A personal computer (PC) is any general-purpose computer A computer is a programmable machine that receives input, stores and manipulates data//information, and provides output in a useful format whose size, capabilities, and original sales price make it useful for individuals, and which is intended to be operated directly by an end user, with no intervening computer operator. This is in contrast to the batch processing or time-sharing Time-sharing is sharing a computing resource among many users by means of multiprogramming and multi-tasking. Its introduction in the 1960s, and emergence as the prominent model of computing in the 1970s, represents a major technological shift in the history of computing. By allowing a large number of users to interact concurrently with a single models which allowed large expensive mainframe Mainframes are powerful computers used mainly by large organizations for critical applications, typically bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing systems to be used by many people, usually at the same time, or large data processing systems which required a full-time staff to operate efficiently.

A personal computer may be a desktop computer A desktop computer is a personal computer in a form intended for regular use at a single location, as opposed to a mobile laptop or portable computer. Prior to the widespread use of microprocessors, a computer that could fit on a desk was considered remarkably small. Desktop computers come in a variety of types ranging from large vertical tower, a laptop A laptop is a personal computer designed for mobile use that is small and light enough for a person to rest on their lap. A laptop integrates most of the typical components of a desktop computer, including a display, a keyboard, a pointing device and speakers into a single unit. A laptop is powered by mains electricity via an AC adapter, and can, a tablet PC A Tablet PC is a laptop PC equipped with a stylus or a touchscreen. This form factor is intended to offer a more mobile PC; Tablet PCs may be used where notebooks are impractical or unwieldy, or do not provide the needed functionality.[citation needed] or a handheld PC A Handheld PC, or H/PC for short, is a term for a computer built around a form factor which is smaller than any standard laptop computer. It is sometimes referred to as a Palmtop. The first handheld device compatible with desktop IBM personal computers of the time was the Atari Portfolio of 1989. Another early model was the Poqet PC of 1989 and (also called palmtop). The most common microprocessors in personal computers are x86 The term x86 refers to a family of instruction set architectures based on the Intel 8086. The 8086 was launched in 1978 as a fully 16-bit extension of Intel's early 8-bit based microprocessors and also introduced segmentation to overcome the 16-bit addressing barrier of earlier chips. The term x86 derived from the fact that early successors to the-compatible CPUs. Software applications for personal computers include word processing Word processing is the creation of documents using a word processor. It can also refer to advanced shorthand techniques, sometimes used in specialized contexts with a specially modified typewriter, spreadsheets A spreadsheet is a computer application that simulates a paper, accounting worksheet. It displays multiple cells that together make up a grid consisting of rows and columns, each cell containing alphanumeric text, numeric values or formulas. A formula defines how the content of that cell is to be calculated from the contents of any other cell each, databases A database consists of an organized collection of data for one or more uses, typically in digital form. One way of classifying databases involves the type of their contents, for example: bibliographic, document-text, statistical. Digital databases are managed using database management systems, which store database contents, allowing data creation, Web browsers A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content. Hyperlinks present in resources enable users to easily navigate their browsers to and e-mail Electronic mail, commonly called email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages across the Internet or other computer networks. Originally, email was transmitted directly from one user to another computer. This required both computers to be online at the same time, a la instant messenger. Today's email systems are based on a store-and- clients, games A personal computer game is a game played on a personal computer, rather than on a video game console or arcade machine. Computer games have evolved from the simple graphics and gameplay of early titles like Spacewar!, to a wide range of more visually advanced titles, and myriad personal productivity and special-purpose software. Modern personal computers often have high-speed or dial-up connections to the Internet, allowing access to the World Wide Web The World Wide Web, abbreviated as WWW and commonly known as the Web, is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet. With a web browser, one can view web pages that may contain text, images, videos, and other multimedia and navigate between them by using hyperlinks. Using concepts from earlier hypertext systems, British and a wide range of other resources.

A PC may be used at home, or may be found in an office. Personal computers can be connected to a local area network A local area network is a computer network covering a small physical area, like a home, office, or small groups of buildings, such as a school, or an airport. The defining characteristics of LANs, in contrast to wide area networks (WANs), include their usually higher data-transfer rates, smaller geographic area, and lack of a need for leased (LAN) either by a cable or a wireless connection.

While early PC owners usually had to write their own programs to do anything useful with the machines, today's users have access to a wide range of commercial and non-commercial software which is provided in ready-to-run or ready-to-compile form. Since the 1980s, Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is a public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions. Established on April 4, 1975 to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8 and Intel Intel Corporation is a technology company, and the world's largest semiconductor chip maker, based on revenue. It is the inventor of the x86 series of microprocessors, the processors found in most personal computers. Intel was founded on July 18, 1968, as Integrated Electronics Corporation (though a common misconception is that "Intel" have dominated much of the personal computer market with the Wintel Wintel is a portmanteau of Windows and Intel. It usually refers to a computer system or the related ecosystem based on an Intel x86 compatible processor and running the Microsoft Windows operating system. It is sometimes used derisively to describe the monopolistic actions undertaken by both companies when attempting to dominate the market platform.

History

In what was later to be called The Mother of All Demos The Mother of All Demos is a name given retrospectively to Douglas Engelbart's December 9, 1968 demonstration at the Fall Joint Computer Conference at the Convention Center in San Francisco, in which a number of experimental technologies that have since become commonplace were presented. The demo featured the first computer mouse the public had, SRI Sri is a word of Sanskrit origin, often used as a title of veneration researcher Douglas Englebart Dr. Douglas C. Engelbart is an American inventor and early computer pioneer. He is best known for inventing the computer mouse, as a pioneer of human-computer interaction whose team developed hypertext, networked computers, and precursors to GUIs; and as a committed and vocal proponent of the development and use of computers and networks to help in 1968 gave a preview of what would become the staples of daily working life in the 21st century - 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.

By the early 1970s, people in academic or research institutions had the opportunity for single-person use of a computer system The LINC was a 12-bit, 2048-word computer. The LINC can be considered the first minicomputer and a forerunner to the personal computer in interactive mode for extended durations, although these systems would still have been too expensive to be owned by a single person.

In the 1970s Hewlett Packard introduced fully BASIC In computer programming, BASIC is a family of high-level programming languages. The original BASIC was designed in 1964 by John George Kemeny and Thomas Eugene Kurtz at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, USA to provide computer access to non-science students. At the time, nearly all use of computers required writing custom software, which was programmable computers that fit entirely on top of a desk, including a keyboard, a small one-line display and printer. The Wang 2200 Wang's first minicomputer which could perform data processing in a common computer language was the Wang 2200 which appeared in May 1973. Unlike some other desktop computers such as the HP 9830, it had a CRT in a cabinet that also included an integrated computer controlled cassette tape storage unit and keyboard. Microcoded to run interpretive of 1973 had a full-size CRT and cassette tape storage. The IBM 5100 The IBM 5100 Portable Computer was a desktop computer introduced in September 1975, six years before the IBM PC. It was the evolution of a prototype called the SCAMP that was developed at the IBM Palo Alto Scientific Center in 1973. In January 1978 IBM announced the IBM 5110, its larger cousin. The 5100 was withdrawn in March 1982 in 1975 had a small CRT The Cathode Ray Tube is a vacuum tube containing an electron gun (a source of electrons) and a fluorescent screen, with internal or external means to accelerate and deflect the electron beam, used to create images in the form of light emitted from the fluorescent screen. The image may represent electrical waveforms (oscilloscope), pictures ( display and could be programmed in BASIC and APL. These were generally expensive specialized computers sold for business or scientific uses. The introduction of the microprocessor A microprocessor incorporates most or all of the functions of a computer's central processing unit on a single integrated circuit (IC, or microchip). The first microprocessors emerged in the early 1970s and were used for electronic calculators, using binary-coded decimal (BCD) arithmetic in 4-bit words. Other embedded uses of 4-bit and 8-bit, a single chip In electronics, an integrated circuit is a miniaturized electronic circuit (consisting mainly of semiconductor devices, as well as passive components) that has been manufactured in the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material. Integrated circuits are used in almost all electronic equipment in use today and have revolutionized the with all the circuitry that formerly occupied large cabinets, led to the proliferation of personal computers after 1975.

Early personal computers - generally called microcomputers A microcomputer is a computer with a microprocessor as its central processing unit. They are physically small compared to mainframe and minicomputers. Many microcomputers are also personal computers (in the generic sense) - were sold often in kit An electronic kit is a package of electrical components used to build an electronic device. Generally, kits are composed of electronic components, a circuit diagram , assembly instructions and often a printed circuit board (PCB). People primarily purchase electronic kits to have fun and learn how things work. They were once popular as a means to form and in limited volumes, and were of interest mostly to hobbyists and technicians. Minimal programming was done with toggle switches to enter instructions, and output was provided by front panel lamps. Practical use required peripherals such as keyboards, computer terminals A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that is used for entering data into, and displaying data from, a computer or a computing system. Early terminals were inexpensive devices but very slow compared to punched cards or paper tape for input, but as the technology improved and video displays were introduced,, disk drives, and printers. Micral According to the Computer History Museum, the Micral N was the earliest commercial, non-kit personal computer based on a microprocessor, the Intel 8008 N was the earliest commercial, non-kit "personal" computer based on a microprocessor, the Intel 8008. It was built starting in 1972 and about 90,000 units were sold. Unlike other hobbyist computers of its day, which were sold as electronics kits, in 1976 Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak sold the Apple I computer The Apple I, also known as the Apple-1, was an early personal computer. They were designed and hand-built by Steve Wozniak. Wozniak's friend Steve Jobs had the idea of selling the computer. The Apple I was Apple's first product, demonstrated in April 1976 at the Homebrew Computer Club in Palo Alto, California circuit board, which was fully prepared and contained about 30 chips. The first complete personal computer was the Commodore PET The Commodore PET was a home/personal computer produced by Commodore starting in 1977. It was a top seller in the Canadian and United States educational markets, and was Commodore's first full-featured computer, which would form the basis for their entire 8-bit product line, including the Commodore 64 introduced in January 1977. It was soon followed by the popular Apple II The Apple II was one of the first highly successful mass produced microcomputer products, manufactured by Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) and introduced in 1977. In terms of ease of use, features and expandability the Apple II was a major technological advancement over its predecessor, the Apple I, a limited production bare circuit board computer. Mass-market pre-assembled computers allowed a wider range of people to use computers, focusing more on software applications and less on development of the processor hardware.

Through the late 1970s and into the 1980s, computers Home computers were a class of personal computers entering the market in 1977, and becoming increasingly common during the 1980s. They were marketed to consumers as accessible personal computers, more capable than video game consoles. These computers typically cost much less than business, scientific or engineering-oriented desktop personal were developed for household use, with software for personal productivity, programming and games. One such machine, the Commodore 64 The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982. Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US $595. Preceded by the Commodore VIC-20 and Commodore MAX Machine, the C64 features 64 kilobytes of memory with sound and graphics, totaled 17 million units sold, making it the best-selling single personal computer model of all time^[1]. Somewhat larger and more expensive systems (although still low-cost compared with minicomputers A minicomputer is a class of multi-user computers that lies in the middle range of the computing spectrum, in between the largest multi-user systems (mainframe computers) and the smallest single-user systems (microcomputers or personal computers). The class at one time formed a distinct group with its own hardware and operating systems, but the and mainframes Mainframes are powerful computers used mainly by large organizations for critical applications, typically bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing) were aimed at office and small business use. Workstations A workstation is a high-end microcomputer designed for technical 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. The term workstation has also been used to refer to a mainframe computer terminal or a PC connected to a are characterized by high-performance processors and graphics displays, with large 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.

Market and sales

In 2001 125 million personal computers were shipped in comparison to 48 thousand in 1977. More than 500 million personal computers were in use in 2002 and one billion 1,000,000,000 is the natural number following 999,999,999 and preceding 1,000,000,001 personal computers had been sold worldwide since mid-1970s until this time. Of the latter figure, 75 percent were professional or work related, while the rest sold for personal or home use. About 81.5 percent of personal computers shipped had been desktop computers A desktop computer is a personal computer in a form intended for regular use at a single location, as opposed to a mobile laptop or portable computer. Prior to the widespread use of microprocessors, a computer that could fit on a desk was considered remarkably small. Desktop computers come in a variety of types ranging from large vertical tower, 16.4 percent laptops A laptop is a personal computer designed for mobile use that is small and light enough for a person to rest on their lap. A laptop integrates most of the typical components of a desktop computer, including a display, a keyboard, a pointing device and speakers into a single unit. A laptop is powered by mains electricity via an AC adapter, and can and 2.1 percent servers In computing, a server is any combination of hardware or software designed to provide services to clients. When used alone, the term typically refers to a computer which may be running a server operating system, but is also used to refer to any software or dedicated hardware capable of providing services. 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. The second billion was expected to be sold by 2008.^[2] Almost half of all the households in Western Europe Western Europe is a loose term for the collection of countries in the westernmost region of Europe, though this definition is context-dependent and carries cultural and political connotations. One definition describes Western Europe as a geographic entity — the region lying in the Western part of Europe. Another definition was created during the 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.^[3]

The global personal computer shipments were 264 million units in the year 2007 2007 was a common year that started on a Monday. In the Gregorian calendar, it was the 2007th year of the Common Era, or of Anno Domini; the 7th year of the 3rd millennium and of the 21st century; and the 8th of the 2000s decade, according to iSuppli^[4], up 11.2 percent from 239 million in 2006.^[5]. In year 2004, the global shipments was 183 million units, 11.6 percent increase over 2003.^[6] In 2003, 152.6 million computers were shipped, at an estimated value of $175 billion.^[7] In 2002, 136.7 million PCs were shipped, at an estimated value of $175 billion.^[7] In 2000, 140.2 million personal computers were shipped, at an estimated value of $226 billion.^[7] Worldwide shipments of personal computers surpassed the 100-million mark in 1999, growing to 113.5 million units from 93.3 million units in 1998.^[8]. In 1999, Asia had 14.1 million units shipped.^[9]

As of June 2008, the number of personal computers in use worldwide hit one billion, while another billion is expected to be reached by 2014. Mature markets like the United States, Western Europe and Japan accounted for 58 percent of the worldwide installed PCs. The emerging markets were expected to double their installed PCs by 2013 and to take 70 percent of the second billion PCs. About 180 million computers (16 percent of the existing installed base) were expected to be replaced and 35 million to be dumped into landfill in 2008. The whole installed base grew 12 percent annually.^[10][11]

In the developed world, there has been a vendor tradition to keep adding functions to maintain high prices of personal computers. However, since the introduction of One Laptop per Child foundation and its low-cost XO-1 laptop, the computing industry started to pursue the price too. Although introduced only one year earlier, there were 14 million netbooks sold in 2008.^[12] Besides the regular computer manufacturers, companies making especially rugged versions of computers have sprung up, offering alternatives for people operating their machines in extreme weather or environments.^[13]

Average selling price

For Microsoft Windows systems, the average selling price (ASP) showed a decline in 2008/2009, possibly due to low-cost netbooks, drawing $569 for desktop computers and $689 for laptops at U.S. retail in August 2008. In 2009, ASP had further fallen to $533 for desktops and to $602 for notebooks by January and to $540 and $560 in February.^[14] According to research firm NPD, average selling price of all Windows portable PCs has fallen from $659 in October 2008 to $519 in October 2009.^[15]

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