It was considered a large minicomputer or a mainframe.

A.T.& T. entered the computer business with large minicomputers, just as the industry was shifting to smaller desktop models.

At the same time, personal computers using microprocessors like the 386 are taking business from larger minicomputers and mainframe computers.

In client-server computing, much of the computer brainwork is done at desktop personal computers that send information to be stored to the larger minicomputers.

Another is that powerful desktop machines, based on microprocessors and connected together in networks, are taking on jobs once handled by larger minicomputers and mainframes.

On a large minicomputer, vendors will pay between $1,650 and $3,300 for Release 4.0, compared with the current $2,860 fee.

The company has been faced with an industrywide shift away from larger minicomputers to desktop machines.

Still, succeeding in work stations is especially important to the company because those machines are taking over the jobs once performed by larger minicomputers.

New commercial applications have drawn work stations into applications that had been filled by the larger minicomputers and even the big mainframe computers.

The primary problem was that the systems were simply too slow, operating on 300 baud modems connected to large minicomputers.