Faster, smaller, and more-powerful PCs

These advances in software and operating systems were matched by the development of microprocessors containing ever-greater numbers of circuits, with resulting increases in the processing speed and power of personal computers. The Intel 80386 32-bit microprocessor (introduced 1985) gave the Compaq Computer Corporation’s Compaq 386 (introduced 1986) and IBM’s PS/2 family of computers (introduced 1987) greater speed and memory capacity. Apple’s Mac II computer family made equivalent advances with microprocessors made by Motorola, Inc. The memory capacity of personal computers had increased from 64 kilobytes (64,000 characters) in the late 1970s to 100 megabytes (100 million characters) by the early ’90s to several gigabytes (billions of characters) by the early 2000s.

By 1990 some personal computers had become small enough to be completely portable. They included laptop computers, also known as notebook computers, which were about the size of a notebook, and less-powerful pocket-sized computers, known as personal digital assistants (PDAs). (Personal computers that were not portable became known as “desktops” to distinguish them from laptops.) At the high end of the PC market, multimedia personal computers equipped with DVD players and digital sound systems allowed users to handle animated images and sound (in addition to text and still images) that were stored on high-capacity DVD-ROMs. Personal computers were increasingly interconnected with one another and with larger computers in networks for the purpose of gathering, sending, and sharing information electronically. The uses of personal computers continued to multiply as the machines became more powerful and their application software proliferated.

As the 2000s progressed, the calculation and video display distinctions between mainframe computers and PCs continued to blur: PCs with multiple microprocessors became more common; microprocessors that contained more than one “core” (CPU) displaced single-core microchips in the PC market; and high-end graphic processing cards, essential for playing the latest electronic games, became standard on all but the cheapest PCs. Likewise, the processor speed, amount and speed of memory, and data-storage capacities of PCs reached or exceeded the levels of earlier supercomputers.

In 2000 more than 50 percent of all households in the United States owned a PC, and this penetration increased dramatically over the next few years as people in the United States (and around the world) purchased PCs to access the world of information available through the Internet. In 2018 more than three-quarters of all U.S. households had either a desktop or a laptop. With the inclusion of smartphones and tablets, over 90 percent of U.S. households had some form of computer.

Worldwide PC sales grew through the early 21st century and reached a peak in 2012. Thereafter sales declined through the 2010s, as more consumers shifted their computer use to smartphones and tablets and thus were slower to replace their PCs. However, PC sales increased in the early 2020s, as many people worked from home or attended school through videoconferencing during the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.