Midrange computer

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Midrange computer, or midrange system, is a designation used mainly by IBM for a class of computer systems which fall in between mainframe computers and microcomputers. The range was developed in 1960s and more generally known at the time as minicomputers (a term obsolete since 1990s). Popular makers of such computer lines included for example Digital Equipment Corporation (PDP line), Data General, Hewlett-Packard (HP3000 line), and Sun Microsystems.

IBM has made several models of midrange computers over these years: the System/3, System/34, System/32, System/36, System/38, and AS/400, which was recently rebranded to System i.

Historically, midrange computers have been sold to small to medium-sized businesses as their main computer, and to larger enterprises for branch- or department-level operations.

Since 1980s, when the client-server computing architecture became predominant, computers of the comparable class are instead universally known as servers to recognize that they "serve" end users at their "client" computers. Since the client-server model was developed in Unix-like operating systems, using this term vaguely implies support of standard—rather than proprietary—protocols and programming interfaces.