Personal Computer?

Since the dawn of micro computing era, we have always prefixed ‘personal’ to the name computer and the common assumption is that one computer is for one person. Yes, most of the leading operating systems ‘Do’ offer multiple user login option, but if I were to go with my observation in developed countries and even among the urban users in a developing country, one computer is still mainly used by one person. Also, with the demand for enterprise computers showing signs of sowdown – home or personal computing is the biggest potential revenue stream for PC hardware makers, to say the least HP’s marketing communication crusade to make people feel how their (HP) Computers were more personal again (‘The computer is personal again!’ campaign)

But why is a personal computer supposed to be a personal computer?
My thoughts on this fundamental question were triggered by something very interesting that I read at www.darumainteractive.blogspot.com Marcus had a very engaging point of view, in his post about Microsoft Surface. He aptly pointed out that when we interact with a device like the Surface, we could be breaking a fundamental paradigm – the paradigm of ‘my computer’. The large and multi-touch screen is an open invitation to engage many people at the same time. And this is exactly what makes this device (and perhaps all future large screen multi-touch devices) different from the Personal Computer. To me and going with present day user habits and perceptions, it would be difficult to convince people to do personal computing through such an interface. We perhaps, are expecting to change very well-entrenched usage behaviour. Having said that, I must also must modify the original quote ‘great design dissolves in behaviour’ and instead say ‘path breaking technology & design can dissolve behaviour’.
Leaving hope aside and moving closer to today’s reality – I see such large screen multi-touch devices having greater potential as in home or out of home, but indoor, entertainment devices - something that the Microsoft Surface already promotes itself as, in many of its existing videos.

Going back to the earlier point about why and how the Personal Computer became personal, I feel the answer lies in the limited capability of prevailing display technologies when micro computing started.
It might sound ironical but to me, it seems that the peripheral (the screen) limited the scope of the computing device. Over a period of time (more than 50 years) when we became used to the one screen one person paradigm, in comes multi-touch, asking us to engage together and not just stay personal!
Is it unfair? May be it is, but at least we are getting the option! How we may want to use it will be more a function of how old we are and thus how entrenched our usage behaviour is or what kind of ‘new’ applications can companies develop for these devices.