Do you know that after taste of bad soda? Most soda, really, but I mean specifically that awful post-sweet flavor you get after drinking a C-brand warm soda, or those extremely artificial candy that just makes you go “I just tasted an industrial machine and corn syrup”, those that really make you feel like you’re tasting some awful combination of lab grade chemicals and no food that’s ever existed in nature is present in there.
Imagining that taste in your mouth? That’s how I feel whenever I see or interact with Windows nowadays.
It infuriates me to no end that the term “PC” has become indistinguishable from “computer running windows.” Firstly, any personal computer, whether it’s running Windows, MacOS, Linux, TempleOS, etc is a PC/personal computer. Secondly, as you pointed out, Microslop does not allow users to take personal ownership of their computer.
The term PC has been used to mean x86 compatible machines designed to run Microsoft operating systems for 45 years now; IBM started using the term for their model 5150 in 1981. It was too generic to trademark but they did trademark “IBM Personal Computer” and “IBM-PC”. You had other platforms like Apple Macintosh, Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, and among them the IBM Personal Computer. That was one company’s branding. If you were releasing software, you’d say “For Mac, Amiga and PC.”
It just so happens the one with the very generic name also happened to be made of almost entirely off-the-shelf parts and a third-party OS they didn’t bother to secure exclusive rights to, so the only thing they really held IP rights over was the BIOS. Compaq engineered a non-infringing BIOS, and boom the PC was now an open standard, and hence it was the one that got widely adopted. “IBM-Compatible” was attempted for awhile, but that kinda died when IBM bowed out of the market entirely, “x86-compatible” is awkward, “Intel-compatible” is also awkward because the 64-bit extensions are actually AMD’s doing, and MS-DOS or MS-Windows compatible is incorrect because other OSes are available. So…we use “PC” to describe the ecosystem as a whole for lack of any better term.
You nailed it. I get the same icky feeling, like I know it won’t immediately kill me, but I’m vaguely doing something wrong and maybe bad or unsafe. It exists on a discomfort/danger continuum somewhere lower than “young me walking in on parents fucking” but higher than “shoplifting lip balm from Krogers”.
Do you know that after taste of bad soda? Most soda, really, but I mean specifically that awful post-sweet flavor you get after drinking a C-brand warm soda, or those extremely artificial candy that just makes you go “I just tasted an industrial machine and corn syrup”, those that really make you feel like you’re tasting some awful combination of lab grade chemicals and no food that’s ever existed in nature is present in there.
Imagining that taste in your mouth? That’s how I feel whenever I see or interact with Windows nowadays.
You can’t even call it “personal” computing anymore
It infuriates me to no end that the term “PC” has become indistinguishable from “computer running windows.” Firstly, any personal computer, whether it’s running Windows, MacOS, Linux, TempleOS, etc is a PC/personal computer. Secondly, as you pointed out, Microslop does not allow users to take personal ownership of their computer.
The term PC has been used to mean x86 compatible machines designed to run Microsoft operating systems for 45 years now; IBM started using the term for their model 5150 in 1981. It was too generic to trademark but they did trademark “IBM Personal Computer” and “IBM-PC”. You had other platforms like Apple Macintosh, Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, and among them the IBM Personal Computer. That was one company’s branding. If you were releasing software, you’d say “For Mac, Amiga and PC.”
It just so happens the one with the very generic name also happened to be made of almost entirely off-the-shelf parts and a third-party OS they didn’t bother to secure exclusive rights to, so the only thing they really held IP rights over was the BIOS. Compaq engineered a non-infringing BIOS, and boom the PC was now an open standard, and hence it was the one that got widely adopted. “IBM-Compatible” was attempted for awhile, but that kinda died when IBM bowed out of the market entirely, “x86-compatible” is awkward, “Intel-compatible” is also awkward because the 64-bit extensions are actually AMD’s doing, and MS-DOS or MS-Windows compatible is incorrect because other OSes are available. So…we use “PC” to describe the ecosystem as a whole for lack of any better term.
I’ve taken to calling it my “desktop computer” because PC is a meaningless term
My phone is a personal computer.
Windows: An experience you can taste.
You nailed it. I get the same icky feeling, like I know it won’t immediately kill me, but I’m vaguely doing something wrong and maybe bad or unsafe. It exists on a discomfort/danger continuum somewhere lower than “young me walking in on parents fucking” but higher than “shoplifting lip balm from Krogers”.
No one that’s never been to the US and drank sodas there can relate to this, which is the majority of humanity.
I never been to the US, luckily, and wrote it myself so…