4 ms·

From what I understand, the greatest difference between mainframes and minicomputers (and later, microcomputers), is that mainframes were batch-oriented machine

by cr0sh 8y ago

From what I understand, the greatest difference between mainframes and minicomputers (and later, microcomputers), is that mainframes were batch-oriented machines, while minicomputers were interactive-oriented. Mainframes (pretty much "IBM only" today - I don't know of any other actual mainframe computer manufacturer; to be honest, I am not even sure if IBM is still making mainframes? Ok - just looked, I guess they do) are still batch oriented; what "interactive piece" they have, is just a batch process with a "run forever" run time.

Stratoscope 8y ago
> From what I understand, the greatest difference between mainframes and minicomputers (and later, microcomputers), is that mainframes were batch-oriented machines, while minicomputers were interactive-oriented. Actually, a lot of early interactive computing was done on time-shared mainframes. I learned to program in 1968 when I saw a Teletype machine in our high school math classroom and found out it could dial into a timesharing system where you could write and run programs interactively. At first we were dialing into a General Electric mainframe, and partway through the year switched to an SDS Sigma 5 at a local Phoenix timesharing company, Transdata. I got my first job there that summer. The next year I moved to the Bay Area and started working at Tymshare, where we used a variety of mainframes to provide interactive services, along with some minicomputers for network routing. It was the biggest timesharing company of the day, and there were many others. Timesharing was a big business from the late 1960s through the 1970s. Of course there were many mainframes doing batch processing too, but interactive computing certainly wasn't exclusive to minicomputers or microcomputers.
reaperducer 8y ago
pretty much "IBM only" today - I don't know of any other actual mainframe computer manufacturer Does Cray count?
- hyperman1 8y ago
  I heard a lot of Western European governements run on Siemens BS1000/BS2000/BS3000.

by cr0sh 8y ago

Stratoscope 8y ago

> From what I understand, the greatest difference between mainframes and minicomputers (and later, microcomputers), is that mainframes were batch-oriented machines, while minicomputers were interactive-oriented. Actually, a lot of early interactive computing was done on time-shared mainframes. I learned to program in 1968 when I saw a Teletype machine in our high school math classroom and found out it could dial into a timesharing system where you could write and run programs interactively. At first we were dialing into a General Electric mainframe, and partway through the year switched to an SDS Sigma 5 at a local Phoenix timesharing company, Transdata. I got my first job there that summer. The next year I moved to the Bay Area and started working at Tymshare, where we used a variety of mainframes to provide interactive services, along with some minicomputers for network routing. It was the biggest timesharing company of the day, and there were many others. Timesharing was a big business from the late 1960s through the 1970s. Of course there were many mainframes doing batch processing too, but interactive computing certainly wasn't exclusive to minicomputers or microcomputers.

reaperducer 8y ago

pretty much "IBM only" today - I don't know of any other actual mainframe computer manufacturer Does Cray count?

hyperman1 8y ago
I heard a lot of Western European governements run on Siemens BS1000/BS2000/BS3000.