On 05/04/2016 08:24 PM, ANDY HOLT wrote: > Could someone with access to the OED please check up the first use of > the term "minicomputer" I strongly suspect it was around the time > that the PDP11/20 came out or slightly later. The IBM 1130 and 1800 > were comparable to the /original/ CDC 1700, were similarly launched > in the mid 60s, but similarly they were not /at that time/ referred > to as minis.
Merriam Webster and the OED gives the first published use in 1967 http://www.wordorigins.org/index.php/site/comments/1967_words/ The 1700 would fit into that in at least one of its incarnations. The 160A would not, as it went out of production in 1965, for example. Sometimes words can be misleading. The word "microcomputer" when initially used, did not mean what we think of today--that of a certain level of integration of an IC that includes most of the component parts of a computer. AES used this same term much earlier for "a computer than can be microprogrammed" as implemented in a cage of of cards. --Chuck
