Thank you. I was thinking of the big and expensive computers that people used before mini computers and microcomputers. What was so special about their hardware

Thank you. I was thinking of the big and expensive computers that people used before mini computers and microcomputers. What was so special about their hardware and software? The reason it’s interesting to me is that we as a community have (it seems to me) split off from that world and use systems that were designed on shitty cheap mini computers that weren’t as good as mainframes (for some definition of good as).