Personal computer

A personal computer (PC) is an inexpensive microcomputer originally designed to be used by only one person at a time.

The earliest known use of the term was in New Scientist magazine in 1964, in a series of articles called "The World in 1984". In "The Banishment of Paper Work," Arthur L. Samuel of IBM's Watson Research Center writes, "While it will be entirely feasible to obtain an education at home, via one's own personal computer, human nature will not have changed."

The first personal computers that appeared in the 1970s (see Home Computers) were markedly less versatile and powerful than business computers of the day. Nevertheless, the low cost of personal computers led to great popularity in the home and business markets during the 1980s. During the 1990s, the power of personal computers increased radically, blurring the formerly sharp distinction between personal computers and multi-user computers such as mainframes. Today higher-end computers often distinguish themselves from personal computers by greater reliability or greater ability to multitask, rather than by straight CPU power.

Most modern personal computers use the IBM PC compatible, hardware architecture, using x86-compatible processors made by Intel or AMD. There are many manufacturers of IBM-PC-compatible computers. The leading alternative is Apple Computer's proprietary Power Macintosh platform based on the PowerPC architecture.

With regard to portability we can distinguish:

• the desktop computer
• the notebook or laptop
• the wearable computer

History

The first computers that can be called 'personal' were the first non-mainframe computers, the LINC and the PDP-8. By today's standards they were big (about the size of a refrigerator), expensive (around $50,000 US), and had small magnetic core memories (about 4096 12-bit words for the LINC).

However, they were small enough and cheap enough for individual laboratories and research projects to use, freeing them from the batch processing and bureaucracy of the typical industrial or university computing center. In addition, they were moderately interactive and soon had their own operating systems. Eventually, this category became known as the mini-computer, usually with time-sharing and program development facilities. Eventually, the mini-computer grew up to encompass the VAX and larger mini-computers from Data General, Prime, and others. Deployment of mini-computer systems was a model for how personal computers would be used, but few of the mini-computer makers managed to profit from it.

• The Apple, Apple II, Lisa, Apple Macintosh (note: the apple is called a Mcintosh)
• Osborne and many others
• IBM PC: early days