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Personal computer and peripherals. From left to right: ink jet printer, an irrelevant TV, CRT monitor, broadband cable modem for the internet, flat bed scanner. The tower (CPU, hard drive, etc) can just be glimpsed at bottom right. The keyboard and mouse are wireless.

A Micron TransPort XPE laptop computer.A personal computer or PC is generally a microcomputer intended to be used by one person at a time, and suitable for general purpose tasks such as word processing, programming, sending messages or digital documents (comprising text, images, audio or video) to other computers on the network (email), multimedia editing or game play, usually used to run software not written by the user. Unlike minicomputers, a personal computer is often owned by the person using it, indicating a low cost of purchase and simplicity of operation. The user of a modern personal computer may have significant knowledge of the operating environment and application programs, but is not necessarily interested in programming nor even able to write programs for the computer.

In modern usage PC nearly always refers to an IBM PC compatible and the term may even be used for machines that are in no way personal computers but still use the basic architecture of the IBM PC.

The first generation of microcomputers were called just that, and only sold in small numbers to those able to (build them from kits or) operate them: engineers and accomplished hobbyists (for example, the Altair 8800). The second generation micros were known as home computers, and are discussed in that section.