Essential Guide to Computing: The Story of Information Technology, The

Minicomputer/Server Systems

We will divide the minicomputer, also called the mid-range computer, into two categories. The first is that of the traditional proprietary systems—that is to say, operating systems that were designed and sold by a single vendor. The second category is that of Unix, an OS that was initially developed by Bell Laboratories, but widely licensed and used in a number of versions by most of the major computer makers. As noted in Chapter 4, minicomputer is a somewhat archaic term. In today's world, these machines are called servers. If we were considering servers as they stand today, we would be including several other OSs, notably Microsoft's NT/2000 and Novell's Netware. However, since the objective of this chapter is to ...