# [TECH] Personal Computer

**The Personal Computer (PC)** brought computing from corporate data centres to individuals, enabling word processing, spreadsheets, desktop publishing, and eventually the Internet.

## Overview

The Altair 8800 (1975, MITS) was the first commercially successful kit PC. The Apple II (1977) and IBM PC (1981, with Microsoft DOS) established the PC as a mass-market product. The graphical user interface (Xerox PARC, 1970s; Apple Macintosh 1984; Windows 3.1, 1992) made computing accessible. The PC created markets for microprocessors (Intel x86), operating systems (Microsoft), and packaged software. By 1995, 150 million PCs were installed globally; by 2023, ~2 billion.

## Key Actors

- **Companies**: IBM (1981 PC), Apple (1976), Microsoft (1975), Intel (1968), Compaq (1982), Dell (1984)
- **Inventors**: Ed Roberts (1941–2010, Altair), Steve Jobs (1955–2011), Steve Wozniak (1950–)

## Key Patents

- Apple patent portfolio covering GUI elements; IBM PC architecture was open, enabling the clone industry.

## Economic Value

PC market: **\$USD 270 billion/year** hardware (2023, IDC). Software and services enabled: \$USD 500B+/year. The PC created the conditions for the internet, e-commerce, and digital economy worth \$USD 10T+/year.

## Notes

IDC *PC Market Tracker* Q4 2023. Microsoft alone has a market cap of \$USD 3T, mostly attributable to PC-era software.

## What This Enables

- **[TECH] Internet & World Wide Web** — Web browsers and email clients running on PCs were the primary interface that drove internet mass adoption of the internet.
- **[TECH] Cloud Computing & Big Data** — The PC era created software ecosystems and enterprise IT that migrated to cloud when networking became fast enough.

# Parents

* [TECH] Integrated Circuit
* [TECH] Integrated Circuit