Crossword clues for minicomputer
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
minicomputer \minicomputer\ n. (Computers) a mid-sized digital computer; at any given point in the development of computer technology, a minicomputer will be faster and have greater capacity than a microcomputer, but will be slower and have less capacity than a mainframe computer.
Wiktionary
n. (context computer hardware English) A computer smaller than a mainframe, but larger than a microcomputer.
WordNet
n. a digital computer of medium size
Wikipedia
A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a class of smaller computers that developed in the mid-1960s and sold for much less than mainframe and mid-size computers from IBM and its direct competitors. In a 1970 survey, the New York Times suggested a consensus definition of a minicomputer as a machine costing less than with an input-output device such as a teleprinter and at least four thousand words of memory, that is capable of running programs in a higher level language, such as Fortran or BASIC. The class formed a distinct group with its own software architectures and operating systems. Minis were designed for control, instrumentation, human interaction, and communication switching as distinct from calculation and record keeping. Many were sold indirectly to Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) for final end use application. During the two decade lifetime of the minicomputer class (1965-1985), almost 100 companies formed and only a half dozen remained.
When single-chip CPUs appeared, beginning with the Intel 4004 in 1971, the term "minicomputer" came to mean a machine that lies in the middle range of the computing spectrum, in between the smallest mainframe computers and the microcomputers. The term "minicomputer" is little used today; the contemporary term for this class of system is " midrange computer", such as the higher-end SPARC, Power Architecture and Itanium-based systems from Oracle, IBM and Hewlett-Packard.
Usage examples of "minicomputer".
In mid-1977, he moved from England to the United States to become a Senior Sales Training Consultant, concentrating on the applications of minicomputers in science and research for DEC.
The GARDEN prototype combines centrex lines with a minicomputer using UNIX operating system software.
The GARDEN prototype combines centrex lines with a minicomputer using UNIX operating system software.
A safe distance away, she paused to check the air left in her tanks on the pressure gauge, mark her position on a Global Positioning System satellite minicomputer, eye the compass needle in relationship to the underwater habitat where she and her brother were living while studying the reef and note the reading on her bottom timer.
Whatever imperfections there might have been were far too small to see with the naked eye, and were definitely below the design tolerances Fromm had established when he'd worked the hydrocodes on the minicomputer.
Now many installations have several kinds of computers, including microcomputers, workstations, minicomputers, and mainframes.