Difference between revisions of "Personal computer"

Revision as of 03:40, 8 April 2016

A personal computer is a general-purpose computer whose size, capabilities and original sale price make it useful for individuals, and is intended to be operated directly by an end-user with no intervening computer operator.

Description

A related term is "PC" that was initially an acronym for "personal computer", but later became used primarily to refer to computers running Microsoft Windows.

Since the early 1990s, Microsoft operating systems and Intel hardware have dominated much of the personal computer market, first with MS-DOS and then with Windows.

Popular alternatives to Microsoft's Windows operating systems include Apple's OS X and free open-source Unix-like operating systems such as Linux and Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD).

AMD provides the major alternative to Intel's processors.

Larger computers

Larger, more expensive minicomputer and mainframe systems to be used by many people, usually at the same time.

See also

• Computer
• Computing
• Operating system
• User (computing)

External links

• Personal computer @ Wikipedia