15 Dec
2000
15 Dec
'00
2:26 p.m.
At 12:58 PM 12/15/00 -0700, Jim wrote:
Last time this subject came up, it was pointed out to
me that mainframes are
much more batch oriented than micros or minis. They're designed to be fed
their job, then left alone to plow through the data, then cough up a report -
they're not optimised for direct user interaction.
There are lots of ways to "slice" this question. I have at various time used:
if it runs on one 110V wall socket its a micro
if it takes 220 and/or three phase its a mini
if it takes 440 and its own voltage consditioning system its a
mainframe
Then there was
if the "CPU" is one chip its a micro
if the "CPU" is multiple chips/boards its a mini
if the "CPU" is multiple cabinets its a mainframe
Things that have never worked are speed of memory and speed of computer.
You might use I/O capacity versus the compute capacity, perhaps as a
MIPS/MEGABYTE ratio. If the value is over 5 its a micro, less than five but
over 1 its a mini, and under 1 and its a mainframe.
--Chuck