This describes the history of minicomputers from the late ’50s through to the ’80s. One of the things I found fascinating (because I had not heard it before) is that many minicomputers were sold to OEMs who incorporated the minis into products where they were used for industrial control and things like that. The paper argues that we should distinguish these “classic minicomputers” from minicomputers that are defined more by their price relative to mainframes.
STARS: Rise and fall of minicomputers [scanning our past]
C. Gordon Bell[doi] [Google Scholar] [DBLP] [Citeseer]
Read: 25 July 2020