What makes a personal computer? It’s a contentious topic among historians. “Personal computer” is a broad historical category that predated the IBM PC, and it that can include computers like Macs, Commodores, Ataris, and more.īut wait-what is a personal computer anyway? The Birth of the Personal Computer Since “PC” is short for “personal computer,” the term can apply to other types of machines as well. So when people say “PC” these days, they usually mean a computer running Windows, although sometimes people clarify by saying “Windows PC” instead.Įven so, IBM didn’t pull the term “personal computer” out of thin air, and that’s where things get complicated. While Windows did briefly appear on alternative architectures (and can also run on ARM chips currently in a special version), it’s historically been tied primarily to the PC-compatible platform. Microsoft Windows originated on the IBM PC platform as a graphical shell that ran on top of MS-DOS, which originated in 1981 alongside the IBM PC.
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These PCs could use peripherals and software created for that platform and its clones. At that point, the term “PC compatible” or just “PC” became a generic catchall for non-IBM computers that descended from the IBM PC. Within a few years, companies began cloning IBM PCs and creating compatible machines without the IBM label. Since the product’s name was a mouthful, people almost immediately began calling it the “IBM PC” for short. In August 1981, IBM released the IBM Personal Computer in the United States.
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