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[[Category:Definitions]] |
Revision as of 23:27, 13 February 2005
Definition for: mainframe
A "mainframe" originally meant the cabinet containing the central processor unit of a very large computer.
After minicomputers became available, the word mainframe came to refer to the large computer itself.
The older computers used many large vacuum tubes and generated a lot of heat, thus requiring specially air-conditioned rooms.
A single computer might have hundreds of users at a time.
Today, because the large vacuum tubes have given way to transistors, a desktop personal computer can have as much poweras a mainframe computer that once filled a whole room.
Mainframes in use now often have smaller computers as front end processors.