why do people say mac and pc when mac's are pc (personal computer's)?

Question

why do apple ad's talk about pc's when mac's are technically pc's too , why people dont consider mac's pc's

Answer 1

A personal computer (PC) is a microcomputer whose price, size, and capabilities make it suitable for personal usage. The term was popularized by Apple Computer with the Apple II in the late-1970s and early-1980s, and afterwards by IBM with the IBM Personal Computer. Today, PC usually means IBM PC compatible.

Answer 2

PC is used that way because in the 80's, IBM's first push into the Personal Computer market was the IBM PC.

It was a model name. Later clones of PC's became PC Compatibles. So, you had a PC or a Mac. There were other personal computers back then, like Amiga, Commodore, etc, but PC was usually referred to a 286, then 386, etc..

Answer 3

It is really just a naming thing. Yes all of them are technically personal computers, but when people say Mac and PC together, they are generall referring to the difference between systems based on Macintosh's PowerPC architecture which uses Macintosh operating system versus Intel x86 architecture which generally uses Windows Operating System. As you could probably guess, repeating all of what I just said might be a bit of a mouthful in a 30 second commercial, hence they just use the more generic names. Incidentally, Macs now use the x86 architecture, so the only real difference is the Operating System, so I guess they could say Mac vs. Windows, but then they might tick off Microsoft, and right now they are trying to buddy up with Microsoft, so hence, we are left with Mac vs. PC.

Answer 4

It might be better to say Mac and Windows, since both are operating systems. The Apple computers can run both MAC and Windows OS while the PC (Intel/AMD) based boxes can run Windows, and various forms of Unix. Its all mixed up now.
Still, only Apple computers run Mac OS so it is a simple call. The other 95% of the market is fairly standard and can be called by the short name of PC.