Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!mcsun!ukc!stl!tom
From: tom@stl.stc.co.uk (Tom Thomson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.super
Subject: Re: Terminology one more time: Are mainframes and minis "dead?"
Summary: not dead yet
Message-ID: <3170@stl.stc.co.uk>
Date: 28 Jun 90 12:01:56 GMT
References: <6946@amelia.nas.nasa.gov>
Sender: news@stl.stc.co.uk
Reply-To: "Tom Thomson" <tom@stl.stc.co.uk>
Organization: STC Technology Limited, London Road, Harlow, Essex, UK
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Well, we still make an enourmous profit out of selling mainframes.
  
As to terminology, I think a mainframe is a system which can sustain high 
throughput while running a mixed-mode workload; most of the "supers" can
usefully carry out only one type of work at a time (usually because their
OS is simplified to eliminate overheads when running crunchinmg jobs). Other
characteristics include high data throughput compared to compute speed,
vast (disc, tape) amounts of file store (high file-store to main store
size ratio), complex db/transaction monitor.
 
Tom