I'm in the same boat. When I was growing up, a mini computer was huge. When I was in high school, some of my programming courses were on Digital PDP mini computers.

I remember writing BASIC programs with a Sharpie on optical mark reader cards. Debugging was a nightmare, you'd run your cards through the reader, look at the printer output and debug back at your desk by sorting through your cards. This was in the mid 80s -- the Apple ][ at home was better tech than what we had at my school.

I was actually expecting something like a fully transistor re-creation of the CPU, graphics, sound, etc - stuff into a minicomputer cabinet of some sort. Something crazy like that.

But this is interesting too.

Afew years ago you could have got one of these. https://www.c64-wiki.com/wiki/C64DTV

I can't shake the feel that the mini is a continuation of that. Especially i find the bundled stick to be remarkably similar...

I had one of those! With a bit of modification, you could even hook up a PS/2 keyboard

Just last week I explained to the kids that a mini computer is pretty huge. My 8 yo boy had said something about this tiny computer and called it a minicomputer. "Mini computers are pretty huge. At the time they were made, computers filled rooms, so a computer the size of a washing machine WAS small. And the big computer on your desk is a microcomputer because it's even smaller."

Mind. Blown.