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by boulos 3909 days ago
In this context, "basic computers" means Commodity/Off The Shelf. Instead of buying some high-end "enterprise" server from Sun / HP / Dell, using a regular cheap (enough) box and lots of them. This started with servers, but you now see standard x86 boxes being turned into high-speed packet processors ("routers") instead of paying someone like Cisco $15k for a switch.