A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by one person at a time, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi user operating systems.The term workstation has also been used loosely to refer to everything from a mainframe terminal to a PC connected to a network.
Workstations offered higher performance than mainstream personal computers, especially with respect to CPU and graphics memory capacity, and multitasking capability. Workstations were optimized for the visualization and manipulation of different types of complex data such as 3 D mechanical design, engineering simulation ,animation and rendering of images, and mathematical plots. Typically, the form factor is that of a desktop computer, consist of a high resolution display, a keyboard and a mouse at a minimum, but also offer multiple displays, graphic tablets 3 D mice (devices for manipulating 3 D objects and navigating scenes), etc. Workstations were the first segment of the computer market to present advanced accessories and collaboration tools
The increasing capabilities of mainstream PCs in the late 1990 ‘s have blurred the lines somewhat with technical/scientific workstations.