Personal Computers Challenge Workstations PC s still predominately use Intel x86 microprocessors or clones from companies such as Advanced Micro Devices or Cyrix and the primary operating system is a combination of MS-DOS and Windows 3.1. The only processor alternative is the PowerPC which so far has only shown up in Apple's Power Macintosh. IBM just recently announced that its personal computers based on the PowerPC will not be available until 1995. Intel's newest Pentium processors run circles around anything the workstation vendors offered just a couple of years ago. But raw processor power alone does not determine overall system performance.
T here are two other related areaswhere PC products are changing rapidly.
These are operating systems and configuration management. That really has not changed much in recent years. Some of the systems available today challenge the supercomputers of the mid-1980s in terms of processing power. High-end graphics enable users to work dynamically with shaded images of 3D solid models parts or large process plants. But these are expensive machines.