Published: 2013-03-15 01:00:11
Wintel is a portmanteau of Windows and Intel, referring to personal computers using Intel x86 compatible processors running Microsoft Windows.
Even more so than the minicomputer market that preceded it, the microcomputer market when it began in the late 1970s was led by a host of small companies, often startups. With the market proved by the earliest manufacturers, larger companies soon began to take interest, sometimes successfully (Tandy Corporation, Hewlett-Packard), sometimes not (Texas Instruments, DEC). One by one, the majors in the "big iron" market—mainframe and minicomputer makers—recognised the emergent boom in the microcomputer market.
