What? I call my computer a PC and I run Linux. My friends know I use Linux and they don't get confused when I call my device a PC. As far as I know, "PC" refers to a personal desktop computer and does not depend on the OS.
It could just be me, but when someone says "PC" I don't necessarily think of a Windows computer, I just think of a computer.
The trajectory of the term "PC" will never not amuse me.
It used to be a specific brand of a category of products ("PC" was IBM's "Home Computer". That was the name of the category. "Home computers", computers for the home)
Then because the IBM PC was 99% off-the-shelf parts and 1% a proprietary bios, as soon as a cleanroom clone of that bios was written, every manufacturer under the sun made their own "IBM Compatible", and eventually, as IBM's role in the whole thing became less and less relevant (... And eventually they tried to move to a new, incompatible format with the IBM PS/2, and this failed hard) it became "PC Compatible" -- But what a "PC Compatible" was, even back then, was something that was constantly changing due to the multitude of companies making them. Their unifying factor being... Uhh... x86 architecture and some variation of DOS, which made them run the same programs more or less.
Eventually "PC" and "Computer" became interchangeable to most normies. With the word "Computer" even being considered "Old fashioned" by some.
One other fairly important detail in that 99% off the shelf parts 1% copyrighted BIOS: IBM contracted with Microsoft for the operating system, PC-DOS. And for some reason this deal was non-exclusive, so if someone else built compatible hardware, you could just buy a copy from Microsoft without the IBM branding on it and it'll run. Which is exactly what Eagle, and then Compaq, did.
Microsoft out-sleazed them by exploiting their pride, that's the reason. IBM was in a huge rush to get SOME Home Computer out before the 80s were over. They had snubbed the very idea of computers in the home and let Apple and Commodore steal a rich market from under their feet.
So they didn't even bother scrutinising the contract: They didn't think that the BIOS could ever be cloned, and if it was, they figured they'd just sue any company that did out of business. So Microsoft having their own version of DOS was "no threat", as without the BIOS, DOS could run on any 8086 processor but that wouldn't make it work with IBM software.
But the court ultimately sided with Compaq (not Eagle, Eagle got into trouble) as their BIOS clone was a cleanroom reverse-engineering project and therefore "fair use", and that was curtains for IBM.
The word console is less fun because it's not a brand that somehow got ship-of-theseused into no longer being a brand. Such things are exceedingly rare. Getting a brand name to become the product name is common, but to have the brand that originated that disappear in the process is not.
Console is just a generic term, it originated in architecture, where it meant "bit that protrudes out of the wall". It took on the meaning of "cabinet" and eventually started being used for the part of a machine that would have its meter readouts and its control bits and bobs. A gaming console is a console because it's... A machine. In an alternate universe we call it a "contraption". Has the same effect.
Because DOS and later Windows used to be the only OS that was relevant for IBM PC compatible systems. Only later were eg. Unix-like systems developed for them.
Windows is a (MS)DOS hybrid system, that's one of the reasons why it's a fuckin mess. Probably why they were able to steal the "PC" moniker so easily. That and Apple marketing themselves as separate from "PC".
No it isn't. NT was written from scratch, with no legacy DOS code. The last version of windows that was an "MS-DOS hybrid system" as you described was ME, 25 years ago.
I guess the correct phrasing is "was", however I still consider it to be a hybrid as it still makes use of absolutely braindead DOS design/features/limitations because of "backwards compatibility". Which is ironic, because Linux has better backwards support for DOS & old Windows applications without that legacy crap being apart of the system itself.
it still makes use of absolutely braindead DOS design/features/limitations because of "backwards compatibility"
Like what? Aside from drive letters (which are being slowly sunset in favor of mounting to directories like *nix) I don't see a lot of legacy stuff from the 8 bit era
Linux has better backwards support for DOS
Via dosbox, which is also available for windows. I wouldn't call "exactly the same, using the same exact emulator" better.
Like what? Aside from drive letters (which are being slowly sunset in favor of mounting to directories like *nix) I don't see a lot of legacy stuff from the 8 bit era.
Inability to create files or directories with certain reserved names like "CON", "PRN", "AUX", "NUL", "COM1-9", and "LPT1-9".
Lack of support for modern features like long file paths beyond the 260 character limit in some legacy applications and system components.
Continued inclusion of outdated & unused system components and commands from MS-DOS.
The stupid real-mode architecture of early Windows versions (1.0 & 2.0) still being a thing because "backwards compatibility".
Windows ≤10's reliance on legacy BIOS interaction; a remnant of the MS-DOS era; even when Windows 10 is booted in UEFI mode, which is now finally delt with in Windows 11.
The biggest limitation : The Technical debt that effects development in many adverse ways.
There's a ton more than I listed here. The thing about these old MS-DOS remnants is that they're not readily noticeable unless you start to really dig into things. A typical surface level joe bob user would never notice them.
Via dosbox, which is also available for windows. I wouldn't call "exactly the same, using the same exact emulator" better.
DOSBox tends to be faster on Linux compared to Windows. DOSBox configuration, customization and integration with the system is way more flexible on Linux. DOSBox has compatibility with Linux-specific tooling & utilities. Etc.
Compatibility wise, they're more or less the same, but support wise, Linux has clear advantages.
When development started in November 1989, Windows NT was to be known as OS/2 3.0, the third version of the operating system developed jointly by Microsoft and IBM.
"PC" actually refers to a specific architecture based on the original IBM PC. PCs are personal computers but not all personal computers are PCs.
It'd be like as if we still referred to ARM-based devices as being "Acorn" devices. It's one of those brand names that the public has turned into a generalized noun, like Kleenex and Bandaids.
It’s all computers. How “personal” it is just depends on what you do with it. I used what was technically a desktop PC as a home server for years. Without a monitor and kb/m plugged in, there’s not much personal computing going on with it. It’s mostly semantics, in the end it’s all computer systems lol
Yep. The phrase "Personal Computer" is fairly old at this point. Everyone and their dog called their computer product a "Personal Computer" back in the 80s. The id-plate on the Commodore 128 and 64C computers had that exact phrase under the computer name.
"IBM-compatible personal computer" is a wordy phrase, and even before the "IBM-compatible" part became somewhat anachronistic, it was being abbreviated to just "PC", heralding the death-knell for most other systems that otherwise had every right to use the name.
Because Apple ran a series of commercials comparing Mac to "PC" to differentiate themselves from the rest of the market but didn't acknowledge other OSs besides Windows in this series.
Those ads played everywhere and now everyone associates the term PC with Windows.
I could have my timeline off but the first time I heard PC to refer to windows specifically was around the time these commercials aired.
The IBM-PC predates that campaign by almost two decades. PC was firmly associated with Microsoft Windows by the time the ad campaign ran in late 2000's. I don't think the ads even mention Windows, they just say "PC".
That's not the reason. The "PC" marketing term originated with the IBM PC, after which every non-Apple device attempted to make some name-wise connection to the former, spawning a series of so called "IBM PC Compatibles" that have principally lived on design-wise until the present day.
Yeah I'm pretty sure PC standing for Personal Computer was at one point a trademark of IBM. The IBM 5150 PC launched into a world full of different and incompatible microcomputers, even those that shared processors weren't software compatible with each other. Hell, one of the things that sank Commodore was nearly none of their own machines were compatible with each other; most code written for a VIC20 wouldn't run on a C64, etc.
It was IBM designing a machine from off the shelf components, buying an OS from Microsoft, and relying only on the copyright on the BIOS to keep the machine proprietary that led to their ubiquity even 40 years later. Compaq wrote a non-infringing BIOS and was able to put to market a machine compatible with the PC's software library. And now, for the first time in microcomputer history, you had a de facto industry standard. Build an 8086 machine with ISA slots, write or license a BIOS that MS-DOS can talk to, and now you too can run that growing software library.
This was not a decision anyone made. The 8086 was quite literally slapped together because the engineers didn't think it was going to be much of a big deal, IBM didn't set out to create a standard that would stand for decades after they gave up all involvement with it. The modern x86 PC was metastasized as much as it was designed.
