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Here's an example of an early 24-bit word minicomputer as shown in the maker's brochure

^Source

On the left, two washing-machine sized disk-drives, probably storing about 40 MB each. They needed regular servicing by an engineer from CDC or the manufacturer. The heavy multi-platter disk-packs were removable and were not sealed. You can see the empty perspex covers and black plastic bases for the disk-packs resting on the lids of the blue disk-drive units.

At the back, the CPU with a control console including rows of toggle switches for entering machine-code instructions and data - mainly used for entering a bootstrap that would get the CPU to read a paper-tape-drive, card-reader or magnetic-tape-drive to start the process of loading the operating system.

The blue panel above the toggle-switch panel would open up like a cupboard door to reveal a row of large circuit boards that plug into a backplane. The early ones used ferrite-core memories - you could see the actual bits.

Next to the CPU is a full-height cabinet gousing a 1200 bits-per-inch reel-to reel tape drive for backup and for archival storage as well as software distribution.

The man at the back is standing next to a lineprinter.

The woman is sitting at a pair of terminals, to her right is a card-punch/reader. Most locally-written application-specific programs would be loaded using this device in the early days.

Eventually the price of terminals dropped low enough that large businesses or research labs could afford to buy several of them and put them in a terminal room so that staff could share them on a rota system.

A system like the one pictured could probably support something of the order of 20-30 concurrent users while processing batch jobs on decks of punched cards.

The whole thing would be the minicomputer. It would be housed in a special air-conditioned computer-room.

Mainframes were much larger of course.

Here's an example of an early 24-bit word minicomputer as shown in the maker's brochure

^Source

On the left, two washing-machine sized disk-drives, probably storing about 40 MB each. They needed regular servicing by an engineer from CDC or the manufacturer. The heavy multi-platter disk-packs were removable and were not sealed. You can see the empty perspex covers and black plastic bases for the disk-packs resting on the lids of the blue disk-drive units.

At the back, the CPU with a control console including rows of toggle switches for entering machine-code instructions and data - mainly used for entering a bootstrap that would get the CPU to read a paper-tape-drive, card-reader or magnetic-tape-drive to start the process of loading the operating system.

The blue panel above the toggle-switch panel would open up like a cupboard door to reveal a row of large circuit boards that plug into a backplane. The early ones used ferrite-core memories - you could see the actual bits.

Next to the CPU is a full-height cabinet gousing a 1200 bits-per-inch reel-to reel tape drive for backup and for archival storage as well as software distribution.

The man at the back is standing next to a lineprinter.

The woman is sitting at a pair of terminals, to her right is a punched-card reader. Most locally-written application-specific programs would be loaded using this device in the early days.

Eventually the price of terminals dropped low enough that large businesses or research labs could afford to buy several of them and put them in a terminal room so that staff could share them on a rota system.

A system like the one pictured could probably support something of the order of 20-30 concurrent users while processing batch jobs on decks of punched cards.

The whole thing would be the minicomputer. It would be housed in a special air-conditioned computer-room.

Mainframes were much larger of course.

Here's an example of an early 24-bit word minicomputer as shown in the maker's brochure

On the left, two washing-machine sized disk-drives, probably storing about 40 MB each. They needed regular servicing by an engineer from CDC or the manufacturer. The heavy multi-platter disk-packs were removable and were not sealed. You can see the empty perspex covers and black plastic bases for the disk-packs resting on the lids of the blue disk-drive units.

At the back, the CPU with a control console including rows of toggle switches for entering machine-code instructions and data - mainly used for entering a bootstrap that would get the CPU to read a tape-drive, card-reader or tape-drive to start the process of loading the operating system.

The blue panel above the toggle-switch panel would open up like a cupboard door to reveal a row of large circuit boards that plug into a backplane. The early ones used ferrite-core memories - you could see the actual bits.

Next to the CPU is a full-height cabinet gousing a 1200 bits-per-inch reel-to reel tape drive for backup and for archival storage as well as software distribution.

The man at the back is standing next to a lineprinter.

The woman is sitting at a pair of terminals, to her right is a card-punch/reader. Most locally-written application-specific programs would be loaded using this device in the early days.

Eventually the price of terminals dropped low enough that large businesses or research labs could afford to buy several of them and put them in a terminal room so that staff could share them on a rota system.

A system like the one pictured could probably support something of the order of 20-30 concurrent users while processing batch jobs on decks of punched cards.

The whole thing would be the minicomputer. It would be housed in a special air-conditioned computer-room.

Mainframes were much larger of course.

Here's an example of an early 24-bit word minicomputer as shown in the maker's brochure

^Source

On the left, two washing-machine sized disk-drives, probably storing about 40 MB each. They needed regular servicing by an engineer from CDC or the manufacturer. The heavy multi-platter disk-packs were removable and were not sealed. You can see the empty perspex covers and black plastic bases for the disk-packs resting on the lids of the blue disk-drive units.

At the back, the CPU with a control console including rows of toggle switches for entering machine-code instructions and data - mainly used for entering a bootstrap that would get the CPU to read a paper-tape-drive, card-reader or magnetic-tape-drive to start the process of loading the operating system.

The blue panel above the toggle-switch panel would open up like a cupboard door to reveal a row of large circuit boards that plug into a backplane. The early ones used ferrite-core memories - you could see the actual bits.

Next to the CPU is a full-height cabinet gousing a 1200 bits-per-inch reel-to reel tape drive for backup and for archival storage as well as software distribution.

The man at the back is standing next to a lineprinter.

The woman is sitting at a pair of terminals, to her right is a card-punch/reader. Most locally-written application-specific programs would be loaded using this device in the early days.

Eventually the price of terminals dropped low enough that large businesses or research labs could afford to buy several of them and put them in a terminal room so that staff could share them on a rota system.

A system like the one pictured could probably support something of the order of 20-30 concurrent users while processing batch jobs on decks of punched cards.

The whole thing would be the minicomputer. It would be housed in a special air-conditioned computer-room.

Mainframes were much larger of course.

Here's an example of an early 24-bit word minicomputer as shown in the maker's brochure

On the left, two washing-machine sized disk-drives, probably storing about 40 MB each. They needed regular servicing by an engineer from CDC or the manufacturer. The heavy multi-platter disk-packs were removable and were not sealed. You can see the empty perspex covers and black plastic bases for the disk-packs resting on the lids of the blue disk-drive units.

At the back, the CPU with a control console including rows of toggle switches for entering machine-code instructions and data - mainly used for entering a bootstrap that would get the CPU to read a tape-drive, card-reader or tape-drive to start the process of loading the operating system.

The blue panel above the toggle-switch panel would open up like a cupboard door to reveal a row of large circuit boards that plug into a backplane. The early ones used ferrite-core memories - you could see the actual bits.

Next to the CPU is a full-height cabinet gousing a 1200 bits-per-inch reel-to reel tape drive for backup and for archival storage as well as software distribution.

The man at the back is standing next to a lineprinter.

The woman is sitting at a pair of terminals, to her right is a card-punch/reader. Most locally-written application-specific programs would be loaded using this device in the early days.

Eventually the price of terminals dropped low enough that large businesses or research labs could afford to buy several of them and put them in a terminal room so that staff could share them on a rota system.

The whole thing would be the minicomputer. It would be housed in a special air-conditioned computer-room.

Mainframes were much larger of course.

Here's an example of an early 24-bit word minicomputer as shown in the maker's brochure

On the left, two washing-machine sized disk-drives, probably storing about 40 MB each. They needed regular servicing by an engineer from CDC or the manufacturer. The heavy multi-platter disk-packs were removable and were not sealed. You can see the empty perspex covers and black plastic bases for the disk-packs resting on the lids of the blue disk-drive units.

At the back, the CPU with a control console including rows of toggle switches for entering machine-code instructions and data - mainly used for entering a bootstrap that would get the CPU to read a tape-drive, card-reader or tape-drive to start the process of loading the operating system.

The blue panel above the toggle-switch panel would open up like a cupboard door to reveal a row of large circuit boards that plug into a backplane. The early ones used ferrite-core memories - you could see the actual bits.

Next to the CPU is a full-height cabinet gousing a 1200 bits-per-inch reel-to reel tape drive for backup and for archival storage as well as software distribution.

The man at the back is standing next to a lineprinter.

The woman is sitting at a pair of terminals, to her right is a card-punch/reader. Most locally-written application-specific programs would be loaded using this device in the early days.

Eventually the price of terminals dropped low enough that large businesses or research labs could afford to buy several of them and put them in a terminal room so that staff could share them on a rota system.

A system like the one pictured could probably support something of the order of 20-30 concurrent users while processing batch jobs on decks of punched cards.

The whole thing would be the minicomputer. It would be housed in a special air-conditioned computer-room.

Mainframes were much larger of course.