Pc & Macbook

[society]

Aren't PC and MacBook both computers? Why do people always ask "is it a PC or a Mac book"? Have I misunderstood?

And PC means Personal Computer, while a MacBook is also someone's personal computer.

I'm confused, please enlighten me.

[rockyracoon]

I think it's to do with the operating systems, PC's are generally Windows whereas Mac stuff are OS something or another. Also there is an big price difference.

[Prudie]

PC really means a personal computer (so a base unit with a separate monitor) which distinguishes it from a laptop or notebook. My understanding of Macbook is specifically a laptop/notebook made by apple with their mac operating system which is completely different to Windows that most of us have on our PCs/laptops.

[Buenchico]

In the early days of home computers (as makers such as Atari and Amstrad fell by the wayside) the market came to be dominated by IBM (or IBM-compatible) PCs, running Windows, and Apple Macs, running Apple's own operating system. (Apple simply decided not to call their devices PCs, just to make them stand out from the crowd).

Eventually 'IBM-compatible PC' just got shortened to 'PC', so that the term came to relate only to machines running Windows (or, more strictly, to those running non-Apple software, since people also refer to PCs using Linux).

Further, manufacturers tended to drop the 'PC' bit from 'laptop PCs', simply calling them 'laptops', so that many people now think of 'PCs' as only referring to desktop computers (running Windows or Linux).

There's very little scientific reason behind it; it's simply the haphazard way that language evolves.

[society]

Thanks everyone for your response.

Special thank you Buenchico for that explanation.

[mikey4444]

Definition of a Mac...A PC that costs far too much.

[Gromit]

PC or Personal Computer was a term coined to differentiate them from Mainframe Computers.

Mega Corporation IBM made $billions from building mainframes and were not interested in building small cheaper computers.

Small companies started to develop and sell PCs aimed at businesses. The most successful of those early PC makers was Apple. They employed a small company called Microsoft to write business software for the early Apple machines.

Apple didn't make Mainframe Computers so there was no need to differentiate them as Personal Computers, they were just Computers.

IBM realising these companies were going to eat into its core business tried to license Apple's software to install in its own machines. Apple refused, so IBM got Bill Gates to write them an Operating System which he gladly licensed. With IBM's might, they quickly wiped the floor with Apple.

Rather stupidly, IBM failed to get exclusivity, and once IBM establushed a huge market share, Microsoft began to sell to every other manufacturer who wanted to build small Personal Computers, and the rest is history.