Change PC to Win or Windows

[Derek Martin]

On Fri, Jul 18, 2008 at 03:46:13PM -0700, Joel Teichroeb wrote:
> Calling Windows PC seems to be something that Apple did so they would 
> not have to directly mention Windows. 

Actually it's something IBM did when they created the IBM PC.  Of
course, all IBM PCs ran MS-DOS, since that's how IBM sold them...
Then others started to build copies the IBM PC based on Intel
hardware, and the resulting class of computers was called,
collectively, "PC Clones" -- shortened to PCs -- by the industry and
its market.  Then companies like AMD and Cyrix started building
Intel-compatible CPUs, and the term PC was extended to include systems
built using those architectures.  Eventually Windows was released, and
PCs became Windows boxen running on Intel-compatible hardware, and I
personally know no one who doesn't use the term that way...

Much like the English word "bank" (and numerous others), the term "PC"
has come to have several meanings, one of which is the above.  You may
not like it, but we're pretty much stuck with the term, so you may as
well get used to it.

-- 
Derek D. Martin
http://www.pizzashack.org/
GPG Key ID: 0x81CFE75D

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