Main Frame computers

The Largest type of computer in common use is the mainframe. Main frame computers are used in large organizations like insurance companies and banks where many people need frequent access to the same data, which is usually organized into one or more huge data bases.

    Air lines use large mainframe systems for flight scheduling , reservations, ticketing and meeting a range of customer service. Federal aviation Administration and the census Bureau - use mainframes to tract information   

about large populations, individual tax records, payroll and more. Many large  grocery and retail chains interconnected their stores with a mainframe, which immediately registers every sale , oversees stock and manages inventory levels.

Mainframes are being used more and more as specialized servers on the world wide web,enabling companies to offer secure transactions with customers over the internet. If you purchase an air line ticker over the web, for example , there is a good chance your transaction is being is being handled by mainframe system. In this type of application , the mainframe system may referred to as an enterprise server or an electronic commerce server.

In a transitional mainframe environment , each user works at a computer terminal. A terminal is a monitor and a keyboard  wired to the mainframe. There are basically two types of terminal used with mainframe systems. A dumb terminal does not have its own CPU or storage devices. these components are housed in the mainframe's system unit and are shared by all users. Each dumb terminal is simply an input/output (I/O) device that functions as a window into a computer located somewhere else. An intelligent  terminal, on the other hand , has its own processor and can perform some processing operations. Intelligent terminals, however, do not usually provide any storage.

Many enterprises are now connection personal computer networks to their mainframe system. This connection gives users access to mainframe data and services and also enables them to take advantages of local storage and processing, as well as other features of the PC or network.

A mainframe system can house an enormous volume of data, containing literally billions of records. Large mainframe systems can handle the input and output requirements of several thousand terminals. the largest IBM S/390 mainframe, for example , can support 50,000 users simultaneously while executing more than 1,600,000,000 instructions per second.

Depending on their size, capabilities and the number of users they must support, mainframe systems can cover a huge price range . Mainframe systems start at around $30,000; extensive mainframes can several million dollars.

If used to be common for mainframe computers  to occupy entire rooms or even an entire floor a high rise building. Typically, they were placed inside glass offices with special air conditioning to keep them cool and on raised floors to accommodate all the wiring needed to connect the system. This setup is not unimposing file cabinet - or row of file cabinets - although it may still require a some what controlled environment.

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