Fwd: Re: Room for Collections

From: Master of all that Sucks <vance_at_ikickass.org>
Date: Tue Aug 21 17:10:37 2001

On Tue, 21 Aug 2001, Kent Borg wrote:

> If I read the quoting correctly (sound familiar?), Matthew Sell
> <msell_at_ontimesupport.com> asked:
> >As a discussion - what technically makes the difference between a
> >mainframe and a mini? Are there physical comparisons to be made or
> >performance?
>
> It is an ecosystem thing. It's an IBM thing.
>
> A "mainframe" is a computer that, when new, was classed with the
> biggest, nastiest, business IBMs available.
>
> It doesn't matter if it weighs a lot or is faster than the mainframes
> of an earlier generation, it depends upon its own generation. Also,
> the fastest supercomputers of an era are kinda beyond mainframe, and
> they lose their "super" qualification as new computers exceed them and
> become "former supercomputers". Mainframes tend to stay
> mainframes--obsolete maybe, but still mainframes. And frequently are
> still in use long after they become obsolete.

I think the distinction between supercomputers and mainframes is even
deeper than that. Supercomputers are designed to do things very very
fast. Mainframes are designed to do many many things at once. The two
goals frequently aren't convergent.

> Mainframes tend to put a lot of effort into highspeed IO, are
> expensive, and can do lots of transactions well. (Because expensive
> means you want to keep them busy.)

Mainframes are very good at serving thousands, if not hundreds of
thousands of *simultaneous* transactions.

Peace... Sridhar

> -kb
>
Received on Tue Aug 21 2001 - 17:10:37 BST