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Re:Something is wrong when the ‘telephone app’ on your phone... by ethbro on Thursday May 04, 2017 @03:27PM (#14267908)
Before laptops became physically possible due to LCDs there were portable computers [1] (yes, I played with one my high school lab had).

I suspect in the future we'll have curious historians trying to figure out how the phrase "personal computer" ended up being shortened to "phone".

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portable_computer

Re:Something is wrong when the ‘telephone app’ on your phone... by sevensor on Thursday May 04, 2017 @04:35PM (#14268539)
I like how minicomputer used to mean "computer that's only as big as a chest freezer." Every now and then I hear laypeople use the term "mini-computer" to mean a computer that's really small by their standards, like a raspberry Pi.
Re:Something is wrong when the ‘telephone app’ on your phone... by dTal on Thursday May 04, 2017 @05:17PM (#14268917)
And then we had "microcomputers" (desktop PC sized). Rather disappointed we didn't call laptops "nanocomputers" and phones "picocomputers" :)
Re:Something is wrong when the ‘telephone app’ on your phone... by lokedhs on Thursday May 04, 2017 @09:31PM (#14270472)
In Swedish, the term "stordator", literally "big computer" refers to a mainframe.

I really like your idea of nano and picocomputers. It's consistent, and really reflects on the miniaturisation that we have seen since since the invention of the computer.

Re:Something is wrong when the ‘telephone app’ on your phone... by ethbro on Friday May 05, 2017 @09:03PM (#14278034)
Since "computer" pre-dates digital, it might be a good time to come up with a more apt base term too. It's not as if most people's usage of them (at least as far as they know!) is performing arithmetic.
Re:Something is wrong when the ‘telephone app’ on your phone... by chr on Monday May 08, 2017 @02:59AM (#14289769)
In Norwegian, it's "stormaskin" for mainframe.
Re:Something is wrong when the ‘telephone app’ on your phone... by bradknowles on Sunday May 07, 2017 @02:02AM (#14284105)
So, would a smartwatch be an "attocomputer"?