🚀 go-pugleaf

postmaster nospam _ ennis @ mail . escape . ca (Sean Ennis) writes:

>"Rashid J Al-Ali" <ras...@qatar.net.qa> writes:

>] I am wondering, why people would use Mainframe computers.?
>] What are the major reasons for using mainframes.?
>] And what are the type of applications that mainframe would be used for?

>It's cheeper that way.  Thinkabout it... when mainframes were REALLY popular
>memory and processor cycles were _REALLY_ expensive.  Instead of giving a 
>really expensive computer to everyone who needed to use one, they could
>just put together one super-expensive (but cheeper than everyone having their
>own) computer and hang enough dumb-terminals off of it for the people who
>needed it... to use.  In addition, you could also hang several more terminals
>off of it for other people to use (people who were border line in need of
>a computer, or their work would just bennifit from access to ome).

>Not long ago (i.e. 1980's), processors and memmory dropped in price 
>significantly, and we started having PC's on everyone's desks (cheeper to have
>these little PC's - and more convienient - than to go and use the MainFrame).

>Now... we're finding that administering 100 PC's takes a lot of resources.
>It seems that there are just to many 'man hours' required to do it.  
>Luser^H^H^H^H^HUsers whipe out their hard drives, bring in viruses from home,
>mess with the configuration files, and cause all sorts of trouble.  Machines
>break down or need new software installed.  Peopel want to be able to go from
>machine to machine - log in, and have the same desk top/settings everywhere.
>So new we're going back to having a super expensive machine (that can be 
>administered by one or two people) and lots of cheep 'smart terminals' 
>hung off them (just enough HD space to be able to contact the server and
>load the OS, and the run everything off the big server).

>Kind of like the Red Queen's race - you have to run as fast as you can just 
>to stay in the same place.

>Sean

>--
>Wally : "Stupidity is like nuclear      |From: header mashed to prevent junk
>power; it can be used for good or evil."|mail. If you have something important
>Dilbert : "And you don't ---------------|to say, remove the nospam_, spaces and
>want to get any on you." | the postmaster from the 'From:' line.  Sean Ennis O-
	
	

	In the early 70s, I was working for RCA , they were building 
mainframes then, and RCA was trying to market "Octaputers" a big mainframe
that would be a lot of terminals linked together with the mainframe.  The
new competition was DEC's minicomputers.  I held then as I do now that if
things were fairly even, people would opt for their very own computer and
reject the Octaputer.  I hold the same thought today.

regards --- ken