Superminicomputer

As technology improved rapidly the distinction between minicomputer and superminicomputer performance blurred. Companies that sold mainframe computers began to offer machines in the same price and performance range as superminicomputers. By the mid-1980s microprocessors with the hardware architecture of superminicomputers were used to produce scientific and engineering workstations. The minicomputer industry then declined through the early 1990s. The term is now considered obsolete but still remains of interest for students/researchers of computer history.

Notable companies

Notable manufacturers of superminicomputers in 1980 included: Digital Equipment Corporation, Perkin-Elmer, and Prime Computer. Other makers of systems included SEL/Gould and Data General. Four years later there were about a dozen companies producing a significant number of superminicomputers. ()

Perkin-Elmer spun off their Data Systems Group in 1985 to form Concurrent Computer Corporation which continued making these systems. Nixdorf Computer, Norsk Data, and Toshiba also produced systems.