Talking that talk: Notes on personal computing terminology

You can buy and use a personal computer without understanding the language—but it's a little hard to read these articles, and a lot harder to understand the Held thoroughly. The author starts a new sequence of Trailing Edge articles by denning some of the terms used in the articles and in the field and mentioning some of the other terms you'll see used but rarely defined. The author also provides notes from PC literature for July‐September 1992. For a year in which prices were supposed to stabilize, it's been a remarkable summer: the new general‐purpose machine is supposed to be a 50MHz 486DX2, a well‐equipped 486SX now goes for less than $2,000 complete, and even the hottest new machines are coming out at reasonable prices.