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A personal computer PC is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Unlike large, costly minicomputers and mainframes , time-sharing by many people at the same time is not used with personal computers. Primarily in the late s and s, the term home computer was also used. Institutional or corporate computer owners in the s had to write their own programs to do any useful work with the machines.
While personal computer users may develop their own applications, usually these systems run commercial software , free-of-charge software " freeware " , which is most often proprietary, or free and open-source software , which is provided in "ready-to-run", or binary , form. Software for personal computers is typically developed and distributed independently from the hardware or operating system manufacturers.
This contrasts with mobile systems, where software is often available only through a manufacturer-supported channel, [3] and end-user program development may be discouraged by lack of support by the manufacturer. Since the early s, Microsoft operating systems and Intel hardware dominated much of the personal computer market , first with MS-DOS and then with Microsoft Windows.
Alternatives to Microsoft's Windows operating systems occupy a minority share of the industry. The advent of personal computers and the concurrent Digital Revolution have significantly affected the lives of people in all countries. The term "PC" is an initialism for "personal computer".
While the IBM Personal Computer incorporated the designation in its model name, the term originally described personal computers of any brand. The "brain" [computer] may one day come down to our level [of the common people] and help with our income-tax and book-keeping calculations. But this is speculation and there is no sign of it so far. In the history of computing , early experimental machines could be operated by a single attendant. For example, ENIAC which became operational in could be run by a single, albeit highly trained, person.
Computers intended for laboratory, instrumentation, or engineering purposes were built, and could be operated by one person in an interactive fashion. The personal computer was made possible by major advances in semiconductor technology. Widespread commercial availability of microprocessors, from the mids onwards, made computers cheap enough for small businesses and individuals to own. In what was later to be called the Mother of All Demos , SRI researcher Douglas Engelbart in gave a preview of features that would later become staples of personal computers: e-mail , hypertext , word processing , video conferencing , and the mouse.
The demonstration required technical support staff and a mainframe time-sharing computer that were far too costly for individual business use at the time. Minimal programming was done with toggle switches to enter instructions, and output was provided by front panel lamps. Practical use required adding peripherals such as keyboards, computer displays , disk drives , and printers.
Micral N was the earliest commercial, non-kit microcomputer based on a microprocessor, the Intel It was built starting in , and a few hundred units were sold.
This had been preceded by the Datapoint in , for which the Intel had been commissioned, though not accepted for use. In the late s such a machine would have been nearly as large as two desks and would have weighed about half a ton. It used the Intel processor.
It had a graphical user interface GUI which later served as inspiration for Apple's Macintosh , and Microsoft's Windows operating system. The Alto was a demonstration project, not commercialized, as the parts were too expensive to be affordable.
Also in Hewlett Packard introduced fully BASIC programmable microcomputers that fit entirely on top of a desk, including a keyboard, a small one-line display, and printer.
The Wang microcomputer of had a full-size cathode ray tube CRT and cassette tape storage. In , Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak sold the Apple I computer circuit board, which was fully prepared and contained about 30 chips. The Apple I computer differed from the other kit-style hobby computers of era. At the request of Paul Terrell , owner of the Byte Shop , Jobs and Wozniak were given their first purchase order, for 50 Apple I computers, only if the computers were assembled and tested and not a kit computer.
Terrell wanted to have computers to sell to a wide range of users, not just experienced electronics hobbyists who had the soldering skills to assemble a computer kit. The Apple I as delivered was still technically a kit computer, as it did not have a power supply, case, or keyboard when it was delivered to the Byte Shop.
The first successfully mass-marketed personal computer to be announced was the Commodore PET after being revealed in January However, it was back-ordered and not available until later that year. Together, these 3 machines were referred to as the " trinity". Mass-market, ready-assembled computers had arrived, and allowed a wider range of people to use computers, focusing more on software applications and less on development of the processor hardware. In the Heath company introduced personal computer kits known as Heathkits , starting with the Heathkit H8 , followed by the Heathkit H89 in late With the purchase of the Heathkit H8 you would obtain the chassis and CPU card to assemble yourself, additional hardware such as the H memory board that contained 4k of RAM could also be purchased in order to run software.
During the early s, home computers were further developed for household use, with software for personal productivity, programming and games.
They typically could be used with a television already in the home as the computer display, with low-detail blocky graphics and a limited color range, and text about 40 characters wide by 25 characters tall. Following came the Commodore 64 , totaled 17 million units sold [36] [37] and the Amstrad CPC series — In the same year, the NEC PC was introduced, which was a very popular personal computer that sold in more than 18 million units.
Somewhat larger and more expensive systems were aimed at office and small business use. These often featured column text displays but might not have had graphics or sound capabilities. These microprocessor-based systems were still less costly than time-shared mainframes or minicomputers. Workstations were characterized by high-performance processors and graphics displays, with large-capacity local disk storage, networking capability, and running under a multitasking operating system.
Eventually, due to the influence of the IBM PC on the personal computer market , personal computers and home computers lost any technical distinction.
Business computers acquired color graphics capability and sound, and home computers and game systems users used the same processors and operating systems as office workers. Mass-market computers had graphics capabilities and memory comparable to dedicated workstations of a few years before. Even local area networking, originally a way to allow business computers to share expensive mass storage and peripherals, became a standard feature of personal computers used at home.
In the s, several companies such as Hewlett-Packard and Sony sold off their PC and laptop divisions. As a result, the personal computer was declared dead several times during this period. An increasingly important set of uses for personal computers relied on the ability of the computer to communicate with other computer systems, allowing interchange of information.
Experimental public access to a shared mainframe computer system was demonstrated as early as in the Community Memory project, but bulletin board systems and online service providers became more commonly available after Commercial Internet service providers emerged in the late s, giving public access to the rapidly growing network.
In , the World Wide Web was made available for public use. The combination of powerful personal computers with high-resolution graphics and sound, with the infrastructure provided by the Internet, and the standardization of access methods of the Web browsers , established the foundation for a significant fraction of modern life, from bus time tables through unlimited distribution of free videos through to online user-edited encyclopedias.
A workstation is a high-end personal computer designed for technical, mathematical, 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. Workstations are used for tasks such as computer-aided design , drafting and modeling, computation-intensive scientific and engineering calculations, image processing, architectural modeling, and computer graphics for animation and motion picture visual effects.
Before the widespread use of PCs, a computer that could fit on a desk was remarkably small, leading to the "desktop" nomenclature. More recently, the phrase usually indicates a particular style of computer case. Desktop computers come in a variety of styles ranging from large vertical tower cases to small models which can be tucked behind or rest directly beneath and support LCD monitors. While the term "desktop" often refers to a computer with a vertically aligned computer tower case , these varieties often rest on the ground or underneath desks.
Despite this seeming contradiction, the term "desktop" does typically refer to these vertical tower cases as well as the horizontally aligned models which are designed to literally rest on top of desks and are therefore more appropriate to the "desktop" term, although both types qualify for this "desktop" label in most practical situations aside from certain physical arrangement differences. Both styles of these computer cases hold the systems hardware components such as the motherboard, processor chip, other internal operating parts.
Desktop computers have an external monitor with a display screen and an external keyboard, which are plugged into ports on the back of the computer case. Desktop computers are popular for home and business computing applications as they leave space on the desk for multiple monitors. A gaming computer is a desktop computer that generally comprises a high-performance video card , processor and RAM, to improve the speed and responsiveness of demanding video games.
An all-in-one computer also known as single-unit PCs is a desktop computer that combines the monitor and processor within a single unit. A separate keyboard and mouse are standard input devices, with some monitors including touchscreen capability. The processor and other working components are typically reduced in size relative to standard desktops, located behind the monitor, and configured similarly to laptops.
A nettop computer was introduced by Intel in February , characterized by low cost and lean functionality.
These were intended to be used with an Internet connection to run Web browsers and Internet applications. It is connected to a TV set or an appropriately sized computer display , and is often used as a digital photo viewer, music and video player, TV receiver, and digital video recorder.
HTPCs are also referred to as media center systems or media servers. The goal is to combine many or all components of a home theater setup into one box. HTPCs can be purchased pre-configured with the required hardware and software needed to add television programming to the PC, or can be assembled from components. Keyboard computers are computers inside of keyboards.
The potential utility of portable computers was apparent early on. Alan Kay described the Dynabook in , but no hardware was developed.
The Xerox NoteTaker was produced in a very small experimental batch around In , the IBM could be fit into a transport case, making it a portable computer, but it weighed about 50 pounds. Before the introduction of the IBM PC, portable computers consisting of a processor, display, disk drives and keyboard, in a suit-case style portable housing, allowed users to bring a computer home from the office or to take notes at a classroom.
The form factor was intended to allow these systems to be taken on board an airplane as carry-on baggage, though their high power demand meant that they could not be used in flight. The integrated CRT display made for a relatively heavy package, but these machines were more portable than their contemporary desktop equals.
Some models had standard or optional connections to drive an external video monitor, allowing a larger screen or use with video projectors. IBM PC-compatible suitcase format computers became available soon after the introduction of the PC, with the Compaq Portable being a leading example of the type. Later models included a hard drive to give roughly equivalent performance to contemporary desktop computers. The development of thin plasma display and LCD screens permitted a somewhat smaller form factor, called the "lunchbox" computer.
The screen formed one side of the enclosure, with a detachable keyboard and one or two half-height floppy disk drives, mounted facing the ends of the computer. Some variations included a battery, allowing operation away from AC outlets. These machines had a keyboard with slightly reduced dimensions compared to a desktop system, and a fixed LCD display screen coplanar with the keyboard. These displays were usually small, with 8 to 16 lines of text, sometimes only 40 columns line length.
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