Talk:Types of computers

Personal Computer or PC

In the actual page, there's no distinction between microcomputer and PC. Relating to this link : IBM Personal Computer

because of the success of the IBM Personal Computer, the term PC came to mean more specifically a microcomputer compatible with IBM's PC products

I think that "PC" means "x86 compatible microcomputer" due to it's etymology
So an Apple PowerMac G5 is not a PC because of it's a PPC processor.
An Asus tablet is not a PC because of it's a tegra processor.
Without this consideration, my smart-phone is a PC and my PS3 too : It's personal ant there's a processor inside.
Considering that PC means "IBM PC compatible" give a direct link to Microsoft OS :
MS-DOS was sell with IBM PC so we should consider that a PC is a microcomputer on which we can install MS-DOS.

How do you propose resolving this issue? In an article about types of computers, I believe it's more important to address computer types generically. If your recommendation is to remove "PC" from the subsection and refer to personal computers in general without the abbreviation, that seems reasonable. If you're instead seeking to target IBM PC compatible computers as the only legitimate personal computers, I wouldn't be able to support that approach. TRS-80 was a personal computer, as was the Commodore 64, and many Apple and Mac computers even in the days when they couldn't run MS-DOS. Speaking of which, current PCs won't run DOS, either, because they're 64-bit and MS-DOS was only 16-bit.

Your point regarding handheld computers is well-taken. I encourage you to add a section on handheld computing devices such as tablets and cell phones. Be bold!

Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 19:16, 13 May 2013 (UTC)

Dear Dave, thanks for your answer. I'll try to add the mention of handheld computers. Sorry for my ugly English.

For the "PC" question, in my point of view PC and "personal computer" are the abbreviation of "IBM Personal Computer", which is a trademark. In this sense, Commodore 64, Atari, Amiga and so on are microcomputers but not "personal computer". I've seen that frequently, people who consider that PC and microcomputers means the same thing are selective. "Windows, what else ?" and "Pentium inside !". It's the case in this article : "The modular construction of the personal computer allows components to be easily swapped out". It's the specificity of "IBM PC clone" that respect the bios compatibility and standards like "form factor" and ports. As this lesson is really generalist, approximation should be avoided because of it's in the smallest detail that it become interesting. So I propose to replace "personal computer" by microcomputer in the title and in the article, but to mention the "IBM PC standard" story and tell that PC and personal computer are frequently used as a synonym of microcomputer, but that in an other hand it talk about the standards issued from IBM PC. Namichel (discuss • contribs) 07:00, 14 May 2013 (UTC)

I defer to Wikipedia: Personal computer, where other brands are included as personal computers. The current Wikiversity article does mention microcomputer as an alternative. Perhaps we can add a sentence toward the end of the paragraph that indicates during the 1980s and 1990s, IBM PC clones became so ubiquitous that the term personal computer was often assumed to refer to this type of computer. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 00:08, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Ok, thanks Dave, you're right. Apparently, on this page, there's no distinction between theses 2 ambiguous things : the brand and the apparent meanings of PC. Imho there's actually a frequent acceptation, in the usual language, that a PC is an "IBM PC compatible". Apple used it, for example, in the pub "hi, I'm a mac". The traditionnal war "Mac vs PC" reveal this acceptation too. Some pages on wikipedia confirm it too, but finally it's not important as you can't fix a word definition by changing wikipedia. Usage will change with time and PC will stay longer than x86 processors. Sorry for the mess.Namichel (discuss • contribs) 08:18, 15 May 2013 (UTC)

Workstation

I think this classification is now outdated. AFIK "classic" RISC (or CISC) workstations are no longer sold, except for the Mac Pro. The term workstation seems to used today as a generic term for any laptop or desktop computer running any OS. Alecclews (discuss • contribs) 00:17, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

According to Wikipedia:Workstation, this usage is still valid. But feel free to be bold and update the resource to reflect both usages of the term. -- Dave Braunschweig (discuss • contribs) 02:18, 20 November 2016 (UTC)

Mini PC

But I am writing this note on a personal computer considerably smaller (but not weaker) than that pictured in the article, namely, one of the two mini pc's shown here. Boris Tsirelson (discuss • contribs) 21:23, 16 November 2017 (UTC)