What Is Main Frame Computer?

Main Frame Computers: As we hear to this name the main frame computer an image of a huge size of computer comes to our mind and it is true to some extend because in early ages and the first main frame computer was introduced by the IBM in 1965, operating those main frame computers was not easy and only few professionally trained persons could operate those main frame computers, the size of the main frame computer was so huge so that was physically placed in to whole building.

In today's fast growing business environment we still have the main frame computers with more power and very much user friendly as compared to the old main frame computers, the main frame computers are used by the large firms for the processing of there critical data which can't be processed by the normally used computers in offices and at homes, e.g. the financial data processing, ERP, industrial and consumer statistics etc. The other very common example of the main frame computers are the servers used by ISPs etc, the servers and the main frames are normally interchangeably used, there is another very important point i.e. now a days the computers which are compatible with IBM System/360 lines are known as main frame computers.

The largest type of computer in common use is main frame. Main frame computers are used in the large organizations like insurance companies and banks where many people need frequent access to the same data, which is usually organized into 1 or more huge database. Air lines use large main frame systems for flight scheduling, reservation, ticketing and meeting a range of customer service needs. Also it is used in the internet as you mentioned but in internet it is used as server of websites which has huge data like yahoo, msn and news sites. Also they as used as gateways for the internet traffic going all around the world.

In traditional main frame environment, each user works at a computer terminal. A terminal is a monitor and a keyboard connected to a main frame. These computers are larger in size. Main frame computers are expensive but they can store huge amount of data (billions of records) and can support thousands of terminal. These computers are basically used in network environment; as a single user can not utilize there full processing power. IBM S/390 is an example of main frame computers.