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Personal computers - PC's |
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first personal computer, Altair 8080, was developed by
MITS in 1975. Apple Computer's Apple II, launched in
1977, is the first massed-produced personal computer. IBM
was the first to use the term "PC'' in 1981. More than any other invention, the widespread adoption of personal computers has changed the way we work, live and play. While computers, beginning with the behemoth Eniac, have been around since 1946, it wasn't until the 1980s that personal computers became available to the ordinary Joe. Times have changed since Univac, the first commercial computer, which cost close to US$1mil (RM3.8mil) to build in 1951. For urbanites, can most of us imagine life without computers? Computers permeate every aspect of our lives--work, entertainment, education, storage and retrieval of information as trivial as recipes to official secrets. With the iMacs, computers are no longer just ugly beige machines. You can buy one to fit your home decor as well. PCs have spawned a whole generation of related products: mouses, scanners, printers and their attendant terminology: boot, click, browse. Miniaturisation has made the computer available on the move with laptops and PDAs. But by far the application with the biggest impact is the Internet. |
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