Personal Computers

The term “personal computer” has been applied to a wide variety of machines (often in hindsight) where an individual user would have direct control of the entire computer (e.g., the LGP-30, Bendy G-15, and others).

However the true personal computer (as we know it today, that is a mass market item found in both home and office settings) had to await the development of the integrated circuit CPU in the form of the microprocessor and, more directly, its appearance in machines such as the Radio Shack TRS-80, the Apple II, and Commodore in 1977.

When IBM introduced its Personal Computer (PC) in 1981, a slow shift in perception began in which the personal computer changed from being viewed as a toy to a business tool. Today most personal computers have much greater computational power than even the most powerful mainframes of only a few decades earlier.