On Wed, Jun 5, 2024 at 3:25 PM Liam Proven via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote:
> > If a device is not a microcomputer, it then must be either a > minicomputer or a mainframe. Early on many mainframes didn't even > support interactive sessions so they more or less disqualified > themselves from being "personal" in any commonly-understood sense. > Disagree. Someone has to give it input to get output, and that can be one person using the mainframe by themselves. So again, this kind of " description" still does not cut it. Which leaves minicomputers. > > A single-user desktop (or deskside) minicomputer isn't a personal > computer, because it's not a microcomputer. (And it costs as much as a > car.) Then what is it? What do you call a single-user minicomputer? > Where has it been established/agreed/decreed that "personal computer" = "microcomputer" + some other traits? The attempt to frame the term in economic respects just does not work. People in the 70s could and did buy refurbished minicomputers for their personal use, and in a timeframe in which they were still be considered contemporary and not "obsolete". The other, often overlooked category: it's a workstation. > > Workstations, for as long as they existed, were personal computer > _like_ devices but typically an order of magnitude more powerful and > an order of magnitude more expensive. They also generally ran what ben > mononym calls a proper OS. > > Workstations existed before microcomputers and before personal > computers, and continued happily existing for about 30 more years, but > by the time of 32-bit high-performance PCs with grown-up OSs, they > were teetering, and by the time of commodity _64-bit_ PCs, or > multiprocessor/multicore PCs with OSes that could use that, or of > course both (64-bit multi-core), they were dead. > ... > > -- > Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven Why don't we just use the term "workstation" to describe all microcomputers used personally then, which is all of them? The difference in scale of performance, memory, disk storage, etc. isn't much of a distinction, since they're both used in a "personal" sense. But don't worry, I am here to finally solve this riddle: Consider: if you share a bathroom with the public where other people can walk in while you're doing your business and do theirs, it's not your *personal* bathroom. If you ride a bus, where multiple random people get on and off at various stops, it's not a "personal" conveyance. If you use a computer that simultaneously is or can be used by other people via multiple concurrent user sessions across whatever signal path, whatever the setting, it is *not* "personal". If you own and use a computer by yourself, and use it singularly (or others do so when you are not), then in fact, by definition, it is *personal*. Do you see? The opposite of personal is multi-user. There is your dichotomy. It is either personal, or multiuser, and never the twain shall meet, and neither anything betwixt. I submit that this is the actual historical context of the original meaning of the term "personal computer". I REST MY CASE. Sellam
