Hacker News Reader

The full phrase was "IBM PC compatible" and that dates back to the 1980s.

And it was specific to the PC model. The PC was a new architecture and IBM was otherwise better known for their other products at the time.

PC was established long before those Apple commercials.

View on HN

The key here is that it always included "IBM" in some way. "IBM-compatible" or "IBM PC", or "IBM clone" or something along those lines. "PC" without reference to IBM was not specifically tied to the Wintel ecosystem, at least outside of Mac user circles, until comparatively recently.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com