When did PCs become common in the home?

[archcommus]

We didn't get our first computer until 1997, and until then weren't feeling the squeeze from not having one at all. Only reason we even got one then was for my schoolwork.

So I'd say late 90s.

 

[LS20]

mid 90s/100Mhz/win95 benchmark is a popular answer because most of us are techie type and we were at the explorative youth age then.. but i think that was at a 33% market penetration...

the point where it hit 50%, and when parents and uncles bought computers for themselves was at the silicon peak and emachines arrival

 

[FoBoT]

the ninties, mostly the mid to later '90's

 

[dullard]

Define common. Like everyone else said, home computers were rare 1985. I got my first home computer in 1987 I think. Not many people I knew had computers until a few years after I had mine. Ten years later, about a third of the US households had computers.

I'll be the first to post ACTUAL data.
1984: 8.2% of US homes had them, but I wouldn't say it was common
1989: 15.0%
1993: 22.8%, I'd say this is becomming common
1997: 36.6%, definately common
1998: 42.1%
2000: 51.0%, finally more than half had them
2001: 56.3%
2003: 61.8%

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: LS20
mid 90s/100Mhz/win95 benchmark is a popular answer because most of us are techie type and we were at the explorative youth age then.. but i think that was at a 33% market penetration...

the point where it hit 50%, and when parents and uncles bought computers for themselves was at the silicon peak and emachines arrival

One could also postulate that the mid/late 90s saw the proliferation of the work Laptop. Gaining more exposure.

The computer was no longer "that box in the spare bedroom" and something that was used daily. The Internet and network communications as a whole drove this as well. These day's a computer is useless without some kind of network connection - be it a private or public connection.

 

[Luthien]

tell him he is a schmuck