FREE online courses on Information Technology - Chapter 6 IT - FUNDAMENTALS
- The Personal Computer Has Changed Everything
Next came the PC or personal computer, which was first
designed as an 8-bit computer. Apple introduced its famous PC in 1977. The
original IBM PC, marketed in 1981, fetched 8-bits at a time form memory but
performed computations on 16 bits at a time. Soon IBM introduced the AT, which
fetches and processes 16 bits at a time. The next generation is the 32-bit PC or
386 (later the 486 as well) computer, which fetches and processes 32 bits at a
time. The newest chips, the Pentium and the Pentium Pro, are capable of fetching
and processing 64 bits at a time. The personal computer is used in thousands of
programs available for it.
Workstations use high-performance 32-bit computers for
engineering and scientific work. The workstation features superior graphics and
is often used for design tasks. Powerful Pentium personal computers running
graphical user interfaces (GUIs) fall into the software capabilities to become
the same kind of personal productivity tool for the manager that the engineering
workstation is for the engineer.
