The business objective, of course, is to enable I.B.M. to hold onto its customers as they move to microprocessor-based systems instead of losing them to competitors.

Some analysts suggested that Digital may be realizing new economies of scale from its shift to microprocessor-based systems.

Yet that will merely slow the inevitable transition to microprocessor-based systems a bit, and not by much, Mr. Benton says.

But the company is shifting as rapidly as possible to microprocessor-based systems that run the popular Unix operating system, which can run on many computers.

But the proliferation of inexpensive microprocessor-based systems has made such export controls unworkable.

These range from traditional pneumatic control systems to modern distributed, microprocessor-based systems.

Google, for example, has built its data empire out of a sea of cheap microprocessor-based systems on a once unimaginable scale.

DAWs were originally tape-less, microprocessor-based systems such as the Synclavier.

Such large platters were never used with microprocessor-based systems.

But many of the nation's leading computer designers now agree that a trend toward microprocessor-based systems is inevitable.