Personal computers are not computers, any more than automobiles are engines. Just as automobiles’ engines power their movement, the true computers inside what we call personal computers power what they do. Those names, “personal computer” and “smartphone”, are older than the tools they now label. “Personal computer” became popular in the late 1970s, for gadgets that most of us today couldn’t use. The modern personal computer, or PC, took shape in the late 1990s when browsing the Web found a wide audience.