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From: brad@looking.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: What's a PC?
Message-ID: <805@looking.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 21-May-87 00:17:11 EDT
Article-I.D.: looking.805
Posted: Thu May 21 00:17:11 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 22-May-87 01:30:24 EDT
References: <839@vu-vlsi.UUCP> <3610@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> <683@mipos3.UUCP> <3650@jade.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: brad@looking.UUCP (Brad Templeton)
Organization: Looking Glass Software Ltd. Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 16

A personal computer (a term created in the 70s) was a computer that could
be purchased by a typical individual.  What makes a PC is not the hardware,
it's the marketing and the economics.

Thus an Altair 8800 was a personal computer, but a PDP-8 was not.  Even
though people picked up used minicomputers, they remained minicomputers,
aimed at the corporate market.

In later times, when PCs got the attention of the corporate market
the definition changed to refer to a machine aimed at a single user.
Some preferred the term desktop computer.

Today, you can't give some PDP-11s away, but they're not personal
computers because they weren't aimed that way.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd. - Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473