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It has an actual etymology: "PC" is a relic of the original "IBM PC" in 1981.

Nope. Apple at least since 1977 referred to their Apple II as a ”personal computer“:

http://www.macmothership.com/gallery/MiscAds2/AisFor1.jpg

Check out the rest of their ads from the late 70s, for many more occurrences of the term, here:

http://www.macmothership.com/gallery/gallery1.html

In 1974 HP published this:

http://www.hpmuseum.org/journals/65a.htm

Dig a little bit more in history and you may find who used the term first:

http://www.blinkenlights.com/pc.shtml

It has an actual etymology: "PC" is a relic of the original "IBM PC" in 1981.

Nope. Apple at least since 1977 referred to their Apple II as a ”personal computer“:

http://www.macmothership.com/gallery/MiscAds2/AisFor1.jpg

Check out the rest of their ads from the late 70s, for many more occurrences of the term, here:

http://www.macmothership.com/gallery/gallery1.html

In 1974 HP published this:

http://www.hpmuseum.org/journals/65a.htm

Dig a little bit more in history and you may find who used the term first:

http://www.blinkenlights.com/pc.shtml

Wrong. You do know that "PC" stands for "Personal Computer", yes? The first deliberate use of the term I can find referred to the Altair 8800 around 1975. Apple used "Personal Computer" in their Apple II print ads in 1977, years before the IBM PC came out. Earlier than that, the very first "Apple Computer" was "the First Low Cost Microcomputer System with a Video Terminal and 8K Bytes of RAM on a Single PC Card". That, of course, referred to the printed circuit card.

This one's awesome:

http://www.macmothership.com/gallery/MiscAds/AppleII.jpg

Those with unusually long memories will remember that, in the '80s, the Macintosh (and while it lasted, the Lisa) were Apple's Serious Business Computers. The Apple II was the home/education line.

The Mac had networking built-in from the beginning. (Not very useful for home users, essential for offices.) It had a black-and-white screen. (Not very useful for games or creative work.) Advertising almost exclusively focused on how a Mac could make businesses more efficient by reducing training and support costs. Watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MaDXt30xSo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dqLT0UBPx0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwcuSOfjR6w

Print ads, too:
http://www.macmothership.com/gallery/newads10/Macad1.jpg and http://www.macmothership.com/gallery/newads10/Macad2.jpg

For about fifteen years, Apple desperately wanted to be taken seriously by business users, who dismissed Macs as incompatible and expensive (with good reason.) Apple lost loads of money during this period. Meanwhile, Apple's sales were coming entirely from home users, artists, and education sales.

One of the first things Steve Jobs did when he returned was shit-can that approach and release the cute, cuddly, home-student oriented iMac. And whaddya know, the company suddenly started making money.

Those with unusually long memories will remember that, in the '80s, the Macintosh (and while it lasted, the Lisa) were Apple's Serious Business Computers. The Apple II was the home/education line.

The Mac had networking built-in from the beginning. (Not very useful for home users, essential for offices.) It had a black-and-white screen. (Not very useful for games or creative work.) Advertising almost exclusively focused on how a Mac could make businesses more efficient by reducing training and support costs. Watch:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MaDXt30xSo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dqLT0UBPx0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwcuSOfjR6w

Print ads, too:
http://www.macmothership.com/gallery/newads10/Macad1.jpg and http://www.macmothership.com/gallery/newads10/Macad2.jpg

For about fifteen years, Apple desperately wanted to be taken seriously by business users, who dismissed Macs as incompatible and expensive (with good reason.) Apple lost loads of money during this period. Meanwhile, Apple's sales were coming entirely from home users, artists, and education sales.

One of the first things Steve Jobs did when he returned was shit-can that approach and release the cute, cuddly, home-student oriented iMac. And whaddya know, the company suddenly started making money.

http://www.macmothership.com/gallery/newads/applebaked.gif Apple has in the past claimed that they will work on smoke damaged machines.

While I'm sure MS enjoys the association, the idea that "PC" = "IBM compatible PC" goes back to 1984 if not earlier, and is probably mostly due to IBM's heavy advertising. For example, you had "PC Magazine" which was 99% DOS/Windows coverage.

You can see in this ad, Apple is already bristling that IBM is coopting the PC term:
http://www.macmothership.com/gallery/newads2/seriouslyIBM_l.jpg

It completely went out of style when:

Hi, I'm a Mac.
And I'm a PC.

"PC" meant a PC running Windows even before that, when Apple ran its "un-PC" ad campaign for iMac in 1998.

Adam and the Apple

Do you remember back when everyone was friends?

http://www.macmothership.com/gallery/Newsweek/p015 .jpg

My dad still has a copy of BYTE with this advertisement (or one very like it). In my memory it also had Steve Jobs, but I guess I was mistaken.

We are talking pre mac here....check out this ad that apple placed in the WSJ when the original IBM PC was released back in 81.

http://www.macmothership.com/gallery/newads2/serio uslyIBM_l.jpg

Product: The new Apple® II is unveiled at the first West Coast Computer Faire. It is the first personal computer able to generate color graphics and includes a keyboard, power supply and attractive case.

Good laughs.

This old print ad appeared in the video that I hadn't seen before too: http://www.macmothership.com/gallery/Newsweek/p015 .jpg .

A pretty damn long time, really, if you start counting at the first release of the first PPC machine. That was March 1994, according to this timeline. The last Apple OS to support 68k machines was OS 8.1, which was released in 1997.

So, three years, in a sense, although plenty of people used their 68k macs for a whole lot longer than that...

I can't seem to find any record of what kind of hardware service contracts you could get back then, but three years sounds like a long time for computer hardware, and is probably about right...

Well, there is precedent.

http://applemuseum.bott.org/sections/ads.html

I prefer this one:
http://www.macmothership.com/gallery/newads5/Apple Win95.jpg

or this one:
http://static.userland.com/manilasites/images/MMan ilaSitesCom/welibm.jpg

An ad introducing the Macintosh, in Newsweek in 1984. I love how it introduces you to the "mouse" and "cut and paste". And the glowing endorsements from Bill Gates, Mitch Kapor, and Fred Gibbons. (Who?)