Each appeared to be an entire, stand-alone computer, capable of running any software that could run on the bare machine, including other operating systems.
But now, customized and relatively affordable electronic news programs are finally becoming accessible to individual users of stand-alone personal computers.
Oddly enough, this debate comes at a time when stand-alone computers are seeming less and less significant and the Internet more so.
She had already determined that it was a stand-alone computer that contained nothing but stored texts, albeit of a very eclectic nature.
A sheep dip is normally a stand-alone computer, not connected to any network.
"Forty years ago there were 5,000 stand-alone computers, no fax machines and not one cellular phone," he said.
Keyboards attached to stand-alone personal computers made in the 1980s typically use one (or both) of the first two methods.
Most laptops and home computers do their jobs alone and are stand-alone computers.
The technology creates virtual machines - software that mimics the performance of a stand-alone computer.
Until recently most of his inventions, as the industry gradually adopted them, were built into stand-alone computers.