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First, they were architecturally more diverse than prior mainframes and minicomputers in hardware and less diverse in software. Second, advances in VLSI made them less expensive (mini-price). These machines were market targeted to be cost-effective and quickly manufactured.
This list of computer size categories attempts to list commonly used categories of computer by the physical size of the device and its chassis or case, in descending order of size. One generation's "supercomputer" is the next generation's "mainframe", and a "PDA" does not have the same set of functions as a "laptop", but the list still has ...
The term supercomputer itself is rather fluid, and the speed of today's supercomputers tends to become typical of tomorrow's ordinary computer. Supercomputer processing speeds are measured in floating-point operations per second, or FLOPS. An example of a floating-point operation is the calculation of mathematical equations in real numbers.
A CDC Cyber 170 Computer room, 1986 A CDC Cyber 70/74 A CDC Cyber 70/74 console. The CDC Cyber range of mainframe-class supercomputers were the primary products of Control Data Corporation (CDC) during the 1970s and 1980s. In their day, they were the computer architecture of choice for scientific and mathematically intensive computing.
The VAX 8600 was a successful model and at the time was the best selling high-end VAX. It was succeeded by the VAX 8800 family in 1987. The VAX 8600 has a CPU with an 80 ns cycle time (12.5 MHz) implemented with emitter coupled logic (ECL) macrocell arrays (MCAs).
A mainframe computer, informally called a mainframe or big iron, [1] is a computer used primarily by large organizations for critical applications like bulk data processing for tasks such as censuses, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and large-scale transaction processing.
A superminicomputer (Interdata 7/32) preserved in a museum. A superminicomputer, colloquially supermini, is a high-end minicomputer. [1] The term is used to distinguish the emerging 32-bit architecture midrange computers introduced in the mid to late 1970s from the classical 16-bit systems that preceded them.
The IBM System/360 (S/360) is a family of mainframe computer systems announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, [1] and delivered between 1965 and 1978. [2] System/360 was the first family of computers designed to cover both commercial and scientific applications and a complete range of applications from small to large.