As we mentioned, a minicomputer is not, as the name may suggest, a very small computer. It owes its name to when computers were huge, and any computational development smaller than the usual sizes in those days, should be called "mini". hollyhealthfitness
It could be said that
minicomputers are a specific type of multi-user computer ,
located, in terms of computational process, between large multi-user systems of
the mainframe type and single-user computers, workstations and data systems,
like our own PC.
However, despite being related to mainframes by capacity, the
truth is that they do not offer the same level of processing. They are
born in the 1960s from the need to have a low-cost computer system, compared to
a mainframe, and low maintenance, both of specialists to operate it and of
technical personnel to repair it. Later in this post we will find
information about the history of
minicomputers.
Characteristics of minicomputers
In
general lines, a minicomputer is a
multiprocess system, that is, it can perform multiple
processes in parallel, and capable of solving the requests of more than 200
users simultaneously. Compared to the several thousand users that a mainframe can manage, 200
seems a pretty poor number, but we must not forget that it was designed with
the purpose of reducing costs and personnel so that the processing power of a
mainframe was accessible to companies that They did not have the necessary
resources to have one of these giants installed in the plant.
With regard
specifically to its characteristics, one of the first things we have to
highlight is that in its time minicomputers were designed, in addition to
offering high-power equipment at lower costs than a mainframe , to offer
an easy way to connect Scientific instruments and tools, as well as other I / O
devices through a simple architecture.
In this it helped a
lot that the system was programmed in assembly language, they were also
designed with transistors, which allowed many advantages over valves, which
would also add the problem of size and electrical consumption. All this
allowed the equipment to be very accessible even for technicians not trained
for it, which could, thanks to the simplicity of the design of the
minicomputers, modify them in the same laboratory to use them in other
tasks for which it had not been designed. but nevertheless they could carry it
out.
In other words, added to the possibility of accessing the internal electronics to be able to expand or modify it, and the simplicity of the minicomputer design, they made this class of equipment very versatile, a fundamental characteristic for its acceptance in fields such as science and engineering . web camera uses
Another of the most important characteristics of minicomputers is
multiprocessing , that is, the ability to process several
jobs or requests simultaneously. For this, the minicomputers have one or
more processors installed in their electronics, precisely the factor that
allows them to work comfortably with very heavy workloads.
To access a minicomputer , each user must have
their own terminal, that is, a device equipped with a monitor and a
keyboard, through which directives are passed to the minicomputer. At
this point, the minicomputer will carry out the tasks requested by all its
users depending on the task and the resources available on the computer at that
moment.
Obviously, the performance of a minicomputer will depend on the number
of requests made by users, the greater the number, it may
be that the team takes more time to return a response of course it's going to
depend on the hardware installed in said minicomputer.
This loss of performance is
closely related to the size of the minicomputers. Typically, a minicomputer can be housed in standard 19-inch rack
cabinets , while a mainframe can occupy a large room.