Personnel Computers

Single-user, dedicated.

• I/O devices keyboards, mice, screens, printers
• User convenience and responsiveness
• Can adopt technology developed for larger system
• Previously thought,
  • individuals have sole use of computer, do not need advanced CPU utilization, protection features
  • still true? See next list of operating systems...
• May run several different types of OS (Windows, Mac OS X, UNIX, Linux)
• Operating systems such as FreeBSD, NetBSD, Mac OS-X and Linux offer multitasking and virtual memory on PC hardware.
• The *BSD world has influenced the world of computing through networking advances, virtual file storage systems, dynamically self-optimizing resource allocation schemes, etc.
• While all *BSD systems have a family history derived from the original non-networking UNIX, Linux is mostly a ``work-alike'' re-implementation and can be traced back to MINIX which was developed by Tanenbaum for operating system teaching.