Minicomputer

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First generation Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) PDP-8 on display at the National Museum of American History

The word "minicomputer" (colloquially, "mini") is a term for a class of smaller computers that evolved in the mid-1960s and sold for much less than mainframe and mid-size computers from IBM and its direct competitors. In a 1970 survey, the New York Times suggested a consensus definition of a minicomputer as a machine costing less than with an input-output device such as a teleprinter and at least 4K words of memory, that is capable of running programs in a higher level language, such as Fortran or Basic. The class formed a distinct group with its own hardware architectures and operating systems.