PC Software Help
- PCs for Beginners
Introductory information about PC hardware and software.
- Basic Security
Keep your computer safe and secure.
- Object Oriented Programming
Using an OO approach to designing your programs.
- C and C++
Programming references, tips, and techniques.
- Databases
Relational databases and how to define and use them.
- Class Libraries
Purchasing or building reusable collections of classes.
- Solving PC Problems
Solutions to PC software and hardware problems and program how-tos.
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Stephen has been working with PCs since before the term PC was invented. Back in 1979 we used to call them microcomputers. It wasn't until the IBM/PC came on the scene and started to dominate the market that the term came to be adopted as a generic term that also included IBM's XT, AT, and ET, the clones of these produced by other manufacturers, and the 486, pentium, pentium pro, pentium II, pentium III and Pentium IV based computers (as well as those based on equivalent chips from manufacturers other than Intel).
The one thing that all PCs have in common is that the 16 bit ones (the PC, XT, and AT and equivalent ones) will all run IBM/Microsoft's 16 bit Operating system that was originally called DOS and now (with some 32 bit extensions and patches) is now called Windows ME. The 32 bit ones (ETs, 486s, and the various pentiums and equivalents) will all run IBM/Microsoft's 32 bit operating system known as OS/2 or Windows NT/2000/XP (which started out as the same operating system but were developed separately after the IBM Microsoft split in 1989 and which Microsoft has renamed a couple of times since).
Given this definition of what a PC is, Stephen has been programming PCs since 1994. Earlier programming on microcomputers was done on
Apple][ machines (and their successors).


