Super mini computer

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

Super mini computers have been the successors to the 16-bit computers used in industry since the late 1970s .

They were often called "32-bit super minis". Their main application was in the technical field, in use with CAD , CAM , FEM and other CA technologies. She got to know a whole generation of engineers at the university and worked with them for about 15 years, until cheaper PC networks replaced super mini computers.

The superminis often served as department or group calculators. Normal configurations allowed around ten to thirty users to work on alphanumeric or graphic terminals with the star-wired computer. Common areas of responsibility for such computer systems were the introduction of CAD, the partially automated creation of parts lists and work plans in mechanical engineering and electrical engineering , the layout of electronic circuit boards, the simulation and calculation of flow processes in turbine and aircraft construction , or numerical CNC programming controlled machine tools .

The best- known suppliers of these computers were the two companies DEC and Pr1me . Data General computers ("Eclipse" series) have also become known as super minis. The most frequently used programming language at that time was Fortran in the versions FORTRAN IV and FORTRAN 77. When C became more and more popular as the programming language in the mid-1980s, the transition to Unix as the operating system for super minis came. Siemens-Nixdorf later became the provider of Unix super minis .