this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2024
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As an IT guy in the early 2000s, it was really annoying to see all the "Mac vs. PC" arguments. PC stands for Personal Computer - a Mac is literally a PC! When I was a kid in the '80s-'90s, my schools all used Apple IIe computers (and later versions of Apple products as I got older), but they always called them PCs.
But those Apple ads convincing people to ditch the frumpy old guy PC for the young, hot Mac guy did their job, and pop culture decided that a Mac wasn't a PC.
PC stands for Personal Computer, but that doesn't mean that every personal computer is a PC. Just as VW stands for Volkswagen but not every wagon used by folks is a VW.
Calling any personal computer PC would cause all sorts of confusion, as PCs are able to run specific pieces of software (which were literally marketed as »PC 3,5"«, »PC CD ROM« or something of the like) such as »PC (or MS) DOS«, Windows etc. It would have been pretty annoying if someone sold you a game, telling you that it runs on PCs, leaving it to you to guess which kind of personal computer they meant: Atari ST, Apple II, C64, or IBM PC. All of them are personal computers, but only the PC is a PC.
Btw, all that was set in stone already in the 1980s and 1990, decades before Apple launched the Mac Vs. PC campaign in 2006. If your teacher called an Apple IIe PC, he was wrong about that, even before it was cool.
That analogy doesn't make sense. Volkswagen is a brand; PC is not. Every personal computer is, and always has been, a PC. That's why we differentiate between desktop PCs and laptop/tablet PCs in the industry. Macs are a type of PC. I know this; I worked IT in the federal govt for 20 years and there's is no name brand just called "PC."
What you're confusing for "PC" is specific name brands of PCs, with specific hardware. When they added PC to software designation back in the day, they were letting you know it was specifically for a personal computer; not a VHS, not a record, not a game cartridge, not a cassette tape, etc. That was the designation, and then there would be more details about what specific hardware/software was required to use it. (e.g. Windows 95 with 512 MB RAM, at least a Pentium III processor, etc.)
When Apple started marketing their PCs, they built their own unique system that wasn't compatible with other PCs, so they started pushing the Mac vs. PC campaign to separate their equipment from the rest, which eventually culminated in those Mac vs. PC ads many years later. Products started receiving a Mac label instead of PC, to show that they wouldn't be compatible with the rest of the PCs on the market.
It helped that the rest of the PC industry started standardizing their equipment, to be compatible across all systems. Macs stood out from the rest, by refusing to be compatible with other PCs and forcing their users to stick exclusively with Apple products. It was a very anti-competitive practice, preventing users from sharing across systems, and one of many reasons the federal govt never went with Apple computers; we need to be able to share data with a variety of systems across the globe.
But Macs still fall under the umbrella of a personal computer. They are PCs. Even if they prefer no one calls them that.
On a side note, the EU just forced Apple to standardize their cables to USB-C, so they're getting rid of their Lightning cables and finally joining the rest of the world in cable standardization. But they'll fight tooth and nail to prevent any other changes. They're still fighting against Right to Repair laws, as they want to force you to return to them directly for any maintenance.
IBM-PC is a brand as well, (or at least it has been, in the 1980s). And just as with the PC, the term didn't start as a brand, but it became one by being used like one.
I don't know who "we" is, but I don't differentiate between desktop PC and laptop in my industry, I differentiate between desktop and laptop. And a tablet PC is a tablet that is (in principle) compatible with the IBM PC (as it's running on x86 compatible processors) as opposed to "tablet computer", "Android tablet" or "iPad" which are tablets that are not necessarily PC compatible.
Oh, that must be the reason for software packages that were labeled as "PC/Mac" when they contained both versions. So I would know I could run it on any personal computer AND on macs.
Now this is plain bullshit. In the era Apple started making their personal computers, there was no standard they could have been compatible with. There were Comodores based on the 6502 processor, there were Tandy's with Z80 CPUs, a few years later there were Atari's 68k based computers, and none of those were compatible with each other. Only when IBM released their PC and other companies started to build PC compatible systems, a standard emerged. But even then, it took another decade for all the competitors to die out, to make the PC the default platform. Apple didn't refuse to be compatible, they were just the only other platform of that pre-PC era that survived.
I'm pretty sure, the government didn't just refuse to buy Apple computers because they were not compatible, but because they were not the market leader. And deciders like to buy the market leaders products even if they are crap, because then you'll always have the excuse that you bought from the market leader. They wouldn't have bought Amiga or Schneider either.
As do dozens of other companies. Don't get me wrong, I have no sympathies for Apple, they are a shitty company that rips off their customers as well as their employees and the environment. They do the bare minimum of what is still legal, just like thousands of other shitty companies out there. But they do not sell PCs (at least since 2023).