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1+, 25 MHz RISC processor from early 1990s]] A workstation, such as a '' Unix workstation'', '' RISC workstation'' or '' Engineering workstation'', is a high-end Desktop or deskside Microcomputer designed for technical applications. Workstations are intended primarily to be used by one person at a time, although they can usually also be accessed remotely by other users when necessary. Workstations usually offer higher performance than is normally seen on a Personal Computer , especially with respect to Graphics , Processing power, memory capacity and multitasking ability. Workstations are often optimized for displaying and manipulating complex data such as 3D mechanical design, engineering simulation results, and mathematical plots. Consoles usually consist of a high resolution display, a Keyboard and a Mouse at a minimum, but often support multiple displays and may often utilize a Server level processor. For design and advanced visualization tasks, specialized input hardware such as Graphics Tablet s or a SpaceBall can be used. Workstations have classically been the first part of the computer market to offer advanced accessories and collaboration tools such as Videoconferencing capability. Following the Performance Trends Of Computers In General , today's average personal computer is more powerful than the top-of-the-line workstations of one generation before. As a result, the workstation market is becoming increasingly specialized, since many complex operations that formerly required high-end systems can now be handled by general-purpose PCs. However, workstations are designed and optimized for situations requiring considerable computing power, where they tend to remain usable while traditional personal computers quickly become unresponsive. CONTRASTING WORKSTATIONS AND PERSONAL COMPUTERS Workstation]] , 2x 25MHz 68030 processor from early 1990s]] Workstations and personal computers (PCs) followed different evolutionary paths. Workstations were popular for engineering, science and graphics throughout the 1980s and 1990s, moving the capabilities of larger computers to the desktop; at the same time, PCs were evolving from their hobbyist origins to capable systems for home and office use. Evolution of the workstation Workstations were originally derived from lower cost versions of Minicomputers such as the VAX line, which in turn had been designed to offload smaller compute tasks from the very expensive Mainframe computers of the time. They rapidly adopted 32-bit single-chip microprocessors Motorola 68000 series, which were much less expensive than the multi-chip processors prevalent in early minis. Later generation workstations used 32-bit and 64-bit RISC processors, which offered higher performance than the CISC processors used in personal computers. Workstations also ran the same multiuser/multitasking operating systems that minicomputers used, most commonly Unix. They also used networking to connect to larger computers for engineering analysis and design visualization. The much lower costs relative to minicomputers and mainframes allowed greater overall productivity for many companies that relied on powerful computers for technical computing work, since individual users now each had a machine to themselves for small to medium size tasks, thereby freeing up larger computers for batch jobs. Evolution of the PC Personal computers, in contrast to workstations, were not designed to bring minicomputer performance to an engineer's desktop, but instead were originally intended for hobbyist/home use or office productivity applications; price sensitivity was a primary consideration. The first personal computers used 8-bit single-chip microprocessors, especially the MOS Technology 6502 and Zilog Z80 processors, in the early days of the Apple II , Atari 800 , Commodore 64 and TRS-80 . The introduction of the IBM PC in 1981, based on Intel's X86 processor design, eventually changed the industry, with most desktop computers that were not PC Clone s falling by the wayside. Apple was the lone holdout, opting instead to move first to the Motorola 68000 and then to the PowerPC processor line, but has now also migrated to x86-based systems. This De Facto standardization means some software dating back over 20 years can still be run on current PCs, although operating system variations can often make it difficult to run software tied to an earlier specific OS release. PC operating systems were originally single tasking; early OSes such as CP/M , TRS-DOS , Apple DOS and MS-DOS only supported running one program at a time. Both Microsoft Windows and Apple's OSes evolved to support co-operative multitasking and then pre-emptive multitasking; in addition, Unix and Unix-like operating system releases for PCs have been on the market for some time. EXAMPLES OF THE FIRST WORKSTATIONS minicomputer, first to use a Graphical User Interface with mouse and origin of Ethernet .]] Perhaps the first computer that might qualify as a "workstation" was the IBM 1620 , a small scientific computer designed to be used interactively by a single person sitting at the console. It was introduced in 1959. One peculiar feature of the machine was that it lacked any actual arithmetic circuitry. To perform addition, it required a memory-resident table of decimal addition rules. This saved on the cost of logic circuitry, enabling IBM to make it inexpensive. The machine was code-named CADET, which some people waggishly claimed meant "Can't Add, Doesn't Even Try". Nonetheless, it rented initially for $1000 a month. In 1965, IBM introduced the IBM 1130 scientific computer, which was meant as the successor to the 1620. Both of these systems came with the ability to run programs written in Fortran and other languages. Both the 1620 and the 1130 were built into roughly desk-sized cabinets. Both were available with add-on disk drives, printers, and both paper-tape and punched-card I/O. A console typewriter for direct interaction was standard on each. Early examples of workstations were generally dedicated minicomputers; a system designed to support a number of users would instead be reserved exclusively for one person. A notable example was the PDP-8 from Digital Equipment Corporation , regarded to be the first commercial minicomputer. The first computers specifically designed for one user (and so a workstation in the modern sense of the term) were the Lisp Machine s developed at MIT around 1974. Other early examples include the famous Xerox Star (1981) and the less well known Three Rivers PERQ (1979). In the early 1980s, new participants in this field included Apollo Computer and Sun Microsystems , who created Unix -based workstations based on the Motorola 68000 processor. Meanwhile DARPA 's VLSI Project created several spinoff graphics products as well, notably the SGI 3130 , and Silicon Graphics ' range of machines that followed. It was not uncommon to differentiate the target market for the products, with Sun and Apollo considered to be network workstations, while the SGI machines were '''graphics workstations'''. Workstations tended to be very expensive, typically several times the cost of a standard PC and sometimes costing as much as a new Car . However, minicomputers sometimes cost as much as a house. The high expense usually came from using costlier components that ran faster than those found at the local computer store, as well as the inclusion of features not found in PCs of the time, such as high-speed networking and sophisticated graphics. Workstation manufacturers also tend to take a "balanced" approach to system design, making certain to avoid bottlenecks so that data can flow unimpeded between the many different subsystems within a computer. Additionally, workstations, given their more specialized nature, tend to have higher Profit Margin s than Commodity -driven PCs. The systems that come out of workstation companies often feature SCSI or Fibre Channel disk storage systems, high-end 3D Accelerator s, single or multiple 64-bit Processors , large amounts of RAM , and well-designed cooling. Additionally, the companies that make the products tend to have very good repair/replacement plans. However, the line between workstation and PC is increasingly becoming blurred as the demand for fast computers, networking and graphics have become common in the consumer world, allowing workstation manufacturers to use "off the shelf" PC components and graphics solutions as opposed to Proprietary in-house developed technology. Some "low-cost" workstations are still expensive by PC standards, but offer binary compatibility with higher-end workstations and servers made by the same vendor. This allows software development to take place on low-cost (relative to the server) desktop machines. There have been several attempts to produce a workstation-like machine specifically for the lowest possible price point as opposed to performance. One approach is to remove local storage and reduce the machine to the processor, keyboard, mouse and screen. In some cases, these '' Diskless Node s'' would still run a traditional OS and perform computations locally, with storage on a remote Server ; in other cases (on machines that would today be described as Thin Client s), the local device would fill a niche much closer to a Terminal than a computer, displaying tasks executing on the remote server. These approaches are intended not just to reduce the initial system purchase cost, but lower the Total Cost Of Ownership by reducing the amount of administration required per user. This approach was actually first attempted as a replacement for PCs in office productivity applications, with the 3Station by 3Com as an early example; in the 1990s, X Terminal s filled a similar role for technical computing. Sun has also introduced " Thin Client s", most notably its Sun Ray product line. However, traditional workstations and PCs continue to drop in price, which tends to undercut the market for products of this type. WHAT MAKES A WORKSTATION? Consumer products such as PCs (and even Game Console s) today use components that are often at or near the cutting edge of technology; this makes the decision of whether or not to purchase a workstation much less clear-cut for many organizations than it had been in the past. Sometimes these systems are still required, but many places opt for the less expensive, if more fault-prone, PC-level hardware. It is instructive to take a detailed look at the history of specific technologies which once differentiated workstations from personal computers. The modern reader might be amused at what was considered the target for a high-end workstation in the early 1980s, the so-called "" compute performance (at least one million floating point instructions per second).RFC 782 defined the workstation environment more generally as ''hardware and software dedicated to serve a single user'', and that it provide for the use of additional shared resources. As limited as this seems today, it was at least an order of magnitude beyond the capacity of the personal computer of the time; the original 1981 IBM PC had 16 KB memory, a text-only display, and floating-point performance around 1 kiloFLOPS (30 kiloFLOPS with the optional 8087 math coprocessor). Other desirable features not found in desktop computers at that time included networking, graphics acceleration, and high-speed internal and peripheral data buses. (Another goal was to bring the price for such a system down under a "Megapenny", that is, less than $10,000; this was not achieved until the late 1980s.) The more widespread adoption of these technologies into mainstream PCs was a direct factor in the decline of the workstation as a separate market segment:
These days, workstations have changed greatly. Since many of the components are now the same as those used in the consumer market, the price differential between workstations and consumer PCs is correspondingly much narrower than it once was. For example, some low-end workstations use CISC based processors like the Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon 64 as their CPUs. Higher-end workstations still use more sophisticated CPUs such as AMD Opteron , IBM POWER , MIPS or Sun's UltraSPARC , and run a variant of Unix , delivering a truly reliable workhorse for computing-intensive tasks. (PA-RISC and Alpha CPUs are still sold in workstations but are excluded in the above list as they are reaching their end-of-life soon.) Some workstations are designed for use with only one specific application such as AutoCAD , Avid Xpress Studio HD , 3D Studio Max , etc. To ensure compatibility with the software, purchasers usually ask for a certificate from the software vendor. The certification process makes the workstation's price jump several notches but for professional purposes, reliability is more important than the cost. Workstation class PCs A significant segment of the desktop market are computers expected to perform as workstations, but using PC operating systems and components. PC component manufacturers will often segment their product line, and market premium components which are functionally similar to the cheaper "consumer" models but feature a higher level of robustness and/or performance. Notable examples of this are the Xeon and Opteron CPUs, and the Quadro line of video processors. A workstation class PC may have some of the following features:
LIST OF WORKSTATIONS AND MANUFACTURERS Note that many of these are extinct.
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