its most active period in the years from the early 1970s to the late 1980s...
Nord-1, Nord-10, and Nord-100
- Prime Computer
Prime Computer, Inc. was a Natick, Massachusetts-based producer of minicomputers from 1972 until 1992. The alternative spellings "PR1ME" and "PR1ME Computer" were used as brand names or logos by the company.-Founders:...
Prime 50 series
- SDS
Scientific Data Systems, or SDS, was an American computer company founded in September 1961 by Max Palevsky, a veteran of Packard Bell and Bendix, along with eleven other computer scientists. SDS was an early adopter of integrated circuits in computer design and the first to employ silicon...
SDS-92
- SEL
Systems Engineering Laboratories was a manufacturer of minicomputers in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It was one of the first 32-bit realtime computer system manufacturers...
, one of the first 32-bit real-time computer system manufacturers
- Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments Inc. , widely known as TI, is an American company based in Dallas, Texas, United States, which develops and commercializes semiconductor and computer technology...
TI-990The TI-990 was a series of 16-bit minicomputers sold by Texas Instruments in the 1970s and 1980s. The TI-990 was a replacement for TI's earlier minicomputer systems, the TI-960 and the TI-980...
- Wang Laboratories
Wang Laboratories was a computer company founded in 1951 by Dr. An Wang and Dr. G. Y. Chu. The company was successively headquartered in Cambridge , Tewksbury , and finally in Lowell, Massachusetts . At its peak in the 1980s, Wang Laboratories had annual revenues of $3 billion and employed over...
2200 and VS series
- K-202
K-202 was a 16-bit minicomputer, invented by Polish scientist Jacek Karpiński between 1971-1973 in cooperation with British companies Data-Loop and M.B. Metals. Approximately 30 units were produced. The later production was halted as it was not in line with the ES EVM causing the inventor to...
, first Polish minicomputer and probably first personal computer
See also
- The Soul of a New Machine
Tracy Kidder's non-fiction book, The Soul of a New Machine, chronicles the experiences of an engineering team racing to design a next generation computer under a blistering schedule and tremendous pressure. This machine was eventually launched in 1980 as the Data General Eclipse MV/8000...
– about the development of Data General’s Eclipse/MV minicomputers in the early 1980s
- Charles Babbage Institute
The Charles Babbage Institute is a research center at the University of Minnesota specializing in the history of information technology, particularly the history since 1935 of digital computing, programming/software, and computer networking....
- History of computing hardware (1960s-present)
The history of computing hardware starting at 1960 is marked by the conversion from vacuum tube to solid state devices such as the transistor and later the integrated circuit. By 1959 discrete transistors were considered sufficiently reliable and economical that they made further vacuum tube...
- Superminicomputer
External links