Читать книгу Laptops For Dummies - Dan Gookin - Страница 18

PC is an acronym for politically correct as well as for personal computer. In this book’s context, the acronym PC stands for personal computer.

Originally, personal computers were known as microcomputers. This term comes from the microprocessor that powered the devices. It was also a derisive term, comparing the personal systems with the larger, more intimidating computers of the day.

When IBM entered the microcomputer market in 1982, it called its computer the IBM PC. Though it was a brand name, the term PC soon referred to any similar computer and eventually to any computer. A computer is basically a PC.

As far as this book is concerned, a PC is a personal computer that runs the Windows operating system. Laptop computers are also PCs, but the term PC more often implies a desktop model computer.

FIGURE 1-3: The Radio Shack Model 100.

The Model 100 wasn’t designed to be IBM PC compatible, which is surprising considering that PC compatibility was all the rage at the time. Instead, this portable computer offered users a full-size, full-action keyboard plus an eensie, 8-row, 40-column LCD text display. It came with several built-in programs, including a text editor (word processor), a communications program, a scheduler, and an appointment book, plus the BASIC programming language, which allowed users to create their own programs or obtain BASIC programs written by others.

The Radio Shack Model 100 was all that was needed for portability at the time, which is why the device was so popular.

 The Model 100 provided the form factor for laptops of the future. It was about the size of a hardback novel. It ran for hours on standard AA batteries. And it weighed just 6 pounds.

 So popular was the Model 100 among journalists that it was common to hear the hollow sound of typing on its keyboard during presidential news conferences in the 1980s.

 Despite its popularity and versatility, people wanted a version of the Model 100 that would run the same software as the IBM PC. Technology wasn't ready to shrink the PC's hardware to Model 100 size in 1983, but the Model 100 set the bar for what people desired in a laptop's dimensions.