On Wed, 2009-10-14 at 12:50 -0700, Rick Stevens wrote:
Frank Cox wrote:
> On Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:12:52 -0700
> Rick Stevens wrote:
>
>> Linuxguy123 wrote:
>>> How is it working for you ?
>> I run it on an Acer Aspire One. Works fine.
>
> *blink* Is THAT what he meant by minicomputer? How could you possibly call
> something like that a mini? "See my tractor-trailer rig" and I show you
a
> Honda Civic with trailer hitch?
Well, I'm assuming that's what s/he meant. I, too, am of the old school
where "mainframes" were S/370s, Sigmas and the like; "minis" were
PDP-11s, Vaxen, Novas and their ilk; and "micros" were anything smaller.
With "laptops", "portables" and "netbooks", the lines are
even fuzzier.
I feel the same way about the "Mini" moniker. I guess its somewhat
justified that the netbooks are called Minis because they have more
computing power than the old minis (PDP 11 et al) did.
There isn't anything mini about a PDP11 any more... except if you
compare its size to an old mainframe.
Its astonishing to think how much processing power we can buy for ~$400
these days. (See HP Mini 311, for example...) 30 years ago $400 would
have bought less than a day's computing time. Now it buys an entire
machine that is way faster and nicer.