Many libraries, while considering the purchase of a turnkey system on account of the attractive software that is part of these systems, are also in organizations that are strongly committed to system compatibility-usually IBM mainframe compatibility. This has posed a serious dilemma, up until now. In the past few months three minicomputer manufacturers have announced that they will support IBM's Systems Network Architecture (SNA). They are Data General, Honeywell, and Texas Instruments. This means that minicomputers from these companies can appear as remote terminals to the IBM computer and communicate with it. At the present time the only minicomputer used in a turnkey system that is affected by the announcements is the Data General Eclipse offered by DataPhase Systems and Sigma Data. Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) minis, which are the most popular minis currently used in turnkey systems, do not now have this capability but probably will before long.
https://librarytechnology.org/document/3725/