A Mainframe, Mini or Micro?

Three kinds of computer exist today:

The

mainframe

computer — a very large machine filling one or more rooms where large-scale computing operations, such as the processing of bank accounts, are carried out; The

minicomputer

— a medium-sized machine, which occupies the corner of a room, with very large storage capacity and a number of programming languages and facilities; The

microcomputer

(or micro for short) — a table-top machine with limited memory, say 64K, and a limited number of available ‘add-ons’ such as printers and cassette or disc machines.