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. At the peak of their popularity, 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. The form factor can also offer 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...