On 3/10/2023 1:39 AM, Lars Brinkhoff via cctalk wrote:
Kind of yes, but recally early computers were often operated in batch mode.
Minis would typically do one task, or handle a few users.
The first mainframe I worked on was single user, single tasking and all
jobs were
submitted as "batch" as in a batch of cards. :-)
Second Mainframe I worked on supported lots of users but to the user it was
still small amount of interactive and the rest batch. multi-user was
done thru
VM370 which made it look like we all were the only users on out machine.
Third Mainframe I worked on was primarily interactive with many user during
the day and then ran lots of batch jobs at night.
The first minis I worked on all supported lots of users and many
simultaneous
tasks. Except the VAX when someone decided to run the Ada compiler and the
machine ground to a halt so we all logged off and found something else
to do. :-)
Consider that a minicomputer is larger than microcomputer.
Is is? I have had PC's that were larger than some of the Minis I worked on.
This whole mess is to complicated to ever sort out and loaded with more
opinion than fact. Probably because in reality all three terms are
marketing
speak and don't have real, verifiable definitions.
bill
