2014-04-26 10:52:28 -04:00
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mainframe
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2014-04-26 11:54:15 -04:00
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n. Term originally referring to the cabinet containing the central processor
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unit or main frame of a room-filling Stone Age batch machine. After the
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emergence of smaller minicomputer designs in the early 1970s, the
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traditional big iron machines were described as mainframe computers and
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eventually just as mainframes. The term carries the connotation of a machine
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designed for batch rather than interactive use, though possibly with an
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interactive timesharing operating system retrofitted onto it; it is
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especially used of machines built by IBM, Unisys, and the other great
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dinosaur s surviving from computing's Stone Age. It has been common wisdom
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among hackers since the late 1980s that the mainframe architectural
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tradition is essentially dead (outside of the tiny market for
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number-crunching supercomputers having been swamped by the recent huge
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advances in IC technology and low-cost personal computing. The wave of
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failures, takeovers, and mergers among traditional mainframe makers in the
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early 1990s bore this out. The biggest mainframer of all, IBM, was compelled
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to re-invent itself as a huge systems-consulting house. (See dinosaurs
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mating and killer micro ). However, in yet another instance of the cycle of
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reincarnation , the port of Linux to the IBM S/390 architecture in 1999
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assisted by IBM produced a resurgence of interest in mainframe computing as
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a way of providing huge quantities of easily maintainable, reliable virtual
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Linux servers, saving IBM's mainframe division from almost certain
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extinction.
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