What are some examples of mini computers?

Answer 1

A minicomputer was a class of computers sold in the mid-60's. They include Digital Equipment Corporation's 12-bit PDP-8, IBM's 1130, 1800, and system 3, Packard Bell PB 250 and many others. See the links for more.

We now use the term "midrange computer" for the modern equivalent of a minicomputer. Examples include the higher-end SPARC, POWER and Itanium-based systems from Oracle, IBM and Hewlett-Packard.

Answer 2

A microcomputer is any computer built using a microprocessor. A microprocessor is an integrated circuit (or set of integrated circuits) containing the majority of the control and computational circuits needed to make a computer.

Before the invention of microprocessors it took hundreds to millions of separate components (e.g. integrated circuits, transistors. diodes. vacuum tubes, resistors, capacitors, inductors, pulse Transformers) to build these control and computational circuits needed to make a computer. The resulting computers (because of their size) were called respectively minicomputers and mainframe computers.

In a rough timeline:

1. 1948 to 1966 - mainframe computers (tens of thousands to millions of discrete parts)
2. 1966 to 1975 - minicomputers (hundreds to thousands of integrated circuits)
3. 1975 to present - microcomputers (microprocessor integrated circuit)

The computer you used to ask this question is almost certainly an example of a microcomputer.