Several pioneering computer companies first built minicomputers, such as DEC, Data General, and Hewlett-Packard (HP) (who now refers to its HP3000 minicomputers as “servers” rather than “minicomputers”). And although today’s PCs and servers are clearly microcomputers physically, architecturally their CPUs and operating systems have evolved largely by integrating features from minicomputers.

In the software context, the relatively simple OSes for early microcomputers were usually inspired by minicomputer OSes (such as CP/M's similarity to Digital's RSTS) and multiuser OSs of today are often either inspired by or directly descended from minicomputer OSs (UNIX was originally a minicomputer OS, while Windows NT — the foundation for all current versions of Microsoft Windows — borrowed design ideas liberally from VMS and UNIX). Many of the first generation of PC programmers were educated on minicomputer systems.^{[citation needed]}

[

List of some notable minicomputers

• Control Data’s CDC 160A and CDC 1700
• DEC PDP and VAX series
• Data General Nova
• Hewlett-Packard HP3000 series, HP2100 series, HP1000 series.
• Honeywell-Bull Level 6/DPS 6/DPS 6000 series
• IBM midrange computers
• Norsk Data Nord-1, Nord-10, and Nord-100
• Prime Computer Prime 50 series
• SDS SDS-92
• Wang Laboratories 2200 and VS series
• K-202, first Polish minicomputer

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See also

• The Soul of a New Machine - about the development of Data General’s Eclipse/MV minicomputers in the early 1980s
• Charles Babbage Institute
• History of computing hardware (1960s-present)
• Supermini

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External links

• Early mini computers, still runnable in a German computer museum

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