18 Sep
2003
18 Sep
'03
3:20 p.m.
It was thus said that the Great Fred Cisin once stated:
ANY performance spec based definition is a moving target.
By some old definitions, my current wristwatch (Matsucom) is a mainframe.
Even any definition based on characteristics is a crapshoot. Do you want
to exclude a machine because it uses a DIFFERENT technology?
PRICE is more stable, but still has a few exceptions, such as
gold plated jewel encrusted calculators, and usually fails to take into
account Moore's law (which has brought a lot of the prices down)
An unpopular set of definitions that has a few exceptions, but has help up
fairly well over time:
"A microcomputer is one that you can pick up and carry."
"A minicoputer requires a handtruck." (casters, anyone?)
"A mainframe requires a forklift and a union moving crew." (several
regulars here have proven exceptions to THAT!)
How about:
Supercomputer: A specialized computer dedicated to running very heavy
mathematical simulations as fast as possible. Such machines are typically
standalone, or standalone with another computer as a frontend. Such
machines are compute bound and are generally only affordable to governments,
large corporations or universities.
Mainframe: A specialized computer for handling administrative or business
tasks. While not as fast as other computers, it does handle a large volume
of IO transactions per second, retrieving, sorting, storing and otherwise
manipulating data. Such machines are IO bound (typically) and are generally
affordable for governments, most mid to large sized companies and
universities.
Seems to cover what supercomputers and mainframes are pretty well, and in
a technology-independent way.
-spc (Anyone?)