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Minicomputers
A minicomputer, or colloquially mini, is a type of general-purpose computer mostly developed from the mid-1960s, built significantly smaller and sold at a much lower price than mainframe computers . By 21st century-standards however, a mini is an exceptionally large machine. Minicomputers in the traditional technical sense covered here are only small relative to generally even earlier and much bigger machines. The class formed a distinct group with its own software architectures and operating systems. Minis were designed for control, instrumentation, human interaction, and communication switching, as distinct from calculation and record keeping. Many were sold indirectly to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) for final end-use application. During the two-decade lifetime of the minicomputer class (1965–1985), almost 100 minicomputer vendor companies formed. Only a half-dozen remained by the mid-1980s. When single-chip CPU microprocessors appeared in the 1970s, the defi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Midrange Computer
Midrange computers, or midrange systems, were a class of computer systems that fell in between mainframe computers and microcomputers. This class of machine emerged in the 1960s, with models from Digital Equipment Corporation ( PDP lines), Data General ( NOVA), and Hewlett-Packard (HP 2100 and HP 3000) widely used in science and research as well as for business - and referred to as minicomputers. IBM favored the term "midrange computer" for their comparable, but more business-oriented systems. IBM midrange systems * System/3 (1969) was the first IBM midrange system. * System/32 (introduced in 1975) was a 16-bit single-user system also known as the IBM 5320. * System/34 (1977) was intended to be a successor to both the 3 and the 32. It had two 16-bit processors and ran the SSP operating system. * System/38 (1979) was the first midrange system to have an integrated relational database management system (DBMS). The S/38 had 48-bit addressing, and ran the CPF operating ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ferranti Argus
Ferranti's Argus computers were a line of industrial control computers offered from the 1960s into the 1980s. Originally designed for a military role, a re-packaged Argus was the first digital computer to be used to directly control an entire factory. They were widely used in a variety of roles in Europe, particularly in the UK, where a small number continue to serve as monitoring and control systems for nuclear reactors. Original series Blue Envoy, hearing aid computer The original concept for the computer was developed as part of the Blue Envoy missile project. This was a very long-range surface-to-air missile system with a range on the order of . To reach these ranges, the missile was "lofted" in a nearly vertical trajectory at launch, flying as quickly as possible to high altitude where it suffered less drag during the subsequent long cruise toward the target. During the vertical climb, the missile's radar would not be able to see the target, so during this period it was com ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bendix G-15
The Bendix G-15 is a computer introduced in 1956 by the Bendix Corporation, Computer Division, Los Angeles, California. It is about and weighs about . The G-15 has a drum memory of 2,160 29-bit words, along with 20 words used for special purposes and rapid-access storage. The base system, without peripherals, cost $49,500. A working model cost around $60,000 (). It could also be rented for $1,485 per month. It was meant for scientific and industrial markets. The series was gradually discontinued when Control Data Corporation took over the Bendix computer division in 1963. The chief designer of the G-15 was Harry Huskey, who had worked with Alan Turing on the Automatic Computing Engine (ACE) in the United Kingdom and on the SWAC (computer), Standards Western Automatic Computer (SWAC) in the 1950s. He made most of the design while working as a professor at University of California, Berkeley (where his graduate students included Niklaus Wirth), and other universities. David C. Evan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Small Form Factor (desktop And Motherboard)
Small form factor (SFF) is a classification of desktop computers and for some of their components, computer case, chassis and motherboard, to indicate that they are designed in accordance with one of several standardized form factor (design), form factors intended to minimize the volume and footprint of a desktop computer compared to the standard ATX form factor. For comparison purposes, the size of an SFF case is usually measured in litres. SFFs are available in a variety of sizes and shapes, including shoeboxes, cubes, and book-sized PCs. Their smaller and often lighter construction has made them popular as home theater PCs and as gaming computers for attending LAN parties. Manufacturers also emphasize the aesthetic and ergonomic design of SFFs since users are more likely to place them on top of a desk or carry them around. Advancements in technology combined with a reduced size enables a powerful computer to be a smaller size. Small form factor designs do not include computing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vacuum Tube
A vacuum tube, electron tube, thermionic valve (British usage), or tube (North America) is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric voltage, potential difference has been applied. It takes the form of an evacuated tubular envelope of glass or sometimes metal containing electrodes connected to external connection pins. The type known as a thermionic tube or thermionic valve utilizes thermionic emission of electrons from a hot cathode for fundamental Electronics, electronic functions such as signal amplifier, amplification and current Rectifier, rectification. Non-thermionic types such as vacuum phototubes achieve electron emission through the photoelectric effect, and are used for such purposes as the detection of light and measurement of its intensity. In both types the electrons are accelerated from the cathode to the anode by the electric field in the tube. The first, and simplest, vacuum tube, the diode or Flem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
PDP-8
The PDP-8 is a family of 12-bit minicomputers that was produced by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). It was the first commercially successful minicomputer, with over 50,000 units sold during the model's lifetime. Its basic design follows the pioneering LINC but has a smaller instruction set, which is an expanded version of the PDP-5 instruction set. Similar machines from DEC are the PDP-12 which is a modernized version of the PDP-8 and LINC concepts, and the PDP-14 industrial controller system. Overview The earliest PDP-8 model, informally known as a "Straight-8", was introduced on 22 March 1965 priced at $18,500 (). It uses diode–transistor logic packaged on flip chip cards in a machine about the size of a small household refrigerator. It was the first computer to be sold for under $20,000, making it the best-selling computer in history at that time. The Straight-8 was supplanted in 1966 by the PDP-8/S, which was available in desktop and rack-mount models. Using a on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
12-bit
Before the widespread adoption of ASCII in the late 1960s, six-bit character codes were common and a 12-bit word, which could hold two characters, was a convenient size. This also made it useful for storing a single decimal digit along with a sign. Possibly the best-known 12-bit CPUs are the PDP-8 and its descendants (such as the Intersil 6100 microprocessor), which were produced in various forms from August 1963 to mid-1990. Many Analog-to-digital converter, analog to digital converters (ADCs) have a 12-bit resolution. Some PIC microcontrollers use a 12-bit instruction word but handle only 8-bit data. 12 binary digits, or 3 nibbles (a 'tribble'), have 4096 (10000 octal, 1000 hexadecimal) distinct combinations. Hence, a microprocessor with 12-bit memory addresses can directly access 4096 Word (computer architecture), words (4 kW) of word-addressable memory. IBM System/360 instruction formats use a 12-bit displacement field which, added to the contents of a base register, can ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president until he was forced to resign in 1992, after the company had gone into precipitous decline. The company produced many different product lines over its history. It is best known for the work in the minicomputer market starting in the early 1960s. The company produced a series of machines known as the Programmed Data Processor, PDP line, with the PDP-8 and PDP-11 being among the most successful minis in history. Their success was only surpassed by another DEC product, the late-1970s VAX "supermini" systems that were designed to replace the PDP-11. Although a number of competitors had successfully competed with Digital through the 1970s, the VAX cemented the company's place as a leading vendor in the computer space. As microcomputers improved in t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
CDC 160
The CDC 160 series was a series of minicomputers built by Control Data Corporation. The CDC 160 and CDC 160-A were 12-bit minicomputers built from 1960 to 1965; the CDC 160G was a 13-bit minicomputer, with an extended version of the CDC 160-A instruction set, and a compatibility mode in which it did not use the 13th bit. The 160 was designed by Seymour Cray - reportedly over a long three-day weekend. It fit into the desk where its operator sat. The 160 architecture uses ones' complement arithmetic with end-around carry. NCR joint-marketed the 160-A under its own name for several years in the 1960s. Overview A publishing company that purchased a CDC 160-A described it as "a single user machine with no batch processing capability. Programmers and/or users would go to the computer room, sit at the console, load the paper tape bootstrap and start up a program." The CDC 160-A was a simple piece of hardware, and yet provided a variety of features which were scaled-down capabilitie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plugboard
A plugboard or control panel (the term used depends on the application area) is an array of jack (connector), jacks or sockets (often called hubs) into which patch cords can be inserted to complete an electrical circuit. Control panels are sometimes used to direct the operation of unit record equipment, :Cryptographic hardware, cipher machines, and History of computing hardware#Digital computation, early computers. The array of holes is often contained in a flat removable panel that can be inserted into a machine and pressed against an array of contacts. This allows the machine to be quickly switched between different applications. The contacts on the machine are hard wired to the various devices that comprise the machine, such as relays, counters, inputs from each card reader column, outputs to a card punch column or printer position, and so on. The wiring on a plugboard connects these devices to perform a specific function, say reading cards and summing up the numbers punched ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Machine Language
In computer programming, machine code is computer code consisting of machine language instructions, which are used to control a computer's central processing unit (CPU). For conventional binary computers, machine code is the binaryOn nonbinary machines it is, e.g., a decimal representation. representation of a computer program that is actually read and interpreted by the computer. A program in machine code consists of a sequence of machine instructions (possibly interspersed with data). Each machine code instruction causes the CPU to perform a specific task. Examples of such tasks include: # Load a word from memory to a CPU register # Execute an arithmetic logic unit (ALU) operation on one or more registers or memory locations # Jump or skip to an instruction that is not the next one In general, each architecture family (e.g., x86, ARM) has its own instruction set architecture (ISA), and hence its own specific machine code language. There are exceptions, such as the V ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Process Control
Industrial process control (IPC) or simply process control is a system used in modern manufacturing which uses the principles of control theory and physical industrial control systems to monitor, control and optimize continuous Industrial processes, industrial production processes using control algorithms. This ensures that the industrial machines run smoothly and safely in factories and efficiently use energy to transform raw materials into high-quality finished products with reliable consistency while reducing Efficient energy use#Industry, energy waste and economic costs, something which could not be achieved purely by human manual control. In IPC, control theory provides the theoretical framework to understand system dynamics, predict outcomes and design control strategies to ensure predetermined objectives, utilizing concepts like feedback loops, stability analysis and controller design. On the other hand, the physical apparatus of IPC, based on automation technologies, cons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
