what mainframe computer is and how it works
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When technology was new a company could only afford one actual computer, called a mainframe. Today this would just be called a server, but back at the beginning it took up an entire room and was expensive.
Every employee used a “dumb terminal” like a Digital Equipment Corp VT102 which had literally just enough logic inside to provide a text interface “on” the mainframe over a serial line (dial-up or hard-wired “nullmodem”). So instead of a network cable there were serial cables running to every desk. When actual desktop computers became a thing, everyone connected into the mainframe with a Terminal Emulator app over the same old serial lines.
So it was very similar to current “cloud computing” where everything actually happens on a server somewhere else and cheap low-thought “terminals” can then provide a “screen” but do no actual tough processing themselves. So then they don’t need a lot of RAM or a fast complicated CPU of their own and can be very inexpensive and simple to replace (user environment lives completely on the server, if the access device breaks you simply replace it with another clone, no personal data need be transferred or backed up, etc). The only real difference is that Remote Desktop provides full GUI while mainframes were text-interface only.
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