Mini,Personal & workstation

Mini Computer

• Minicomputers were used, for instance, to control machine in a manufacturing unit.
• They are widely used a general-purpose computers.
• More powerful minicomputers models are called super minis.
• Minicomputers work well in what are known as Distributed Data Processing (DDP).
• End users can also access and share the resource of the server, which usually is a minicomputer.

Personal Computer

1. Until recently, PCs were desktop or portable machines. these machines ran comparatively easy-to-use applications software such as the word processors, spreadsheets, etc..
2. They were usually easier to use and more affordable than workstations.
3. However, they had less sophisticated video display screens, operating systems and networking capabilities.
4. Most important, they did not have the processing power that workstations did..
5. Examples of personal computers are Acer's Aspire, Compaq Presario, etc...

Super Computer

1. Supercomputers are the fastest calculating devices ever invented.
2. Most supercomputers are used by government agencies.
3. These machines are for applications requiring very large programs and huge amounts of data that must be processed quickly.
4. More powerful supercomputers use a technology called massively parallel processing.
5. These supercomputers consist of thousands of integrated microprocessors.

Workstation

1. Workstation are, gain, until recently, expensive, powerful machines used by engineer, scientists, and other lot of data.
2. The most powerful workstation are called super micros.
3. Examples of well-known workstations are those made by Sun, Apollo, Hewlett-Packard, Next and IBM.
4. More powerful microprocessors and increased graphic and communications capabilities now let end users run software that previously ran only on more powerful machines.
5. These supercomputers consist of thousands of integrated microprocessors.

Main Computer

• Mainframe computers can process several million-program instructions per second.
• Mainframes are mainly used by insurant companies, banks, airline and railway reservation systems, etc.
• Large organizations rely on these room-size system o handle large programs with lots of data.
• An advanced mainframe made by IBM is S/390.