Mainframes & Minicomputers
Various • 1951

Prior to the sixties, if you wanted a computer, you'd need a flipping great big room for it, as computers were huge. You'd also need around million dollars. Users would connect to these mainframe computers using a terminal (usually a keyboard with a monitor), which would send instructions to the mainframe.

Minicomputers came along in the mid-sixties, and though not mini by today's standards, they were compared to the mainframe. The cost was a lot less prohibitive and would take up the size of, lets say, a wardrobe.

Although not designed as games machines due to the cost and size, it didn't stop users from creating games on them. Spacewar! – the game which was cloned in the first arcade game, Computer Space – began life on the PDP-1 minicomputer; and the very first adventure game – Adventure (aka Colossal Cave Adventure) started out on the PDP-10 Mainframe.

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Buy Mainframes & Minicomputers on eBay

Vintage 70's Cortron Mainframe Minicomputer Keyboard 55-500215

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Digital DEC DECMate Terminal & Mainframe Minicomputer VT278-AH

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Very Rare Vintage IBM Naval Computer Mainframe

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EXTREMELY RARE Honeywell H4200 (H8200) Mainframe Control Panel

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Applicon DEC Digital PDP 11/34? Mainframe Computer Memorex Hard Drive & Software

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Vintage Computer Superstride 740 by Millennium, Sage, Network Mainframe

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Texas Instruments TI 990 Series Minicomputer assorted Circuit boards

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RARE IBM 3890 Mainframe CPU Operator Panel System Check Sorter Control Unit 360

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Antique Burrough Mainframe computer (5500?) 40 boards with motherboard

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Vintage Cortron 80-250090 CPT 8500 Mainframe Terminal Keyboard Magnetic Valve

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Popular Mainframes & Minicomputers games

Spacewar!
1962

Tetris
1984

Emulation

If you are interested in emulating very early computers such as mainframes, minicomputers and early microcomputers, we recommend you try SIMH, which describes itself as 'the computer history simulator'.

System	Emulator	Notes
Various	SIMH	Non-Windows platform users will have to compile the emulators
Web Browser	Spacewar! on a PDP-1	Javascript emulator of a DEC PDP-1 running Spacewar!
Various	Hercules	Emulator for various IBM Mainframe computers

Emulator information last updated 30th March 2020

Resources

• A List of Minicomputers