Ancestors

Written by Vick Forcella ™🌈🌳❄️☑️:verifi on 2025-01-14 at 21:10

Today, for no reason at all, I thought about mini computers.

Are mini computers still a thing?

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Written by Anthropy :verified_dragon: on 2025-01-14 at 21:13

@VickForcella you mean like NUCs? yes. or do you mean like Small Formfactor PCs? Also yes. Or do you mean like Raspberry PIs and SBCs? because also yes. Or maybe you meant like smartphone sized computers with a desktop OS? because also yes :P or did you mean something else?

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Toot

Written by Vick Forcella ™🌈🌳❄️☑️:verifi on 2025-01-14 at 21:36

@anthropy Kids don't know computers.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minicomputer

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Descendants

Written by Anthropy :verified_dragon: on 2025-01-14 at 21:41

@VickForcella those also still technically exist, we kinda just call those 'servers' or perhaps 'desktops' these days depending on their purpose. Mainframes also still exist, though they are basically the size of ye olde style 'minis', take for example the IBM Z systems: https://www.ibm.com/z

Computers have taken on many shapes, modularity allowing for bizarre contraptions, like the giant TPU 'superpods' we have at work, here's an example of one row section of a watercooled V5 superpod:

=> View attached media

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Written by Vick Forcella ™🌈🌳❄️☑️:verifi on 2025-01-14 at 21:48

@anthropy I remember a server room in ye old Amsterdam where a bunch of servers were buzzing away, and one old 386 PC setup as a Usenet server.

Hidden in the floor of the building was the Dutch backbone, wrist thick. Redbus was in creation before it turned into AMS-IX.

I feel old now.

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Written by Anthropy :verified_dragon: on 2025-01-14 at 21:52

@VickForcella technically I started my PC journey pretty early by 'stealing' old PCs from dumpsters and during grofvuil when I was like ~5 years old, so even though the Pentium 1 was basically a thing, I was mostly dickin about with 80286/386/486 and alike for many years before I had anything resembling a proper desktop, found Doom and Wolfenstein on at least one HDD so I had the time of my life with repairing and playing with and networking these in the early 90s :P

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