For small modern computers, see Small form factor

Small form factor

A small form factor is a computer form factor designed to minimize the volume of a desktop computer. For comparison purposes, the size of an SFF case is usually measured in litres. SFFs are available in a variety of sizes and shapes, including shoeboxes, cubes, and book-sized PCs...

, nettop

Nettop

Nettop may refer to:*Nettop, a type of computer*NetTop, a NSA project...

, etc.

A minicomputer (colloquially, mini) is a class of multi-user computer

Computer

A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...

s that lies in the middle range of the computing spectrum, in between the largest multi-user systems (mainframe computer

Mainframe computer

Mainframes are powerful computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.The term originally referred to the...

s) and the smallest single-user systems (microcomputer

Microcomputer

A microcomputer is a computer with a microprocessor as its central processing unit. They are physically small compared to mainframe and minicomputers...

s or personal computers). The class at one time formed a distinct group with its own hardware and operating systems, but the contemporary term for this class of system is midrange computer

Midrange computer

Midrange computers, or midrange systems, are a class of computer systems which fall in between mainframe computers and microcomputers.The class emerged in the 1960s and machines were generally known at the time as minicomputers - especially models from Digital Equipment Corporation , Data General,...

, such as the higher-end SPARC

SPARC

SPARC is a RISC instruction set architecture developed by Sun Microsystems and introduced in mid-1987....

, POWER

IBM POWER

POWER is a reduced instruction set computer instruction set architecture developed by IBM. The name is an acronym for Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC....

 and Itanium

Itanium

Itanium is a family of 64-bit Intel microprocessors that implement the Intel Itanium architecture . Intel markets the processors for enterprise servers and high-performance computing systems...

-based systems from Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...

, IBM

IBM

International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

 and Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...

.
The term evolved in the 1960s to describe the "small" third generation computers that became possible with the use of integrated circuit

Integrated circuit

An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit is an electronic circuit manufactured by the patterned diffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material...

 and core memory technologies.