Workstation

A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term workstation has been used loosely to refer to everything from a mainframe computer terminal to a PC connected to a network, but most commonly refers to the class of hardware offered by several current and defunct companies such as Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics, Apollo Computer, DEC, HP, NeXT, and IBM beginning in the 1980s, and powered the 3D computer graphics revolution through the late 1990s. In their heyday, workstations offered higher performance specifications than mainstream personal computers, especially in terms of processing, graphics, memory, and multitasking. Workstations are optimized for the visualization and manipulation of different types of complex data such as 3D mechanical design, engineering simulations like computational fluid dynamics, animation, video editing, image editing, medical imaging, image rendering, computational science, generating mathematical plots, and software development. Typically, the form factor is that of a desktop computer, which consists of a high-resolution display, a keyboard, and a mouse at a minimum, but also offers multiple displays, graphics tablets, and 3D mice for manipulating objects and navigating scenes. Workstations were the first segment of the computer market to present advanced accessories, and collaboration tools like videoconferencing. The increasing capabilities of mainstream PCs since the late 1990s have reduced the distinction between PCs and workstations. Typical 1980s and 1990s workstations had expensive proprietary hardware and operating systems to categorically distinguish from standardized PCs; most had RISC-based processors and ran UNIX-based operating systems, but by the early 2000s, workstation offerings shifted to highly commoditized hardware dominated by large PC vendors, such as Dell, HP Inc., and Fujitsu, selling x86-64 systems running Windows or Linux.

History

Origins and development Workstations predate the first personal computer (PC). The first computer that might qualify as a workstation was the IBM 1620, codenamed "CADET", 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 this machine was that it lacked any arithmetic circuitry. To perform addition, it required a memory-resident table of decimal addition rules. This reduced the cost of logic circuitry, enabling IBM to make it inexpensive. It was initially rented for $1000 per month. In 1965, the 1620 was succeeded by the IBM 1130 scientific computer. Built into roughly desk-sized cabinets with console typewriters, they could be configured with optional add-on disk drives, printers, and both paper-tape and punch-card I/O. Early workstations were generally dedicated minicomputers, a multiuser system repurposed for a single user. For example, the PDP-8 from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), is regarded as the first commercial minicomputer. Workstations have historically been more advanced than contemporary PCs, with more powerful CPU architectures, more advanced graphics, more memory, and multitasking with sophisticated operating systems like Unix. They typically offered networking as a standard capability, long before this became prevalent in personal computing. Because of their minicomputer heritage, workstations since their introduction have supported professional and expensive software such as CAD and graphics design, as opposed to PCs' games and text editors. The Lisp machines developed at MIT in the early 1970s pioneered some workstation principles, as high-performance, networked, single-user systems intended for heavily interactive use. Lisp machines were commercialized beginning in 1980 by companies such as Symbolics, Lisp Machines, Texas Instruments (the TI Explorer), and Xerox (the Interlisp-D workstations). The first computer designed for a single user, with high-resolution graphics (and so a workstation in the modern sense), was the Alto developed at Xerox PARC in 1973. Other early workstations include the Terak 8510/a (1977), Three Rivers PERQ (1979), and the later Xerox Star (1981).

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