A killer micro is 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 especially of RISC architectures.

Taken from the title of Eugene Brooks (of Lawrence Livermore Labs) 1989 paper Attack of the Killer Micros .

The popularity of the phrase attack of the killer micros is doubtless reinforced by the movie title Attack of the Killer Tomatoes (one of the canonical examples of so-bad-it s-wonderful among hackers). This has even more flavour now that killer micros have gone on the offensive not just individually (in workstations) but in hordes (within massively parallel computers).

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