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