The 3rd Epoch in HIS-tory:

The Minicomputer Revolution

3rd epoch in HIS-tory: Minis!• If you’ve been following this series to date, you

should be familiar with the first 2 HIS epochs and their strengths & weaknesses:– 1960 Mainframes – vast improvement over ledger

cards, but huge cost both to the hardware manufacturer and for inhouse programmers.

– 1970s Shared Systems – affordable for medium & small hospitals, but mainly financials, no clinicals.

• In the ‘80s, turnkey minicomputer systems solved all 3 problems:– Cost– hardware manufacturers like DEC & DG introduced minis

that were a fraction of the size and cost of mainframes.– Clinicals – pioneering vendors like McAuto (yes, the shared giant!)

and HBO (no “C” yet!) developed order entry & results reporting software that was pre-packaged – just “turn the key!”

Minicomputer Hardware Roots• The development of

minicomputers themselves actually started way back in the late 50s, paralleling the introduction of mainframes; one of the pioneers was:

– DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) - formed in 1957 by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson, both ex-MIT gurus (about a decade before Neal Pappalardo’s tenure). They set up shop in an old civil-war era textile mill in Maynard, Mass. (shades of Ross & Royal Roads in PA?), and started producing a line of computers both smaller and cheaper than IBM & the BUNCH Group’s mainframes.

DEC the Halls with PDPs…• The first prominent line of DEC

minicomputers were called “Programmable Data Processors,” or “PDP” in geek.

• In 1959, DEC introduced the PDP-1, pictured at right.

• Cute piece of DP trivia: remember how IBM’s 360s used a 1052 terminal as a console, which was little more than an IBM Selectric typewriter on steroids?

• Well, check out the console for the PDP1: an IBM electric typewriter, modified to serve as a console!

Incestuous Interrelationships The first PDP1 was sold to BBN (Bolt

Bernaek & Newman) of Boston, an amazing consulting firm with ties to many early DP initiatives such as ARPANET (“www” pre-cursor).

• BBN used the PDP1 in the “Hospital Computer Project,” funded by the NIH and AHA in 1962, staffed by notables such as Homer Warner (of later IHC fame). Ironically, BBN used the PDP to pioneer the concept of time-sharing, paving the way for SHAS!• Massachusetts General Hospital - was the pilot site for this embryonic on-line HIS clinical system, which used every bit of the PDP-1’s 16K (that’s K, not Meg, or Gig!) of 18-bit word memory! Slow response times killed it, but amazing that an early HIS was the first project for the first minicomputer!

PDP Evolution• After selling ≈50 PDP-1s by 1969, DEC launched a wave of

successors that brought increasing power at a price far below IBM & the BUNCH’s boxes:– 24-bit PDP-2, and a 36-bit PDP-3 were developed next,– Followed by the PDP-4 costing only $65,000 (54 sold)– And the PDP-9 at only $19,000, of which 445 were sold

- Best-selling of all was the PDP-8, pictured at right, sold to over 1400 customers. Compare its refrigerator size to a mainframe’s room-filling girth! Now, small and medium hospitals could afford both the capital cost, and find floor space to fit these boxes in small rooms or closets, while mainframes usually went in the basement…

Other Mini-Makers• Meanwhile, many more mini

makers multiplied (sorry…)– Data General – formed in 1968 by

2 ex-DEC-ers, introducing the 16-bit “Nova” line of minis (pictured on right – check out the label!)

• Hewlett-Packard – One of the few mini-makers to survive to this day, HP entered the mini-market in the 1960s with its 2100 series, pictured at left.

- The 2116 offered up to16K of 16-bit word memory.• The HP 3000 really took hold in HIS in 1973

- Amazingly, HP 3000s in one form or another (final version was the “e3000”) were made right up to 2010!- Later versions of the 3000 cracked the 64-bit word barrier, something DEC didn’t do until its “Alpha” line.

“Big Blue” offered Mini-Blues• IBM was never one to be left

behind in the early R&D wars– Mini-mania seemed to sweep

Armonk as IBM released box after box to keep up with and out-due its mini rivals in this maxi-market:

• 1969 System/3• 1975 System/32• 1976 Series/1• 1977 System/34• 1978 System/38

• 1978 8100• 1983 System/36• 1985 System/88• 1988 AS/400• 1990 RS/6000• 2000s p & i-Series

HIS Mini-Monster: Four Phase• Another Cupertino firm established in 1967 became

one of the biggest names in the HIS mini market:• Four Phase – the name coming from a multi-phase

clock in one of their earlier processors, made huge waves at SMS, McAuto and an upstart called HBO.

• Pictured at right is the System IV/70- Handled up to 32 CRTs on-line- “Front-ending” IBM 360/370s- Memory from 12K to 24K bytes- Peripherals included:

• IBM Selectric printer (again!)• Line printers, up to 200 LPM• 2.5 Meg Disk Drive

Minicomputer Roster• It’s hard to compile (no pun intended!) a list of all of

the minis that came pouring into the HIS market in the 70s, but here’s a few more worth noting:

• Wang• Qantel• Honeywell• Xerox• Varian• Univac• TI• Perkin-Elmer

• Hitachi• MicroData• ModComp• NCR• GEC• Harris• Burroughs• Prime

Platform Profusion• One of the few negatives to the mini hardware

that flooded the market in the 70s was the variety of their proprietary data bases, operating systems and program languages.

• Hospitals who bought a mini system suddenly found their IT shops pigeon-holed into being a “DEC shop” or “DG shop” or “IBM shop,” with their techies speaking VMS or RPG or Unix…

• Even UNIX had as many variants as there were manufacturers in this mini tower of Babel.

• Which leads us to next week’s topic: the “turnkey” software that made minis mighty!