Microcomputers come in a wide variety of designs. They are known as " personal computers" and are relatively small, relatively inexpensive, and are designed primarily for use by one person at a time. However there are significant exceptions to this powerful personal computers are used as data or application servers in a networking environment or for huge data processing applications.
The term "PC" generally contrasts computers based on the hotel family of micro-processors and compatibles with Apple computers Macintosh, and other non-Intel systems. This started with IBM original Personal Computer, which was based on the Intel 8088 processor and labeled " The PC" when it reached the market in the early 1980s.
Most of the personal computers sold today do not come from IBM at all. Most are designed, built, and sold by a number of manufacturers who offer a wife range of PCs for business, education and home use. These machines are called "clones" because they were made to look, feel and work like an IBM PC. The name clone seems to stay with these machines, though manufacturers have moved in their own directions.
