killer micro n.
[popularized by Eugene Brooks] A microprocessor-based machine
that infringes on mini, mainframe, or supercomputer performance
turf. Often heard in "No one will survive the attack of the
killer micros!", the battle cry of the downsizers. Used esp. of
RISC architectures.
The popularity of the phrase `attack of the killer micros' is
doubtless reinforced by the title of the movie "Attack Of The
Killer Tomatoes" (one of the canonical examples of so-bad-it's-wonderful
among hackers). This has even more flavor now that killer micros have gone on the
offensive not just individually (in workstations) but in hordes
(within massively parallel computers).
[1996 update: Eugene Brooks was right. Since this term first
entered the Jargon File in 1990, the minicomputer has effectively
vanished, the mainframe sector is
in deep and apparently terminal decline (with IBM but a shadow of
its former self), and even the supercomputer business has
contracted into a smaller niche. It's networked killer micros as
far as the eye can see. --ESR]