On Oct 20, 2009, at 8:21 PM, Ralph Green wrote:
>
> In the mid 1970s, we were referring to computers built for home use
> as
> PCs or personal computers. At the computer club I headed at Texas
> A&M,
> our club PC was a Southwest Technical Products 6800 based machine.
Language usage, fairly or not, is determined by the cultural usage at
large among the entire population. New words, slang and other
linguistic inventions arise from small groups; but when they spread
among the general population the meaning is that held by the general
population is the meaning that matters.
Hence 'PC' *now* means 'A system running MS DOS or Windows' as in:
"Hi, I'm an Mac...And I'm a PC!"
'Hacker' now means 'bad guy who breaks into computers' no matter how
much the true hacker community insists that those people are called
'crackers', that 'hacker' is a long-used and honorable term for
someone who is inventing things to do with their computer.
No less authority than the OED says so: (see def 3)
"hack:
verb 1 cut with rough or heavy blows.2 kick wildly or roughly. 3
use a computer to gain unauthorized access to data. 4 (hack it)
informal manage; cope. 5 (hack off) informal annoy.
noun 1 a rough cut or blow. 2 a tool for rough striking or cutting.
— DERIVATIVES hacker noun.
— ORIGIN Old English."
IBM very successfully co-opted the term 'PC' to mean *their*
computers; it later was extended to all 'PC-Compatibles' after the
'Compatibles' bit was dropped.
We call a generic facial tissue a 'kleenex', a generic photcopy a
'xerox' and generic elastic bandage a 'Band-aid'. Likewise 'PC' has
come to mean 'a computer running MS DOS or Windows' made by companies
like Dell, HP, Acer etc. Heck IBM doesn't even *make* PC's anymore.
Calling a Mac a 'PC' and insisting that it really is a 'personal
computer' is merely confusing at this point in time for 99% of the
population, for who the term 'computer' means something that looks
like this <http://tinyurl.com/ygswesy> not this <http://tinyurl.com/ygarcnv
>.
--
Bruce Johnson
University of Arizona
College of Pharmacy
Information Technology Group
Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs
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