In the past such techniques could only be implemented on expensive mainframes or supercomputers due to the amount of circuitry needed for these techniques.

Three-dimensional representations of computer data, once confined to the most expensive mainframes and supercomputers, are now showing up on computer work stations costing as little as $15,000.

The company has been hurt by weak economic conditions, price cutting by rivals and by a shift away from expensive mainframes.

For one thing, today's desktop computers can do tasks that required huge and expensive mainframes a few years ago.

Like other computer makers, Tandem is being battered by weak economic conditions, particularly in Europe, and steep price-cutting by competitors and the move away from expensive mainframes.

The Intel and other competing 32-bit chips will create a class of desktop computers that will be increasingly indistinguishable from more expensive mainframes and minicomputers, they said.

With the advent first of less expensive mainframes such as the IBM 4300 and later the personal computer, the timesharing industry had all but disappeared by the mid-1980s.

An expensive mainframe from that era couldn't have had more than a megabyte or so of core memory.

In 1992, he started a business Database Technologies that used clusters of PCs to provide parallel supercomputing in place of more expensive mainframes and mini computers.

The new chip design is also rapidly shifting the industry's growth from large and expensive mainframe and minicomputers to sleek desktop work stations.