Minicomputer

A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a type of smaller general-

purpose computer developed in the mid-1960s[1][2] and sold at a much
lower price than mainframe[3] 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
US$25,000 (equivalent to $188,000 in 2022[4]), 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.[5]

The class formed a distinct group with its own software architectures and Six different minicomputers
operating systems. Minis were designed for control, instrumentation, (out of many more models)
human interaction, and communication switching as distinct from produced by the Digital
calculation and record keeping. Many were sold indirectly to original Equipment Corporation (DEC)
equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for final end-use application. During with the year of introduction
the two-decade lifetime of the minicomputer class (1965–1985), almost in brackets: First row: PDP-1
(1959), PDP-7 (1964), PDP-8
100 companies formed and only a half dozen remained.[6]
(1965); second row: PDP-8/E
When single-chip CPU microprocessors appeared, beginning with the (1970), PDP-11/70 (1975), PDP-
Intel 4004 in 1971, the term "minicomputer" came to mean a machine 15 (1970).
that lies in the middle range of the computing spectrum, in between the
smallest mainframe computers and the microcomputers. The term
"minicomputer" is seldom used today; the contemporary term for this
class of system is "midrange computer", such as the higher-end SPARC
from Oracle, Power ISA from IBM, and Itanium-based systems from
Hewlett-Packard.

History
Data General Nova,
Definition serial number 1, on display at
the Computer History Museum
The term "minicomputer" developed in the 1960s[7] to describe the
smaller computers that became possible with the use of transistors and core memory technologies, minimal
instructions sets and less expensive peripherals such as the ubiquitous Teletype Model 33 ASR.[6][8] They
usually took up one or a few 19-inch rack cabinets, compared with the large mainframes that could fill a
room.[9]

In terms of relative computing power compared to contemporary mainframes, small systems that were similar to
minicomputers had been available from the 1950s. In particular, there was an entire class of drum machines,
like the UNIVAC 1101 and LGP-30, that share some features of the minicomputer class. Similar models using
magnetic delay-line memory followed in the early 1960s. These machines, however, were essentially designed
as small mainframes, using a custom chassis and often supporting only peripherals from the same company. In
contrast, the machines that became known as minicomputers were often designed to fit into a standard chassis
and deliberately designed to use common devices like the ASR 33.

Another common difference was that most earlier small machines were not "general purpose", in that they were
designed for a specific role like process control or accounting. On these machines, programming was generally
carried out in their custom machine language, or even hard-coded into a plugboard, although some used a form
of BASIC. DEC wrote, regarding their PDP-5, that it was "the world’s first commercially produced
minicomputer".[10] It meets most definitions of "mini" in terms of power and size, but was designed and built
to be used as an instrumentation system in labs, not as a general-purpose computer.[11] Many similar examples
of small special-purpose machines exist from the early 1960s, including the UK Ferranti Argus and Soviet UM-
1NKh.

The CDC 160, circa 1960, is sometimes pointed to as an early example of a minicomputer, as it was small,
transistorized and (relatively) inexpensive. However, its basic price of $100,000 (equivalent to $989,201 in
2022) and custom desk-like chassis places it within the "small system" or "midrange computer"[12] category as
opposed to the more modern use of the term minicomputer. Nevertheless, it retains a strong contender for the
term "first minicomputer".[11]

1960s and 1970s success

Most computing histories point to the 1964 introduction of Digital Equipment Corporation's (DEC) 12-bit PDP-
8 as the first minicomputer.[13] Some of this is no doubt due to DEC's widespread use of the term starting in the
mid-1960s.[14] Smaller systems, including those from DEC like the PDP-5 and LINC,[15] had existed prior to
this point, but it was the PDP-8 combination of small size, general purpose orientation and low price that puts it
firmly within the modern definition. Its introductory price of $18,500[16] (equivalent to $171,794 in 2022)
places it in an entirely different market segment than earlier examples like the CDC 160.

In contemporary terms, the PDP-8 was a runaway success, ultimately selling 50,000 examples.[a] Follow-on
versions using small scale integrated circuits further lowered the cost and size of the system. Its success led to
widespread imitation, and the creation of an entire industry of minicomputer companies along Massachusetts
Route 128, including Data General, Wang Laboratories and Prime Computer. Other popular minis from the era
were the HP 2100, Honeywell 316 and TI-990.

Early minis had a variety of word sizes, with DEC's 12 and 18-bit
systems being typical examples. The introduction and standardization of
the 7-bit ASCII character set led to the move to 16-bit systems, with the
late-1969 Data General Nova being a notable entry in this space. By the
early 1970s, most minis were 16-bit, including DEC's PDP-11. For a
time, "minicomputer" was almost synonymous with "16-bit", as the
larger mainframe machines almost always used 32-bit or larger word
sizes.

As integrated circuit design improved, especially with the introduction of Raytheon RDS 500 seismic
the 7400-series integrated circuits, minicomputers became smaller, easier processing system in Benghazi
to manufacture, and as a result, less expensive. They were used in in 1978
manufacturing process control, telephone switching and to control
laboratory equipment. In the 1970s, they were the hardware that was used to launch the computer-aided design
(CAD) industry[17] and other similar industries where a small dedicated system was needed.
The boom in worldwide seismic exploration for oil and gas in the early
1970s saw the widespread use of minicomputers in dedicated processing
centres close to the data collection crews. Raytheon Data Systems RDS
704 and later RDS 500 were predominantly the systems of choice for
nearly all the geophysical exploration as well as oil companies.[18]

At the launch of the MITS Altair 8800 in 1975, Radio Electronics

magazine referred to the system as a "minicomputer", although the term
microcomputer soon became usual for personal computers based on Varian Data Machines system
single-chip microprocessors. At the time, microcomputers were 8-bit connected to analogue tape
single-user, relatively simple machines running simple program-launcher playback system in 1984
operating systems like CP/M or MS-DOS, while minis were much more
powerful systems that ran full multi-user, multitasking operating systems,
such as VMS and Unix.

The Tandem Computers NonStop product line shipped its first fully fault-
tolerant cluster computer in 1976.[19][20][21]

Around the same time, minis began to move upward in size. Although
several 24 and 32-bit minis had entered the market earlier, it was DEC's
1977 VAX, which they referred to as a superminicomputer, or supermini,
that caused the mini market to move en-masse to 32-bit architectures.
This provided ample headroom even as single-chip 16-bit Raytheon RDS 704 onsite
microprocessors like the TMS 9900 and Zilog Z8000 appeared in the seismic processing system in
Mogadishu in 1974
later 1970s. Most mini vendors introduced their own single-chip
processors based on their own architecture and used these mostly in low-
cost offerings while concentrating on their 32-bit systems. Examples include the Intersil 6100 single-chip PDP-
8, DEC T-11 PDP-11, microNOVA and Fairchild 9440 Nova, and TMS9900 TI-990.

Mid-1980s and 1990s decline

By the early 1980s, the 16-bit market had all but disappeared as newer 32-bit microprocessors began to improve
in performance. Those customers who required more performance than these offered had generally already
moved to 32-bit systems by this time. But it was not long before this market also began to come under threat;
the Motorola 68000 offered a significant percentage of the performance of a typical mini in a desktop platform.
True 32-bit processors like the National Semiconductor NS32016, Motorola 68020 and Intel 80386 soon
followed. By the mid-1980s, high-end microcomputers offered compute performance equal to low-end and mid-
range minis, and the new RISC approach promised performance levels well beyond the fastest minis, and even
high-end mainframes.

All that really separated micros from the mini market was storage and memory capacity. Both of these began to
be addressed through the later 1980s; 1 MB of RAM became typical by around 1987, desktop hard drives
rapidly pushed past the 100 MB range by 1990, and the introduction of inexpensive and easily deployable local
area network (LAN) systems provide solutions for those looking for multi-user systems. The introduction of the
workstation machines opened new markets for graphics-based systems that the terminal-oriented minis could
not even address. Minis retained a force for those using existing software products or those who required high-
performance multitasking, but the introduction of newer operating systems based on Unix began to become
highly practical replacements for these roles as well.
Mini vendors began to rapidly disappear through this period. Data General responded to the changing market by
focussing entirely on the high-performance file server market, embracing a role within large LANs that
appeared resilient. This did not last; Novell NetWare rapidly pushed such solutions into niche roles, and later
versions of Microsoft Windows did the same to Novell. DEC decided to move into the large-computer space
instead, introducing the VAX 9000 mainframe in 1989, but it was a flop in the market and disappeared after
almost no sales. The company then attempted to enter the workstation and server markets with the DEC Alpha,
but was too late to save the company and they eventually sold their remains to Compaq in 1998. By the end of
the decade all of the classic vendors were gone; Data General, Prime, Computervision, Honeywell, and Wang,
failed, merged, or were bought out.

Today, only a few proprietary minicomputer architectures survive. The IBM System/38 operating system, which
introduced many advanced concepts, lives on with IBM's AS/400. Great efforts were made by IBM to enable
programs originally written for the IBM System/34 and System/36 to be moved to the AS/400. After being
rebranded multiple times, the AS/400 platform was replaced by IBM Power Systems running IBM i. In contrast,
competing proprietary computing architectures from the early 1980s, such as DEC's VAX, Wang VS, and
Hewlett-Packard's HP 3000 have long been discontinued without a compatible upgrade path. OpenVMS runs on
HP Alpha and Intel IA-64 (Itanium) CPU architectures.

Tandem Computers, which specialized in reliable large-scale computing, was acquired by Compaq in 1997, and
in 2001 the combined entity merged with Hewlett-Packard.[22] The NonStop Kernel-based NonStop product
line was re-ported from MIPS processors to Itanium-based processors branded as 'HP Integrity NonStop
Servers'. As in the earlier migration from stack machines to MIPS microprocessors, all customer software was
carried forward without source changes. Integrity NonStop continues to be HP's answer for the extreme scaling
needs of its very largest customers. The NSK operating system, now termed NonStop OS, continues as the base
software environment for the NonStop Servers, and has been extended to include support for Java and
integration with popular development tools like Visual Studio and Eclipse. Later, Hewlett-Packard would split
into HP and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise. The NonStop products and the DEC products would then be sold by
HPE.

Industrial impact and heritage

A variety of companies emerged that built turnkey systems around minicomputers with specialized software
and, in many cases, custom peripherals that addressed specialized problems such as computer-aided design,
computer-aided manufacturing, process control, manufacturing resource planning, and so on. Many if not most
minicomputers were sold through these original equipment manufacturers and value-added resellers.

Several pioneering computer companies first built minicomputers, such as DEC, Data General, and Hewlett-
Packard (HP) (who now refers to its HP3000 minicomputers as "servers" rather than "minicomputers"). And
although today's PCs and servers are clearly microcomputers physically, architecturally their CPUs and
operating systems have developed largely by integrating features from minicomputers.

In the software context, the relatively simple OSs for early microcomputers were usually inspired by
minicomputer OSs (such as CP/M's similarity to Digital's single user OS/8 and RT-11 and multi-user RSTS
time-sharing system). Also, the multiuser OSs of today are often either inspired by, or directly descended from,
minicomputer OSs. UNIX was originally a minicomputer OS, while the Windows NT kernel, the foundation for
all current versions of Microsoft Windows, borrowed design ideas liberally from VMS. Many of the first
generation of PC programmers were educated on minicomputer systems.[23][24]

Examples
CII Mitra 15
Control Data's CDC 160A and CDC 1700
DEC PDP and VAX series
Data General Nova
Hewlett-Packard HP 3000 series and HP 2100 series
Honeywell-Bull DPS 6/DPS 6000 series
IBM midrange computers
Interdata 7/32 and 8/32
Norsk Data Nord-1, Nord-10, and Nord-100
Ridge Computers Ridge 32 and Ridge 3200 series
Texas Instruments TI-990
CTL Modular One, from the UK
K-202, first Polish minicomputer

See also
The Soul of a New Machine – about the development of Data General's Eclipse/MV minicomputers in
the early 1980s
Charles Babbage Institute
History of computing hardware (1960s–present)
Superminicomputer
Maxicomputer

Notes
a. For comparison, the CDC 160 sold about 50 units.

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External links
A list of Minicomputers (http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/GBell-minicomputer-list.html)

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