Path: utzoo!utgpu!utstat!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!bellcore!texbell!uhnix1!sugar!ficc!peter
From: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: What is a Mainframe?
Keywords: high-performance
Message-ID: <4400@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 5 Jun 89 15:02:59 GMT
References: <125@ssp1.idca.tds.philips.nl> <20752@winchester.mips.COM> <8442@june.cs.washington.edu>
Distribution: comp.arch
Organization: Xenix Support
Lines: 16

I was taught that there was a fairly clear distinction between micros, minis,
and mainframes:

	Micro: CPU substantially on one chip.
	Mini: CPU on a single card.
	Mainframe: CPU on multiple cards.

I know there are machines that stretch these definitions (the PDP-8, for
example) as well as machines that don't fit any of these categories (massively
parallel machines, for example), but it still seems to me to be a good place
to start from.
-- 
Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation.

Business: uunet.uu.net!ficc!peter, peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180.
Personal: ...!texbell!sugar!peter, peter@sugar.hackercorp.com.