History of Personal Computers

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History of personal computers

e history of the personal computer as a mass-market consumer electronic device began with the
microcomputer revolution of the 1980s. e 1981 launch of the IBM Personal Computer coined both the term
Personal Computer and PC. A personal computer is one intended for interactive individual use,, as opposed to a
mainframe computer where the end user's requests are filtered through operating staff, or a time-sharing system in
which one large processor is shared by many individuals. Aer the development of the microprocessor, individual
personal computers were low enough in cost that they eventually became affordable consumer goods. Early
personal computers – generally called microcomputers – were sold oen in electronic kit form and in limited
numbers, and were of interest mostly to hobbyists and technicians.
Contents
Etymology
Overview
Mainframes, minicomputers, and microcomputers
Microprocessor and cost reduction
The beginnings of the personal computer industry

Simon
IBM 610
Olivetti Programma 101
MIR
Datapoint 2200
Kenbak-1
Micral N
Xerox Alto and Star
IBM SCAMP
IBM 5100
Altair 8800
Homebrew Computer Club
Other machines of the era
1977 and the emergence of the "Trinity"

Apple II
PET
TRS-80
Home computers
Atari 400/800
Sinclair
TI-99
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VIC-20 and Commodore 64

BBC Micro
Commodore/Atari price war and crash
Japanese computers
The IBM PC
IBM PC clones
Apple Lisa and Macintosh

GUIs spread
PC clones dominate
1990s and 2000s
NeXT
CD-ROM
ThinkPad
Dell
Power Macintosh, PowerPC
Risc PC
BeBox
IBM clones, Apple back into profitability
Writable CDs, MP3, P2P file sharing
USB, DVD player
Hewlett-Packard
64 bits
Lenovo
Wi-Fi, LCD monitor, flash memory
Local area networks
Multiprocessing
ARM
PCI-E
Cheap 3D graphics
SDRAM
ACPI
2010s
Semiconductor fabrication
Market size
See also
References
Further reading
External links
Etymology
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An early use of the term "personal computer" appeared in a 3 November 1962, New York Times article reporting
John W. Mauchly's vision of future computing as detailed at a recent meeting of the Institute of Industrial
Engineers. Mauchly stated, "ere is no reason to suppose the average boy or girl cannot be master of a personal
computer".[1]
In 1968, a manufacturer took the risk of referring to their product this way, when Hewle-Packard advertised their
"Powerful Computing Genie" as "e New Hewle-Packard 9100A personal computer".[2] is advertisement was
deemed too extreme for the target audience and replaced with a much drier ad for the HP 9100A programmable
calculator.[3][4]
Over the next seven years, the phrase had gained enough recognition that Byte magazine referred to its readers in
its first edition as "[in] the personal computing field",[5] and Creative Computing defined the personal computer as a
"non-(time)shared system containing sufficient processing power and storage capabilities to satisfy the needs of an
individual user."[6] In 1977, three new pre-assembled small computers hit the markets which Byte would refer to as
the "1977 Trinity" of personal computing.[7] e Apple II and the PET 2001 were advertised as personal computers,
[8][9] while the TRS-80 was described as a microcomputer used for household tasks including "personal financial
management". By 1979, over half a million microcomputers were sold and the youth of the day had a new concept
of the personal computer.[10]
Overview
e history of the personal computer as mass-market consumer electronic devices effectively began in 1977 with
the introduction of microcomputers, although some mainframe and minicomputers had been applied as single-user
systems much earlier. A personal computer is one intended for interactive individual use, as opposed to a
mainframe computer where the end user's requests are filtered through operating staff, or a time sharing system in
which one large processor is shared by many individuals. Aer the development of the microprocessor, individual
personal computers were low enough in cost that they eventually became affordable consumer goods. Early
personal computers – generally called microcomputers– were sold oen in electronic kit form and in limited
numbers, and were of interest mostly to hobbyists and technicians.
Mainframes, minicomputers, and microcomputers

Computer terminals were used for time sharing access to central computers. Before the introduction of the
microprocessor in the early 1970s, computers were generally large, costly systems owned by large corporations,
universities, government agencies, and similar-sized institutions. End users generally did not directly interact with
the machine, but instead would prepare tasks for the computer on off-line equipment, such as card punches. A
number of assignments for the computer would be gathered up and processed in batch mode. Aer the job had
completed, users could collect the results. In some cases, it could take hours or days between submiing a job to
the computing center and receiving the output.
A more interactive form of computer use developed commercially by the middle 1960s. In a time-sharing system,
multiple computer terminals let many people share the use of one mainframe computer processor. is was
common in business applications and in science and engineering.
A different model of computer use was foreshadowed by the way in which early, pre-commercial, experimental
computers were used, where one user had exclusive use of a processor.[11] In places such as Carnegie Mellon
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University and MIT, students with access to some of the first computers experimented with applications that would
today be typical of a personal computer; for example, computer aided draing was foreshadowed by T-square, a
program wrien in 1961, and an ancestor of today's computer games was found in Spacewar! in 1962. Some of the
first computers that might be called "personal" were early minicomputers such as the LINC and PDP-8, and later on
VAX and larger minicomputers from Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), Data General, Prime Computer, and
others. By today's standards, they were very large (about the size of a refrigerator) and cost prohibitive (typically
tens of thousands of US dollars). However, they were much smaller, less expensive, and generally simpler to
operate than many of the mainframe computers of the time. erefore, they were accessible for individual
laboratories and research projects. Minicomputers largely freed these organizations from the batch processing and
bureaucracy of a commercial or university computing center.
In addition, minicomputers were relatively interactive and soon had their own operating systems. e
minicomputer Xerox Alto (1973) was a landmark step in the development of personal computers because of its
graphical user interface, bit-mapped high resolution screen, large internal and external memory storage, mouse,
and special soware.[12]
In 1945, Vannevar Bush published an essay called "As We May ink" in which he outlined a possible solution to
the growing problem of information storage and retrieval. In 1968, SRI researcher Douglas Engelbart gave what
was later called e Mother of All Demos, in which he offered a preview of things that have become the staples of
daily working life in the 21st century: e-mail, hypertext, word processing, video conferencing, and the mouse. e
demo was the culmination of research in Engelbart's Augmentation Research Center laboratory, which
concentrated on applying computer technology to facilitate creative human thought.
Microprocessor and cost reduction

e minicomputer ancestors of the modern personal computer used early integrated circuit (microchip)
technology, which reduced size and cost, but they contained no microprocessor. is meant that they were still
large and difficult to manufacture just like their mainframe predecessors. Aer the "computer-on-a-chip" was
commercialized, the cost to manufacture a computer system dropped dramatically. e arithmetic, logic, and
control functions that previously occupied several costly circuit boards were now available in one integrated
circuit, making it possible to produce them in high volume. Concurrently, advances in the development of solid
state memory eliminated the bulky, costly, and power-hungry magnetic core memory used in prior generations of
computers.
A few researchers at places such as SRI and Xerox PARC were working on computers that a single person could
use and that could be connected by fast, versatile networks: not home computers, but personal ones.
Aer the 1972 introduction of the Intel 4004, microprocessor costs declined rapidly. In 1974 the American
electronics magazine Radio-Electronics described the Mark-8 computer kit, based on the Intel 8008 processor. In
January of the following year, Popular Electronics magazine published an article describing a kit based on the Intel
8080, a somewhat more powerful and easier to use processor. e Altair 8800 sold remarkably well even though
initial memory size was limited to a few hundred bytes and there was no soware available. However, the Altair kit
was much less costly than an Intel development system of the time and so was purchased by companies interested
in developing microprocessor control for their own products. Expansion memory boards and peripherals were soon
listed by the original manufacturer, and later by plug compatible manufacturers. e very first Microso product
was a 4 kilobyte paper tape BASIC interpreter, which allowed users to develop programs in a higher-level
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language. e alternative was to hand-assemble machine code that could be directly loaded into the
microcomputer's memory using a front panel of toggle switches, pushbuons and LED displays. While the
hardware front panel emulated those used by early mainframe and minicomputers, aer a very short time I/O
through a terminal was the preferred human/machine interface, and front panels became extinct.
e beginnings of the personal computer industry

e “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.
— British newspaper e Star in a June 1949 news article about the EDSAC
computer, long before the era of the personal computers.[13]
Simon
Simon [14] was a project developed by Edmund Berkeley and presented in a thirteen articles series issued in
Radio-Electronics magazine, from October 1950. Although there were far more advanced machines at the time of its
construction, the Simon represented the first experience of building an automatic simple digital computer, for
educational purposes. In fact, its ALU had only 2 bits, and the total memory was 12 bits (2bits x6). In 1950, it was
sold for US$600.
IBM 610
e IBM 610 was designed between 1948 and 1957 by John Lentz at the Watson Lab at Columbia University as the
Personal Automatic Computer (PAC) and announced by IBM as the 610 Auto-Point in 1957. Although it was faulted
for its speed, the IBM 610 handled floating-point arithmetic naturally. With a price tag of $55,000, only 180 units
were produced.[15]
Olivetti Programma 101

First produced in 1965, the Programma 101 was a printing programmable calculator[16][17][18] described in
advertisements as a "desktop computer".[19][20][21] It was designed and produced by the Italian company Olivei
with Pier Giorgio Peroo being the lead developer. e Olivei Programma 101 was presented at the 1965 New
York World's Fair aer 2 years work (1962- 1964). Over 44,000 units were sold worldwide; in the US its cost at
launch was $3,200. It was targeted to offices and scientific entities for their daily work because of its high
computing capabilities in small space and cost; also the NASA was amongst the first owners. Built without
integrated circuits or microprocessors, it used only transistors, resistors and condensers for its processing,[22] the
Programma 101 had features found in modern personal computers, such as memory, keyboard, printing unit,
magnetic card reader/recorder, control and arithmetic unit.[23] HP later copied the Programma 101 architecture for
its HP9100 series.[24][25]
MIR
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e Soviet MIR series of computers was developed from 1965 to 1969 in a group headed by Victor Glushkov. It was
designed as a relatively small-scale computer for use in engineering and scientific applications and contained a
hardware implementation of a high-level programming language. Another innovative feature for that time was the
user interface combining a keyboard with a monitor and light pen for correcting texts and drawing on screen.[26]
Datapoint 2200
Released in June 1970, the programmable terminal called the Datapoint 2200 is
the earliest known device that bears some significant resemblance to the
modern personal computer, with a screen, keyboard, and program storage.[27]
It was made by CTC (now known as Datapoint) and was a complete system in a
small case bearing the approximate footprint of an IBM Selectric typewriter.
e system's CPU was constructed from a variety of discrete components,
although the company had commissioned Intel to develop a single-chip 1970: Datapoint 2200.
processing unit; there was a falling out between CTC and Intel, and the chip
Intel had developed wasn't used. Intel soon released a modified version of that
chip as the Intel 8008, the world's first 8-bit microprocessor.[28] e needs and requirements of the Datapoint 2200
therefore determined the nature of the 8008, upon which all successive processors used in IBM-compatible PCs
were based. Additionally, the design of the Datapoint 2200's multi-chip CPU and the final design of the Intel 8008
were so similar that the two are largely soware-compatible; therefore, the Datapoint 2200, from a practical
perspective, functioned as if it were indeed powered by an 8008, making it a de facto microcomputer.
Kenbak-1
e Kenbak-1, released in early 1971, is considered by the Computer History Museum to be the world's first
personal computer. It was designed and invented by John Blankenbaker of Kenbak Corporation in 1970, and was
first sold in early 1971. Unlike a modern personal computer, the Kenbak-1 was built of small-scale integrated
circuits, and did not use a microprocessor. e system first sold for US$750. Only around 40 machines were ever
built and sold. In 1973, production of the Kenbak-1 stopped as Kenbak Corporation folded.
With only 256 bytes of memory, an 8-bit word size, and input and output restricted to lights and switches, the
Kenbak-1 was most useful for learning the principles of programming but not capable of running application
programs.
Micral N
e French company R2E was formed by two former engineers of the Intertechnique company to sell their Intel
8008-based microcomputer design. e system was developed at the Institut national de la recherche agronomique
to automate hygrometric measurements. e system ran at 500 kHz and included 16 kB of memory, and sold for
8500 Francs, about $1300US.
A bus, called Pluribus, was introduced that allowed connection of up to 14 boards. Boards for digital I/O, analog
I/O, memory, floppy disk were available from R2E. e Micral operating system was initially called Sysmic, and
was later renamed Prologue.
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R2E was absorbed by Groupe Bull in 1978. Although Groupe Bull continued the production of Micral computers, it
was not interested in the personal computer market, and Micral computers were mostly confined to highway toll
gates (where they remained in service until 1992) and similar niche markets.
Xerox Alto and Star

e Xerox Alto, developed at Xerox PARC in 1973, was the first computer to use a
mouse, the desktop metaphor, and a graphical user interface (GUI), concepts first
introduced by Douglas Engelbart while at International. It was the first example of
what would today be recognized as a complete personal computer.
In 1981, Xerox Corporation introduced the Xerox Star workstation, officially known
as the "8010 Star Information System". Drawing upon its predecessor, the Xerox Alto,
it was the first commercial system to incorporate various technologies that today
have become commonplace in personal computers, including a bit-mapped display, a
windows-based graphical user interface, icons, folders, mouse, Ethernet networking, 1973: Xerox Alto
file servers, print servers and e-mail. It also included a programming language
system called Smalltalk.
While its use was limited to the engineers at Xerox PARC, the Alto had features years ahead of its time. Both the
Xerox Alto and the Xerox Star would inspire the Apple Lisa and the Apple Macintosh.
IBM SCAMP
In 1972-1973 a team led by Dr. Paul Friedl at the IBM Los Gatos Scientific Center developed a portable computer
prototype called SCAMP (Special Computer APL Machine Portable) based on the IBM PALM processor with a
Philips compact cassee drive, small CRT and full function keyboard. SCAMP emulated an IBM 1130 minicomputer
in order to run APL\1130.[29] In 1973 APL was generally available only on mainframe computers, and most
desktop sized microcomputers such as the Wang 2200 or HP 9800 offered only BASIC. Because it was the first to
emulate APL\1130 performance on a portable, single-user computer, PC Magazine in 1983 designated SCAMP a
"revolutionary concept" and "the world's first personal computer".[29][30] e prototype is in the Smithsonian
Institution.
IBM 5100
IBM 5100 was a desktop computer introduced in September 1975, six years before the IBM PC. It was the evolution
of SCAMP (Special Computer APL Machine Portable) that IBM demonstrated in 1973. In January 1978 IBM
announced the IBM 5110, its larger cousin. e 5100 was withdrawn in March 1982.
When the PC was introduced in 1981, it was originally designated as the IBM 5150, puing it in the "5100" series,
though its architecture wasn't directly descended from the IBM 5100.
Altair 8800
Development of the single-chip microprocessor was the gateway to the popularization of cheap, easy to use, and
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truly personal computers. It was only a maer of time before one such design
was able to hit a sweet spot in terms of pricing and performance, and that
machine is generally considered to be the Altair 8800, from MITS, a small
company that produced electronics kits for hobbyists.
e Altair was introduced in a Popular Electronics magazine article in the

January 1975 issue. In keeping with MITS's earlier projects, the Altair was sold
in kit form, although a relatively complex one consisting of four circuit boards
and many parts. Priced at only $400, the Altair tapped into pent-up demand >1975: Altair 8800
and surprised its creators when it generated thousands of orders in the first
month. Unable to keep up with demand, MITS sold the design aer about
10,000 kits had shipped.
e introduction of the Altair spawned an entire industry based on the basic layout and internal design. New
companies like Cromemco started up to supply add-on kits, while Microso was founded to supply a BASIC
interpreter for the systems. Soon aer a number of complete "clone" designs, typified by the IMSAI 8080, appeared
on the market. is led to a wide variety of systems based on the S-100 bus introduced with the Altair, machines of
generally improved performance, quality and ease-of-use.
e Altair, and early clones, were relatively difficult to use. e machines contained no operating system in ROM,
so starting it up required a machine language program to be entered by hand via front-panel switches, one location
at a time. e program was typically a small driver for an aached paper tape reader, which would then be used to
read in another "real" program. Later systems added bootstrapping code to improve this process, and the machines
became almost universally associated with the CP/M operating system, loaded from floppy disk.
e Altair created a new industry of microcomputers and computer kits, with many others following, such as a
wave of small business computers in the late 1970s based on the Intel 8080, Zilog Z80 and Intel 8085
microprocessor chips. Most ran the CP/M-80 operating system developed by Gary Kildall at Digital Research.
CP/M-80 was the first popular microcomputer operating system to be used by many different hardware vendors,
and many soware packages were wrien for it, such as WordStar and dBase II.
Homebrew Computer Club

Although the Altair spawned an entire business, another side effect it had was to demonstrate that the
microprocessor had so reduced the cost and complexity of building a microcomputer that anyone with an interest
could build their own. Many such hobbyists met and traded notes at the meetings of the Homebrew Computer
Club (HCC) in Silicon Valley. Although the HCC was relatively short-lived, its influence on the development of the
modern PC was enormous.
Members of the group complained that microcomputers would never become commonplace if they still had to be
built up, from parts like the original Altair, or even in terms of assembling the various add-ons that turned the
machine into a useful system. What they felt was needed was an all-in-one system. Out of this desire came the
Sol-20 computer, which placed an entire S-100 system – QWERTY keyboard, CPU, display card, memory and ports
– into an aractive single box. e systems were packaged with a cassee tape interface for storage and a 12"
monochrome monitor. Complete with a copy of BASIC, the system sold for US$2,100. About 10,000 Sol-20 systems
were sold.
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Although the Sol-20 was the first all-in-one system that we would recognize today, the basic concept was already
rippling through other members of the group, and interested external companies.
Other machines of the era

Other 1977 machines that were important within the hobbyist community at the time included the Exidy Sorcerer,
the NorthStar Horizon, the Cromemco Z-2, and the Heathkit H8.
1977 and the emergence of the "Trinity"

By 1976, there were several firms racing to introduce the first truly successful commercial personal computers.
ree machines, the Apple II, PET 2001 and TRS-80 were all released in 1977,[31] becoming the most popular by
late 1978.[32] Byte magazine later referred to them as the "1977 Trinity".[33] Also in 1977, Sord Computer
Corporation released the Sord M200 Smart Home Computer in Japan.[34]
Apple II
Steve Wozniak (known as "Woz"), a regular visitor to Homebrew Computer Club
meetings, designed the single-board Apple I computer and first demonstrated it
there. With specifications in hand and an order for 100 machines at US$500 each
from the Byte Shop, Woz and his friend Steve Jobs founded Apple Computer.
About 200 of the machines sold before the company announced the Apple II as a
complete computer. It had color graphics, a full QWERTY keyboard, and internal
slots for expansion, which were mounted in a high quality streamlined plastic case.
e monitor and I/O devices were sold separately. e original Apple II operating
system was only the built-in BASIC interpreter contained in ROM. Apple DOS was
Apr. 1977: Apple II
added to support the diskee drive; the last version was "Apple DOS 3.3".
Its higher price and lack of floating point BASIC, along with a lack of retail
distribution sites, caused it to lag in sales behind the other Trinity machines until 1979, when it surpassed the PET.
It was again pushed into 4th place when Atari introduced its popular Atari 8-bit systems.[35]
Despite slow initial sales, the Apple II's lifetime was about eight years longer than other machines, and so
accumulated the highest total sales. By 1985 2.1 million had sold and more than 4 million Apple II's were shipped
by the end of its production in 1993.[36]
PET
Chuck Peddle designed the Commodore PET (short for Personal Electronic Transactor) around his MOS 6502
processor. It was essentially a single-board computer with a new display chip (the MOS 6545) driving a small built-
in monochrome monitor with 40×25 character graphics. e processor card, keyboard, monitor and cassee drive
were all mounted in a single metal case. In 1982, Byte referred to the PET design as "the world's first personal
computer".[37]
e PET shipped in two models; the 2001-4 with 4 kB of RAM, or the 2001-8 with 8 kB. e machine also included
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a built-in Datassee for data storage located on the front of the case, which le
lile room for the keyboard. e 2001 was announced in June 1977 and the first
100 units were shipped in mid October 1977.[38] However they remained back-
ordered for months, and to ease deliveries they eventually canceled the 4 kB
version early the next year.
Although the machine was fairly successful, there were frequent complaints Oct. 1977: Commodore
about the tiny calculator-like keyboard, oen referred to as a "Chiclet
PET.
keyboard" due to the keys' resemblance to the popular gum candy. is was
addressed in the upgraded "dash N" and "dash B" versions of the 2001, which
put the cassee outside the case, and included a much larger keyboard with a full stroke non-click motion.
Internally a newer and simpler motherboard was used, along with an upgrade in memory to 8, 16, or 32 KB, known
as the 2001-N-8, 2001-N-16 or 2001-N-32, respectively.
e PET was the least successful of the 1977 Trinity machines, with under 1 million sales.[36]
TRS-80
Tandy Corporation (Radio Shack) introduced the TRS-80, retroactively known
as the Model I as improved models were introduced. e Model I combined the
motherboard and keyboard into one unit with a separate monitor and power
supply. Although the PET and the Apple II offered certain features that were
greatly advanced in comparison, Tandy's 3000+ Radio Shack storefronts
ensured that it would have widespread distribution that neither Apple nor
Commodore could touch.
e Model I used a Zilog Z80 processor clocked at 1.77 MHz (the later models
were shipped with a Z80A processor). e basic model originally shipped with
4 kB of RAM, and later 16 kB, in the main computer. e expansion unit Nov. 1977: TRS-80
allowed for RAM expansion for a total of 48K. Its other strong features were its Model I
full stroke QWERTY keyboard, small size, well wrien Microso floating-point
BASIC and inclusion of a monitor and tape deck for approximately half the cost
of the Apple II. Eventually, 5.25 inch floppy drives were made available by Tandy and several third party
manufacturers. e expansion unit allowed up to four floppy drives to be connected, provided a slot for the RS-232
option and a parallel port for printers.
e Model I could not meet FCC regulations on radio interference due to its plastic case and exterior cables. Apple
resolved the issue with an interior metallic foil but the solution would not work for Tandy with the Model I.[39]
Since the Model II and Model III were already in production Tandy decided to stop manufacturing the Model I.
Radio Shack had sold 1.5 million Model I's by the cancellation in 1981.[36]
Home computers
Byte in January 1980 announced in an editorial that "the era of off-the-shelf personal computers has arrived". e
magazine stated that "a desirable contemporary personal computer has 64 K of memory, about 500 K bytes of mass
storage on line, any old competently designed computer architecture, upper and lowercase video terminal, printer,
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and high-level languages". e author reported that when he needed to purchase such a computer quickly he did so
at a local store for $6000 in cash, and cited it as an example of "what the state of the art is at present … as a mass-
produced product".[40] By early that year Radio Shack, Commodore, and Apple manufactured the vast majority of
the one half-million microcomputers that existed.[41] As component prices continued to fall, many companies
entered the computer business. is led to an explosion of low-cost machines known as home computers that sold
millions of units before the market imploded in a price war in the early 1980s.
Atari 400/800
Atari was a well-known brand in the late 1970s, both due to their hit arcade games like Pong, as well as the hugely
successful Atari VCS game console. Realizing that the VCS would have a limited lifetime in the market before a
technically advanced competitor came along, Atari decided they would be that competitor, and started work on a
new console design that was much more advanced.
While these designs were being developed, the Trinity machines hit the market with considerable fanfare. Atari's
management decided to change their work to a home computer system instead. eir knowledge of the home
market through the VCS resulted in machines that were almost indestructible and just as easy to use as a games
machine – simply plug in a cartridge and go. e new machines were first introduced as the 400 and 800 in 1978,
but production problems meant widespread sales did not start until the next year.
At the time, the machines offered what was then much higher performance than contemporary designs and a
number of graphics and sound features that no other microcomputer could match. ey became very popular as a
result, quickly eclipsing the Trinity machines in sales. In spite of a promising start with about 600,000 sold by 1981,
the looming price war le Atari in a bad position. ey were unable to compete effectively with Commodore, and
only about 2 million machines were produced by the end of their production run.[36]
Sinclair
Sinclair Research Ltd is a British consumer electronics company founded by Sir
Clive Sinclair in Cambridge. It was incorporated in 1973 as Ablesdeal Ltd. and
renamed "Westminster Mail Order Ltd" and then "Sinclair Instrument Ltd." in
1975. e company remained dormant until 1976, when it was activated with
the intention of continuing Sinclair's commercial work from his earlier
company Sinclair Radionics; it adopted the name Sinclair Research in 1981. In
1980, Clive Sinclair entered the home computer market with the ZX80 at Sinclair ZX Spectrum
£99.95, at the time the cheapest personal computer for sale in the UK. In 1982
the ZX Spectrum was released, later becoming Britain's best selling computer,
competing aggressively against Commodore and British Amstrad. At the height of its success, and largely inspired
by the Japanese Fih Generation Computer programme, the company established the "MetaLab" research centre at
Milton Hall (near Cambridge), in order to pursue artificial intelligence, wafer-scale integration, formal verification
and other advanced projects. e combination of the failures of the Sinclair QL computer and the TV80 led to
financial difficulties in 1985, and a year later Sinclair sold the rights to their computer products and brand name to
Amstrad. Sinclair Research Ltd exists today as a one-man company, continuing to market Sir Clive Sinclair's
newest inventions.
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ZX80
e ZX80 home computer was launched in February 1980 at £79.95 in kit form and £99.95 ready-built. In November
of the same year Science of Cambridge was renamed Sinclair Computers Ltd.
ZX81
e ZX81 (known as the TS 1000 in the United States) was priced at £49.95 in kit form and £69.95 ready-built, by
mail order.
ZX Spectrum
e ZX Spectrum was launched on 23 April 1982, priced at £125 for the 16 KB RAM version and £175 for the 48 KB
version.
Sinclair QL
e Sinclair QL was announced in January 1984, priced at £399. Marketed as a more sophisticated 32-bit
microcomputer for professional users, it used a Motorola 68008 processor. Production was delayed by several
months, due to unfinished development of hardware and soware at the time of the QL's launch.
ZX Spectrum+
e ZX Spectrum+ was a repackaged ZX Spectrum 48K launched in October 1984.
ZX Spectrum 128
e ZX Spectrum 128, with RAM expanded to 128 kB, a sound chip and other enhancements, was launched in
Spain in September 1985 and the UK in January 1986, priced at £179.95.
TI-99
Texas Instruments (TI), at the time the world's largest chip manufacturer, decided to enter the home computer
market with the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A. Announced long before its arrival, most industry observers expected
the machine to wipe out all competition – on paper its performance was untouchable, and TI had enormous cash
reserves and development capability.
When it was released in late 1979, TI took a somewhat slow approach to introducing it, initially focusing on
schools. Contrary to earlier predictions, the TI-99's limitations meant it was not the giant-killer everyone expected,
and a number of its design features were highly controversial. A total of 2.8 million units were shipped before the
TI-99/4A was discontinued in March 1984.
VIC-20 and Commodore 64

Realizing that the PET could not easily compete with color machines like the Apple II and Atari, Commodore
introduced the VIC-20 to address the home market. Limitations due to tiny 4 kB memory and its relatively limited
display in comparison to those machines was offset by a low and ever falling price. Millions of VIC-20s were sold.
12 of 28 1/23/18, 11:50 AM
e best-selling personal computer of all time was released by Commodore

International in 1982: the Commodore 64 (C64) sold over 17 million units
before its end.[36][42] e C64 name derived from its 64kb of RAM and it also
came with a side mount ROM cartridge slot. It used the 6510 microprocessor
CPU; MOS Technology, Inc. was then owned by Commodore.
1982: Commodore 64.
BBC Micro
e BBC became interested in running a computer literacy series, and sent out a tender for a standardized small
computer to be used with the show. Aer examining several entrants, they selected what was then known as the
Acorn Proton and made a number of minor changes to produce the BBC Micro. e Micro was relatively expensive,
which limited its commercial appeal, but with widespread marketing, BBC support and wide variety of programs,
the system eventually sold as many as 1.5 million units. Acorn was rescued from obscurity, and went on to develop
the ARM processor (Acorn RISC Machine) to power follow-on designs. e ARM is widely used to this day,
powering a wide variety of products like the iPhone.
Commodore/Atari price war and crash

In 1982, the TI 99/4A and Atari 400 were both $349, Radio Shack's Color The current
Computer sold at $379, and Commodore had reduced the price of the
VIC-20 to $199 and the Commodore 64 to $499.[44][45] TI had forced “ personal
computer
Commodore from the calculator market by dropping the price of its market is about
own-brand calculators to less than the cost of the chipsets it sold to third the same size
parties to make the same design. Commodore's CEO, Jack Tramiel, as the total
vowed that this would not happen again, and purchased MOS potato-chip
Technology to ensure a supply of chips. With his supply guaranteed, and market. Next
good control over the component pricing, Tramiel launched a war year it will be
against TI soon aer the introduction of the Commodore 64.
about half the
size of the pet-
Now vertically integrated,[46] Commodore lowered the retail price of food market,
the 64 to $300 at the June 1983 Consumer Electronics Show, and stores and is fast
sold it for as lile as $199. At one point the company was selling as approaching
many computers as the rest of the industry combined.[47] Commodore the total
worldwide
—which even discontinued list prices—could make a profit when selling
the 64 for a retail price of $200 because of vertical integration.[48]
Competitors also reduced prices; the Atari 800's price in July was
sales of panty
hose. ”
$165,[49] and by the time TI was ready in 1983 to introduce the 99/2 — James Finke, President,
Commodore International,
computer—designed to sell for $99—the TI-99/4A sold for $99 in June. February 1982[43]
e 99/4A had sold for $400 in the fall of 1982, causing a loss for TI of
hundreds of millions of dollars. A Service Merchandise executive stated "I've been in retailing 30 years and I have
never seen any category of goods get on a self-destruct paern like this". Such low prices probably hurt home
computers' reputation; one retail executive said of the 99/4A, '"When they went to $99, people started asking
'What's wrong with it?'"[50][46] e founder of Compute! stated in 1986 that "our market dropped from 300 percent
growth per year to 20 percent".[51]
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While Tramiel's target was TI, everyone in the home computer market was hurt by the process; many companies
went bankrupt or exited the business. In the end even Commodore's own finances were crippled by the demands of
financing the massive building expansion needed to deliver the machines, and Tramiel was forced from the
company.
Japanese computers
From the late 1970s to the early 1990s, Japan's personal computer market was largely dominated by domestic
computer products. NEC's PC-88 and PC-98 was the market leader, though with some competition from the Sharp
X1 and X68000, the FM-7 and FM Towns, and the MSX and MSX2, the laer also gaining some popularity in
Europe. A key difference between Western and Japanese systems at the time was the laer's higher display
resolutions (640x400) in order to accommodate Japanese text. Japanese computers also employed Yamaha FM
synthesis sound boards since the early 1980s which produce higher quality sound. Japanese computers were widely
used to produce video games, though only a small portion of Japanese PC games were released outside of the
country.[52] e most successful Japanese personal computer was NEC's PC-98, which sold more than 18 million
units by 1999.[53]
e IBM PC
e IBM PC was the first PC that justified widespread use. IBM responded to
the success of the Apple II with the IBM PC, released in August 1981. Like the
Apple II and S-100 systems, it was based on an open, card-based architecture,
which allowed third parties to develop for it. It used the Intel 8088 CPU
running at 4.77 MHz, containing 29,000 transistors. e first model used an
audio cassee for external storage, though there was an expensive floppy disk
option. e cassee option was never popular and was removed in the PC XT 1981: IBM 5150
of 1983.[54] e XT added a 10MB hard drive in place of one of the two floppy
disks and increased the number of expansion slots from 5 to 8. While the
original PC design could accommodate only up to 64k on the main board, the architecture was able to
accommodate up to 640KB of RAM, with the rest on cards. Later revisions of the design increased the limit to 256K
on the main board.
e IBM PC typically came with PC DOS, an operating system based upon Gary Kildall's CP/M-80 operating
system. In 1980, IBM approached Digital Research, Kildall's company, for a version of CP/M for its upcoming IBM
PC. Kildall's wife and business partner, Dorothy McEwen, met with the IBM representatives who were unable to
negotiate a standard non-disclosure agreement with her. IBM turned to Bill Gates, who was already providing the
ROM BASIC] interpreter for the PC. Gates offered to provide 86-DOS, developed by Tim Paterson of Seale
Computer Products. IBM rebranded it as PC DOS, while Microso sold variations and upgrades as MS-DOS.
e impact of the Apple II and the IBM PC was fully demonstrated when Time named the home computer the
"Machine of the Year", or Person of the Year for 1982 (3 January 1983, "e Computer Moves In"). It was the first
time in the history of the magazine that an inanimate object was given this award.
IBM PC clones
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e original PC design was followed up in 1983 by the IBM PC XT, which was an incrementally improved design; it
omied support for the cassee, had more card slots, and was available with a 10MB hard drive. Although
mandatory at first, the hard drive was later made an option and a two floppy disk XT was sold. While the
architectural memory limit of 640K was the same, later versions were more readily expandable.
Although the PC and XT included a version of the BASIC language in read-only memory, most were purchased
with disk drives and run with an operating system; three operating systems were initially announced with the PC.
One was CP/M-86 from Digital Research, the second was PC DOS from IBM, and the third was the UCSD p-System
(from the University of California at San Diego). PC DOS was the IBM branded version of an operating system
from Microso, previously best known for supplying BASIC language systems to computer hardware companies.
When sold by Microso, PC DOS was called MS-DOS. e UCSD p-System OS was built around the Pascal
programming language and was not marketed to the same niche as IBM's customers. Neither the p-System nor
CP/M-86 was a commercial success.
Because MS-DOS was available as a separate product, some companies aempted to make computers available
which could run MS-DOS and programs. ese early machines, including the ACT Apricot, the DEC Rainbow 100,
the Hewle-Packard HP-150, the Seequa Chameleon and many others were not especially successful, as they
required a customized version of MS-DOS, and could not run programs designed specifically for IBM's hardware.
(See List of early non-IBM-PC-compatible PCs.) e first truly IBM PC compatible machines came from Compaq,
although others soon followed.
Because the IBM PC was based on relatively standard integrated circuits, and the basic card-slot design was not
patented, the key portion of that hardware was actually the BIOS soware embedded in read-only memory. is
critical element got reverse engineered, and that opened the floodgates to the market for IBM PC imitators, which
were dubbed "PC clones". At the time that IBM had decided to enter the personal computer market in response to
Apple's early success, IBM was the giant of the computer industry and was expected to crush Apple's market share.
But because of these shortcuts that IBM took to enter the market quickly, they ended up releasing a product that
was easily copied by other manufacturers using off the shelf, non-proprietary parts. So in the long run, IBM's
biggest role in the evolution of the personal computer was to establish the de facto standard for hardware
architecture amongst a wide range of manufacturers. IBM's pricing was undercut to the point where IBM was no
longer the significant force in development, leaving only the PC standard they had established. Emerging as the
dominant force from this bale amongst hardware manufacturers who were vying for market share was the
soware company Microso that provided the operating system and utilities to all PCs across the board, whether
authentic IBM machines or the PC clones.
In 1984, IBM introduced the IBM Personal Computer/AT (more oen called the PC/AT or AT) built around the Intel
80286 microprocessor. is chip was much faster, and could address up to 16MB of RAM but only in a mode that
largely broke compatibility with the earlier 8086 and 8088. In particular, the MS-DOS operating system was not
able to take advantage of this capability.
e bus in the PC/AT given the name Industry Standard Architecture (ISA). Peripheral Component Interconnect
(PCI) is released in 1992, supposed to replace ISA.
VESA Local Bus (VLB) and Extended ISA were also displaced by PCI, but a majority of later (post-1992) 486-based
systems were featuring a VESA Local Bus video card. VLB importantly offered a less costly high speed interface for
consumer systems, as only by 1994 was PCI commonly available outside of the server market.
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PCI is later replaced by PCI-E (see below).
Apple Lisa and Macintosh

In 1983 Apple Computer introduced the first mass-marketed microcomputer
with a graphical user interface, the Lisa. e Lisa ran on a Motorola 68000
microprocessor and came equipped with 1 megabyte of RAM, a 12-inch
(300 mm) black-and-white monitor, dual 5¼-inch floppy disk drives and a 5
megabyte Profile hard drive. e Lisa's slow operating speed and high price
(US$10,000), however, led to its commercial failure.
Drawing upon its experience with the Lisa, Apple launched the Macintosh in
1984, with an advertisement during the Super Bowl. e Macintosh was the
first successful mass-market mouse-driven computer with a graphical user
interface or 'WIMP' (Windows, Icons, Menus, and Pointers). Based on the 1984: Apple
Motorola 68000 microprocessor, the Macintosh included many of the Lisa's Macintosh.
features at a price of US$2,495. e Macintosh was introduced with 128 kb of
RAM and later that year a 512 kb RAM model became available. To reduce costs
compared the Lisa, the year-younger Macintosh had a simplified motherboard design, no internal hard drive, and a
single 3.5" floppy drive. Applications that came with the Macintosh included MacPaint, a bit-mapped graphics
program, and MacWrite, which demonstrated WYSIWYG word processing.
While not a success upon its release, the Macintosh was a successful personal computer for years to come. is is
particularly due to the introduction of desktop publishing in 1985 through Apple's partnership with Adobe. is
partnership introduced the LaserWriter printer and Aldus PageMaker (now Adobe PageMaker) to users of the
personal computer. During Steve Jobs' hiatus from Apple, a number of different models of Macintosh, including the
Macintosh Plus and Macintosh II, were released to a great degree of success. e entire Macintosh line of
computers was IBM's major competition up until the early 1990s.
GUIs spread
In the Commodore world, GEOS was available on the Commodore 64 and Commodore 128. Later, a version was
available for PCs running DOS. It could be used with a mouse or a joystick as a pointing device, and came with a
suite of GUI applications. Commodore's later product line, the Amiga platform, ran a GUI operating system by
default. e Amiga laid the blueprint for future development of personal computers with its groundbreaking
graphics and sound capabilities. Byte called it "the first multimedia computer… so far ahead of its time that almost
nobody could fully articulate what it was all about."[55]
In 1985, the Atari ST, also based on the Motorola 68000 microprocessor, was introduced with the first color GUI in
the Atari TOS. It could be modified to emulate the Macintosh using the third-party Spectre GCR device.
In 1987, Acorn launched the Archimedes range of high-performance home computers in Europe and Australasia.
Based on their own 32-bit ARM RISC processor, the systems were shipped with a GUI OS called Arthur. In 1989,
Arthur was superseded by a multi-tasking GUI-based operating system called RISC OS. By default, the mice used
on these computers had three buons.
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PC clones dominate
e transition from a PC-compatible market being driven by IBM to
one driven primarily by a broader market began to become clear in
1986 and 1987; in 1986, the 32-bit Intel 80386 microprocessor was
released, and the first '386-based PC-compatible was the Compaq
Deskpro 386. IBM's response came nearly a year later with the initial
release of the IBM Personal System/2 series of computers, which had
a closed architecture and were a significant departure from the 1985: Atari ST.
emerging "standard PC". ese models were largely unsuccessful,
and the PC Clone style machines outpaced sales of all other
machines through the rest of this period.[56] Toward the end of the 1980s PC XT clones began to take over the
home computer market segment from the specialty manufacturers such as Commodore International and Atari
that had previously dominated. ese systems typically sold for just under the "magic" $1000 price point (typically
$999) and were sold via mail order rather than a traditional dealer network. is price was achieved by using the
older 8/16 bit technology, such as the 8088 CPU, instead of the 32-bits of the latest Intel CPUs. ese CPUs were
usually made by a third party such as Cyrix or AMD. Dell started out as one of these manufacturers, under its
original name PC Limited.
1990s and 2000s
NeXT
In 1990, the NeXTstation workstation computer went on sale, for "interpersonal" computing as Steve Jobs described
it. e NeXTstation was meant to be a new computer for the 1990s, and was a cheaper version of the previous
NeXT Computer. Despite its pioneering use of Object-oriented programming concepts, the NeXTstation was
somewhat a commercial failure, and NeXT shut down hardware operations in 1993.
CD-ROM
In the early 1990s, the CD-ROM became an industry standard, and
by the mid-1990s one was built into almost all desktop computers,
and towards the end of the 1990s, in laptops as well. Although
introduced in 1982, the CD ROM was mostly used for audio during
the 1980s, and then for computer data such as operating systems and
applications into the 1990s. Another popular use of CD ROMs in the
1990s was multimedia, as many desktop computers started to come The CD-ROM and CD-RW drives
became standards for most
with built-in stereo speakers capable of playing CD quality music
personal computers.
and sounds with the Sound Blaster sound card on PCs.
ThinkPad
IBM introduced its successful inkPad range at COMDEX 1992 using the series designators 300, 500 and 700
(allegedly analogous to the BMW car range and used to indicate market), the 300 series being the "budget", the 500
17 of 28 1/23/18, 11:50 AM
series "midrange" and the 700 series "high end". is designation continued until the late 1990s when IBM
introduced the "T" series as 600/700 series replacements, and the 3, 5 and 7 series model designations were phased
out for A (3&7) & X (5) series. e A series was later partially replaced by the R series.
Dell
By the mid-1990s, Amiga, Commodore and Atari systems were no longer on the market, pushed out by strong IBM
PC clone competition and low prices. Other previous competition such as Sinclair and Amstrad were no longer in
the computer market. With less competition than ever before, Dell rose to high profits and success, introducing low
cost systems targeted at consumers and business markets using a direct-sales model. Dell surpassed Compaq as the
world's largest computer manufacturer, and held that position until October 2006.
Power Macintosh, PowerPC

In 1994, Apple introduced the Power Macintosh series of high-end professional desktop computers for desktop
publishing and graphic designers. ese new computers made use of new Motorola PowerPC processors as part of
the AIM alliance, to replace the previous Motorola 68k architecture used for the Macintosh line. During the 1990s,
the Macintosh remained with a low market share, but as the primary choice for creative professionals, particularly
those in the graphics and publishing industries.
Risc PC
Also in 1994, Acorn Computers launched its Risc PC series of high-end desktop computers. e Risc PC
(codenamed Medusa) was Acorn's next generation ARM-based RISC OS computer, which superseded the Acorn
Archimedes.
BeBox
In 1995, Be Inc. released the BeBox computer, which used dual PowerPC 603 processors running at 66 MHz, and
later 133 MHz with the Be operating system. e BeBox was largely a failure, with fewer than 2,000 units produced
between October 1995 and January 1997, when production was ceased.
IBM clones, Apple back into profitability

Due to the sales growth of IBM clones in the '90s, they became the industry standard for business and home use.
is growth was augmented by the introduction of Microso's Windows 3.0 operating environment in 1990, and
followed by Windows 3.1 in 1992 and the Windows 95 operating system in 1995. e Macintosh was sent into a
period of decline by these developments coupled with Apple's own inability to come up with a successor to the
Macintosh operating system, and by 1996 Apple was almost bankrupt. In December 1996 Apple bought NeXT and
in what has been described as a "reverse takeover", Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997. e NeXT purchase and
Jobs' return brought Apple back to profitability, first with the release of Mac OS 8, a major new version of the
operating system for Macintosh computers, and then with the PowerMac G3 and iMac computers for the
professional and home markets. e iMac was notable for its transparent bondi blue casing in an ergonomic shape,
as well as its discarding of legacy devices such as a floppy drive and serial ports in favor of Ethernet and USB
18 of 28 1/23/18, 11:50 AM
connectivity. e iMac sold several million units and a

subsequent model using a different form factor remains in
production as of August 2017. In 2001 Mac OS X, the long-
awaited "next generation" Mac OS based on the NeXT
technologies was finally introduced by Apple, cementing its
comeback.
Writable CDs, MP3, P2P file

sharing
e ROM in CD-ROM stands for Read Only Memory. In the
late 1990s CD-R and later, rewritable CD-RW drives were
included instead of standard CD ROM drives. is gave the
personal computer user the capability to copy and "burn"
iMac G3 in Bondi Blue.
standard Audio CDs which were playable in any CD player. As
computer hardware grew more powerful and the MP3 format
became pervasive, "ripping" CDs into small, compressed files on a computer's hard drive became popular. "Peer to
peer" file sharing networks such as Napster, Kazaa and Gnutella arose to be used almost exclusively for sharing
music files and became a primary computer activity for many individuals.
USB, DVD player

Since the late 1990s, many more personal computers started shipping that included USB (Universal Serial Bus)
ports for easy plug and play connectivity to devices such as digital cameras, video cameras, personal digital
assistants, printers, scanners, USB flash drives and other peripheral devices. By the early 21st century, all shipping
computers for the consumer market included at least two USB ports. Also during the late 1990s DVD players
started appearing on high-end, usually more expensive, desktop and laptop computers, and eventually on
consumer computers into the first decade of the 21st century.
Hewlett-Packard
In 2002, Hewle-Packard (HP) purchased Compaq. Compaq itself had bought Tandem Computers in 1997 (which
had been started by ex-HP employees), and Digital Equipment Corporation in 1998. Following this strategy HP
became a major player in desktops, laptops, and servers for many different markets. e buyout made HP the
world's largest manufacturer of personal computers, until Dell later surpassed HP.
64 bits
In 2003, AMD shipped its 64-bit based microprocessor line for desktop computers, Opteron and Athlon 64. Also in
2003, IBM released the 64-bit based PowerPC 970 for Apple's high-end Power Mac G5 systems. Intel, in 2004,
reacted to AMD's success with 64-bit based processors, releasing updated versions of their Xeon and Pentium 4
lines. 64-bit processors were first common in high end systems, servers and workstations, and then gradually
replaced 32-bit processors in consumer desktop and laptop systems since about 2005.
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Lenovo
In 2004, IBM announced the proposed sale of its PC business to Chinese computer maker Lenovo Group, which is
partially owned by the Chinese government, for US$650 million in cash and $600 million US in Lenovo stock. e
deal was approved by the Commiee on Foreign Investment in the United States in March 2005, and completed in
May 2005. IBM will have a 19% stake in Lenovo, which will move its headquarters to New York State and appoint
an IBM executive as its chief executive officer. e company will retain the right to use certain IBM brand names
for an initial period of five years. As a result of the purchase, Lenovo inherited a product line that featured the
inkPad, a line of laptops that had been one of IBM's most successful products.
Wi-Fi, LCD monitor, flash memory

In the early 21st century, Wi-Fi began to become increasingly popular as many consumers started installing their
own wireless home networks. Many of today's laptops and desktop computers are sold pre-installed with wireless
cards and antennas. Also in the early 21st century, LCD monitors became the most popular technology for
computer monitors, with CRT production being slowed down. LCD monitors are typically sharper, brighter, and
more economical than CRT monitors. e first decade of the 21st century also saw the rise of multi-core processors
(see following section) and flash memory. Once limited to high-end industrial use due to expense, these
technologies are now mainstream and available to consumers. In 2008 the MacBook Air and Asus Eee PC were
released, laptops that dispense with an optical drive and hard drive entirely relying on flash memory for storage.
Local area networks

e invention in the late 1970s of local area networks (LANs), notably Ethernet, allowed PCs to communicate with
each other (peer-to-peer) and with shared printers.
As the microcomputer revolution continued, more robust versions of the same technology were used to produce
microprocessor based servers that could also be linked to the LAN. is was facilitated by the development of
server operating systems to run on the Intel architecture, including several versions of both Unix and Microso
Windows.
Multiprocessing
In May 2005, AMD and Intel released their first dual-core 64-bit processors, the Pentium D and the Athlon 64 X2
respectively. Multi-core processors can be programmed and reasoned about using symmetric multiprocessing
(SMP) techniques known since the 60s (see the SMP article for details).
Apple switches to Intel in 2006, also thereby gaining multiprocessing.
In 2013, a Xeon Phi extension card is released with 57 x86 cores, at a price of $1695, equalling circa 30 dollars per
core.
ARM
In 2005, the ARM Cortex-A8 is released, the first Cortex design to be adopted on a large scale for use in consumer
devices.[57] An ARM core is later used in the Raspberry Pi, a very cheap minicomputer.
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PCI-E
PCI Express is released in 2003. It becomes the most commonly used bus in PC-compatible desktop computers.
Cheap 3D graphics
e rise of cheap 3D accelerators displaced low-end products of Silicon Graphics (SGI), which went bankrupt in
2009.
Silicon Graphics was a major 3D business that had grown annual revenues of $5.4 million to $3.7 billion from 1984
to 1997.[58]
e addition of 3D graphic capabilities to PCs, and the ability of clusters of Linux- and BSD-based PCs to take on
many of the tasks of larger SGI servers, ate into SGI's core markets.
ree former SGI employees had founded 3dfx in 1994. eir Voodoo Graphics extension card relied on PCI to
provide cheap 3D graphics for PC's. Towards the end of 1996, the cost of EDO DRAM dropped significantly. A card
consisted of a DAC, a frame buffer processor and a texture mapping unit, along with 4 MB of EDO DRAM. e
RAM and graphics processors operated at 50 MHz. It provided only 3D acceleration and as such the computer also
needed a traditional video controller for conventional 2D soware.
NVIDIA bought 3dfx in 2000. In 2000, NVIDIA grew revenues 96%.[59]
SGI had made OpenGL. Control of the specification was passed to the Khronos Group in 2006.
SDRAM
In 1993, Samsung introduced its KM48SL2000 synchronous DRAM, and by 2000, SDRAM had replaced virtually all
other types of DRAM in modern computers, because of its greater performance. For more information see
Synchronous dynamic random-access memory#SDRAM history.
Double data rate synchronous dynamic random-access memory (DDR SDRAM) is introduced in 2000.
Compared to its predecessor in PC-clones, single data rate (SDR) SDRAM, the DDR SDRAM interface makes higher
transfer rates possible by more strict control of the timing of the electrical data and clock signals.
ACPI
Released in December 1996, ACPI replaced Advanced Power Management (APM), the MultiProcessor Specification,
and the Plug and Play BIOS (PnP) Specification.[60]
Internally, ACPI advertises the available components and their functions to the operating system kernel using
instruction lists ("methods") provided through the system firmware (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI)
or BIOS), which the kernel parses. ACPI then executes the desired operations (such as the initialization of hardware
components) using an embedded minimal virtual machine.
First-generation ACPI hardware had issues.[61] Windows 98 first edition disabled ACPI by default except on a
whitelist of systems.
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2010s
Semiconductor fabrication
In 2011, Intel announces the commercialisation of Tri-gate transistor. [62] e Tri-Gate design is a variant of the
FinFET 3D structure. FinFET was developed in the 1990s by Chenming Hu and his colleagues at UC Berkeley.[63]
rough-silicon via is used in High Bandwidth Memory (HBM), a successor of DDR-SDRAM. HBM was released in
2013.
In 2016 and 2017, Intel, TSMC and Samsung begin releasing 10 nanometer chips. At the ~10 nm scale, quantum
tunneling (especially through gaps) becomes a significant phenomenon.[64]
Market size
In 2001, 125 million personal computers were shipped in comparison to 48,000 in 1977. More than 500 million PCs
were in use in 2002 and one billion personal computers had been sold worldwide since mid-1970s till this time. Of
the laer figure, 75 percent were professional or work related, while the rest sold for personal or home use. About
81.5 percent of PCs shipped had been desktop computers, 16.4 percent laptops and 2.1 percent servers. United
States had received 38.8 percent (394 million) of the computers shipped, Europe 25 percent and 11.7 percent had
gone to Asia-Pacific region, the fastest-growing market as of 2002.[65] Almost half of all the households in Western
Europe had a personal computer and a computer could be found in 40 percent of homes in United Kingdom,
compared with only 13 percent in 1985.[66] e third quarter of 2008 marked the first time laptops outsold desktop
PCs in the United States.[67]
As of June 2008, the number of personal computers worldwide in use hit one billion. Mature markets like the
United States, Western Europe and Japan accounted for 58 percent of the worldwide installed PCs. About 180
million PCs (16 percent of the existing installed base) were expected to be replaced and 35 million to be dumped
into landfill in 2008. e whole installed base grew 12 percent annually.[68][69]
See also
Timeline of electrical and electronic engineering
Computer museum and Personal Computer Museum
Expensive Desk Calculator
MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Educ-8 a 1974 pre-microprocessor "micro-computer"
Mark-8, a 1974 microprocessor-based microcomputer
Programma 101, a 1965 programmable calculator with some attributes of a personal
computer
SCELBI, another 1974 microcomputer
Simon (computer), a 1949 demonstration of computing principles
List of pioneers in computer science
References
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Further reading
Veit, Stan (1993). Stan Veit's History of the Personal Computer. WorldComm. p. 304.
ISBN 978-1-56664-030-5.
Douglas K. Smith; Douglas K. Smith; Robert C. Alexander (1999). Fumbling the Future:
How Xerox Invented, then Ignored, the First Personal Computer. Authors Choice Press.
p. 276. ISBN 978-1-58348-266-7.
Freiberger, Paul; Swaine, Michael (2000). Fire in the Valley: The Making of The Personal
Computer. McGraw-Hill Companies. p. 463. ISBN 978-0-07-135892-7.
Allan, Roy A. (2001). A History of the Personal Computer: The People and the Technology.
Allan Publishing. p. 528. ISBN 978-0-9689108-0-1.
Sherman, Josepha (2003). The History of the Personal Computer. Franklin Watts. p. 64.
ISBN 978-0-531-16213-2.
Laing, Gordon (2004). Digital Retro: The Evolution and Design of the Personal Computer.
Sybex. p. 192. ISBN 978-0-7821-4330-0.
External links
A history of the personal computer: (http://www.retrocomputing.net/info/allan/) the
people and the technology (PDF)
27 of 28 1/23/18, 11:50 AM
BlinkenLights Archaeological Insititute – Personal Computer Milestones

(http://www.blinkenlights.com/pc.shtml)
Personal Computer Museum (http://www.pcmuseum.ca) – A publicly viewable museum in
Brantford, Ontario, Canada
Old Computers Museum (http://www.oldcomputermuseum.com/My_Collection.html) –
Displaying over 100 historic machines.
Chronology of Personal Computers (http://www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/comphist) – a
chronology of computers from 1947 on
"Total share: 30 years of personal computer market share figures"
(https://web.archive.org/web/20080210010629/http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture
/total-share.ars/)
Obsolete Technology – Old Computers (http://www.oldcomputers.net/)
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_personal_computers&

oldid=815964958"
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional

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History of personal computers - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_persona...

History of personal computers

The beginnings of the personal computer industry

1977 and the emergence of the "Trinity"

VIC-20 and Commodore 64

Apple Lisa and Macintosh

Mainframes, minicomputers, and microcomputers

Microprocessor and cost reduction

e beginnings of the personal computer industry

Olivetti Programma 101

Xerox Alto and Star

e Altair was introduced in a Popular Electronics magazine article in the

Homebrew Computer Club

Other machines of the era

1977 and the emergence of the "Trinity"

e ZX Spectrum+ was a repackaged ZX Spectrum 48K launched in October 1984.

VIC-20 and Commodore 64

e best-selling personal computer of all time was released by Commodore

Commodore/Atari price war and crash

PCI is later replaced by PCI-E (see below).

Apple Lisa and Macintosh

1990s and 2000s

Power Macintosh, PowerPC

IBM clones, Apple back into proﬁtability

connectivity. e iMac sold several million units and a

Writable CDs, MP3, P2P ﬁle

USB, DVD player

Wi-Fi, LCD monitor, ﬂash memory

Local area networks

Apple switches to Intel in 2006, also thereby gaining multiprocessing.

NVIDIA bought 3dfx in 2000. In 2000, NVIDIA grew revenues 96%.[59]

60. "ACPI Overview" (http://www.acpi.info/presentations/ACPI_Overview.pdf) (slide show in

BlinkenLights Archaeological Insititute – Personal Computer Milestones

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_personal_computers&

This page was last edited on 18 December 2017, at 10:36.

Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional

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