Main+frame+and+supercomputers+-+Isaac


 * Mainframe and Super computers**

media type="file" key="Mainframes.MP3" Mainframes (sometimes called "big iron") are powerful computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing. It is used by large businesses, as it is needed in order to support a large number of users at once.

A data processing system employed mainly in large organizations for various applications, including bulk data processing, process control, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.

Mainframes use proprietary operating systems, most of which are based on Unix, and a growing number on Linux. Over the years they have evolved from being room-sized to networked configurations of workstations and servers that are an extremely competitive and cost effective platforms for e-commerce development and hosting. Mainframes are so called because the earliest ones were housed in large metalframes.

Meanwhile, a supercomputer is simply an extremely fast, extremely powerful computer, that is at the frontline of current processing capacity, particularly speed of calculation, which is the fastest possible. It is used for applications that require extreme amounts of calculations to be made in a short time, such as weather forecasting, or quantum physics. Thousands and thousands of processors are linked together, and this is known as parallel processing. This is required to cope with the sheer amount of calculations. One example of a supercomputer is the famous Cray supercomputer, built in the 1970s.



Edited by: Chirag