In a world of competing

processors and operating

systems, John Knight

explores how the PC began

THE

HISTORY

OF THE

PC

THE PC. The personal computer.

The IBM-compatible. Whatever

you want to call it, somehow this

machine has maintained a dominant

presence for nearly four decades.

If you try to launch a program

from the ’80s to the 2000s, you

have a good chance of getting it to

launch—your PC has backward

compatibility going right back to the

’70s, enabling you to run pieces of

history as though they were from

yesterday. In fact, your computer is

brimming with heritage, from the

40 MAXIMUMPC DEC 2019 maximumpc.com

the history of the PC