We had shared S100 8080 systems in our EE lab at university. 7 terminals per CPU. Worked just fine for editing programs. But when everyone started a (Pascal) compile run at the same time, things got plenty slow.
We had shared S100 8080 systems in our EE lab at university. 7 terminals per CPU. Worked just fine for editing programs. But when everyone started a (Pascal) compile run at the same time, things got plenty slow.
I’d note those competed with minicomputers, my high school had a PDP-8 circa 1981 when I was taking a few classes there while still in elementary school. The PDP-8 could support three terminals of interactive BASIC or could be brought up in a single user mode where you got more memory and could run bigger programs like the Crowther & Woods ADVENTURE. A bigger school has a PDP-11 with about 20 terminals. By 1985 or so my school got a VAX-11/730 which is basically like a modern computer.
Yes, at my first job, we had a VAX 11/785 which ran an entire engineering department. About 30-40 terminals.