personal computer

In the dark old days of computing, they were really large monsters that filled up entire rooms. The birth of the computing revolution in the early 1980’s was sparked by designing a computer that could be put in a box and sit on a desk.
These computers were promoted as ‘personal’ computing as a marketing term to create the demand for each person to buy their own computer. This is in stark contrast to the words of Thomas J Watson, chairman of IBM who said in 1943: "I think there is a world market for about five computers." Clearly he wasn't able to see 40 years into the future to see the application of this principle to his product!