Minisupercomputer

Minisupercomputer
Not to be confused with superminicomputer.

Minisupercomputers constituted a short-lived class of computers that emerged in the mid-1980s. As scientific computing using vector processors became more popular, the need for lower-cost systems that might be used at the departmental level instead of the corporate level created an opportunity for new computer vendors to enter the market. As a generalization, the price targets for these smaller computers were one-tenth of the larger supercomputers. These computer systems were characterized by the combination of vector processing and small-scale multiprocessing.

Several notable technical, economic, and political attributes characterize minisupercomputers. First, they were architecturally more diverse than prior mainframes and minicomputers in hardware and less diverse in software. Second, advances in VLSI made them less expensive (mini-price). These machines were market targeted to be cost-effective and quickly manufactured. Third, it is notable who did not manufacture minisupercomputers: within the USA, IBM and the traditional mainframe makers, outside the USA: the Japanese supercomputer vendors and Russia (despite attempts to manufacture minicomputers).

The appearance of even lower-priced scientific workstations based on microprocessors with high performance floating point units (FPUs) during the 1990s (such as the MIPS R8000, IBM POWER2), and Weitek eroded the demand for this class of computer.

The industry magazine Datamation coined the term "crayette" which in short order meant instruction set compatible to Cray Research, Inc.

Notable minisupercomputer companies (alphabetically)

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Look at other dictionaries:

  • minisupercomputer — noun A computer capable of vector processing and small scale multiprocessing, a cheaper alternative to a full supercomputer in the 1980s …   Wiktionary

  • Multiflow — Computer, Inc. , founded in April, 1984 near New Haven, Connecticut, USA, was a manufacturer and seller of minisupercomputer hardware and software embodying the VLIW design style. Multiflow, incorporated in Delaware, ended operations in March,… …   Wikipedia

  • Floating Point Systems — Inc. (FPS) was a Beaverton, Oregon vendor of minisupercomputers. The company was founded in 1970 by former Tektronix engineer Norm Winningstad.The original goal of the company was to supply floating point coprocessors for minicomputers. In 1976,… …   Wikipedia

  • MasPar — at NASA/GSFC MasPar Computer Corporation was a minisupercomputer vendor that was founded in 1987 by Jeff Kalb. The company was based in Sunnyvale, California. While Kalb was the Vice President of DEC s VLSI chip building division, some… …   Wikipedia

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  • Convex Computer — Corporation was a company that developed, manufactured and marketed vector minisupercomputers and supercomputers for small to medium sized businesses. Their later Exemplar series of parallel computing machines were based on the Hewlett Packard… …   Wikipedia

  • 64-bit — CPUs have existed in supercomputers since the 1960s and in RISC based workstations and servers since the early 1990s. In 2003 they were introduced to the (previously 32 bit) mainstream personal computer arena, in the form of the x86 64 and 64 bit …   Wikipedia

  • Superminicomputer — A superminicomputer, or supermini, is, by definition, “a minicomputer with high performance compared to ordinary minicomputers.” The term was an invention used from the mid 1970s mainly to distinguish the emerging 32 bit minis from the classical… …   Wikipedia

  • ETA Systems — was a supercomputer company spun off from Control Data Corporation (CDC) in the early 1980s in order to regain a footing in the supercomputer business. They successfully delivered an excellent machine, the ETA 10, but lost money continually while …   Wikipedia

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