What does it mean for a computer to be an "IBM Compatible PC"?

Posted by Jon on Super User See other posts from Super User or by Jon
Published on 2011-11-18T00:02:25Z Indexed on 2011/11/18 1:53 UTC
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architecture

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compatibility

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ibm

A couple questions about this:

1) Is this term even relevant any more?

2) Does this mean anything from a developer's stand point?

It is not exactly clear to me if this is a BIOS, architecture, bus or a combination. A piece of software I'm working on expects to see a "Description" of the system and currently windows machines report "AT/AT Compatible". Having been tasked to port this to Mac, I really don't know what a proper "Description" would be - this will most likely be omitted but I was wondering if anyone could provide some insight on the modern usage of this term.

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