4 May
2016
4 May
'16
10:07 p.m.
On 05/04/2016 08:24 PM, ANDY HOLT wrote:
Could someone with access to the OED please check up
the first use of
the term "minicomputer" I strongly suspect it was around the time
that the PDP11/20 came out or slightly later. The IBM 1130 and 1800
were comparable to the /original/ CDC 1700, were similarly launched
in the mid 60s, but similarly they were not /at that time/ referred
to as minis.
Merriam Webster and the OED gives the first published use in 1967
http://www.wordorigins.org/index.php/site/comments/1967_words/
The 1700 would fit into that in at least one of its incarnations. The
160A would not, as it went out of production in 1965, for example.
Sometimes words can be misleading. The word "microcomputer" when
initially used, did not mean what we think of today--that of a certain
level of integration of an IC that includes most of the component parts
of a computer.
AES used this same term much earlier for "a computer than can be
microprogrammed" as implemented in a cage of of cards.
--Chuck