How did Apple flourish despite Neal Stephenson's prediction that proprietary software companies would fail?
In the Beginning... Was the Command Line In the Beginning... Was the Command Line is an essay by Neal Stephenson which was originally published online in 1999 and later made available in book form (November 1999, ISBN  ). The essay is a commentary on why the proprietary operating systems business is unlikely to remain profitable in the future because of competition from free software. It also analyzes the corporate/collective culture of the Microsoft, Apple, and free software communities.
History of personal computers The history of the personal computer as a mass-market consumer electronic device began with the microcomputer revolution of the 1980s. The 1981 launch of the IBM Personal Computer coined both the term "Personal Computer" and "PC". A personal computer is one intended for interactive individual use, as opposed to a mainframe computer where the end user's requests are filtered through operating staff, or a time-sharing system in which one large processor is shared by many individuals. After the development of the microprocessor, individual personal computers were low enough in cost that they eventually became affordable consumer goods. Early personal computers – generally called microcomputers – were sold often in electronic kit form and in limited numbers, and were of interest mostly to hobbyists and technicians.