A personal computer is an ideal tool for solving most problems

A personal computer is an electronic device designed to solve a variety of tasks. He has already entered so strongly into our life that we can not live without him. Accounting, design, trade - this is not a complete list of those industries where a person without his help can not do anything.

History

The first personal computer Apple II appeared in 1977. Prior to this moment, computers were amateurish and did not have a mass character. Only his predecessor with the index "I" could boast a circulation of a hundred copies. But Apple II sold more than 5 million pieces. The computer was the brainchild of two ingenious people. One of them is Steve Wozniak. It was he who was responsible for the technical part of the question. But the second - Steve Jobs - acted as a generator of ideas.

Until 1981, the leading position in the production of computers was occupied by Apple. Then IBM replaced it with Microsoft, Intel and AMD. Already at that time it was clear that a personal computer is something that will change a person's life. The first serious development in this field for Intel was the 8086 processor. It was his last two digits that gave the name of the most productive platform - "x86". Then 80286, 80386 and 80486 appeared. Moreover, CPUs with this marking were produced not only by Intel, but also by AMD, WinChip and many other companies. High competition led to the dynamic development of "x86" solutions, with which the rest were already difficult to compete.

Next in this family was to appear 80586. But this did not happen. Intel Corporation wanted to patent such a trademark, but under the terms of US law this was not allowed. As a result, I had to replace the digital marking with the Pentium. Significant among this family of processors was a modification with the index PRO. They could be installed on a single board for several pieces. And it was a breakthrough at that time. The second performance received the MMX index. He had an extended set of instructions that simplified the processing of multimedia information. In the late 1990's, AMD won the first place in Intel. It released the CPU Athlon and Duron, which at that time were unrivaled performance. With their release it became clear that a personal computer is a universal entertainment center. On it you can watch a movie, listen to music, play games. Yes, and draw pictures is not difficult. The last significant event occurred in the mid-2000s. Then practically simultaneously Intel and AMD integrated into one processor 2 cores. This allowed several times to increase productivity.

And now?

Now a personal computer is a machine that is used in all spheres of human life. If at the start the frequency of the processors was measured in megahertz, at the moment 2-3 GHz you will not surprise anyone. And there are still top-end samples, like the FX-9590, with a frequency of 5GHz. In turn, video cards are a "computer in a computer". The level of their performance is commensurate with some entry-level systems. If in the early 1980's 128 KB was enough for work, now some 32 GB is not enough. And there are systems that already have 64GB. The volume of drives also increased significantly. If the installation of Windows 95 was 100 MB, then now the availability of 1 TB is already the norm.

Results

A modern personal computer is   Mandatory attribute of any successful company. It allows you to increase productivity several times and solve the most diverse tasks. The grand spurt that microelectronics has done over the past 30 years is difficult to assess. But one thing can be said with a huge degree of probability - this is not the limit! And to predict what will happen next is very difficult.