Minisupercomputers constituted a short-lived class of computers that emerged in the mid-1980s. As scientific computing using vector processors became more popular, the need for lower-cost systems that might be used at the departmental level instead of the corporate level created an opportunity for new computer vendors to enter the market. As a generalization, the price targets for these smaller computers were one-tenth of the larger supercomputers. These computer systems were characterized by the combination of vector processing and small-scale multiprocessing.
Several notable technical, economic, and political attributes characterize minisupercomputers. First, they were architecturally more diverse than prior mainframes and minicomputers in hardware and less diverse in software. Second, advances in VLSI made them less expensive (mini-price). These machines were market targeted to be cost-effective and quickly manufactured. Third, it is notable who did not manufacture minisupercomputers: within the USA, IBM and the traditional mainframe makers, outside the USA: the Japanese supercomputer vendors and Russia (despite attempts to manufacture minicomputers).
The appearance of even lower-priced scientific workstations based on microprocessors with high performance floating point units (FPUs) during the 1990s (such as the MIPS R8000, IBM POWER2), and Weitek eroded the demand for this class of computer.
The industry magazine Datamation coined the term "crayette" which in short order meant instruction set compatible to Cray Research, Inc.
Notable minisupercomputer companies (alphabetically)
- Ametek Another Caltech/Intel based hypercube
- Alliant Computer Systems (founded 1982 as Dataflow Systems; went bankrupt in 1992)
- American Supercomputer (founded by Mike Flynn, failed 2nd round funding)
- Astronautics (Division founded by Jim Smith, U. Wisc.)
- BBN
- Convex Computer (founded 1982 as Parsec; acquired by Hewlett-Packard in 1995)
- Culler Harris (CHI)
- Culler Scientific
- Cydrome (founded 1984)
- DEC (VAX 9000)
- Elxsi Corporation (founded 1979)
- Encore Computer (founded 1983; acquired by Systems Engineering Laboratories)
- Evans & Sutherland (Computer Division, Mountain View, CA)
- Flexible Computer (FLEX) (founded in TX)
- Floating Point Systems (founded 1970; acquired by Cray Research in 1991)
- Guiltech/SAXPY
- HAL Computer Systems
- IBM (ES/9121 with Vector Facility)
- ICL (DAP)
- Kendall Square Research
- Key Laboratories
- MasPar
- Meiko Scientific
- Multiflow Computer (founded 1984; ceased operation in 1990)
- Myrias
- Prisma
- Parsytec
- Pyramid Technology
- Scientific Computer Systems (founded 1983; switched to high-speed network development in 1989; now defunct)
- Sequent (if Encore is regarded, then, so too these next two firms)
- Solbourne
- SUPRENUM
- Supertek Computers (Founded 1985; acquired by Cray Research 1990)
- Thinking Machines Corporation
