Smithsonian gets it wrong

Your still skating on thin ice. The whole concept of a mini was that a mini was not a maxi. there was never a clear delineation and those that got the term like the PDP-8 were minis because they were distinctly smaller that most peoples perception of computer at that time (multiple 6ft high racks.). By 1985 that idea meant a MicroVAX was a mini and the VAX was the big fella. But by then we called the little ones micros and the big guys something else other than minicomputers. Sorta like for the last 15 or so years PC universally applies to personal computer and it's implied that it is wintel. But from about 1970ish to around 1981 PC meant Personally owned Computer and it could be anything! For example I was offered a Cincinatti Millichron CM2000 in 1973 for $2000 (price of a new truck) and if I'd done that it would have been my first PC even though the box was 19Wx11Hx28D and it weighed at least 80 pounds without the ASR33. So terms like mainframe, mini are sometimes hard to pin down.During the '70s the mid 60's idea of mini became smaller and machines like the VAX and Eclipse were called superminis. But that left the desktop Novas and PDP-8/e/f/m to be called what? Micro was easier as it really had to contain the core processor on one or very few chips that were LSI or VLSI. So without wrapping the timeframe context around the words there is considerable drift in what the images it conveys. For context when minicomputer was first coined and applied a womans skirt was calf length and a miniskirt was, well, too short safely to bend over without risk. But even that industry had the micromini. ;) Allison