I mean "PC" as in the general view of what "a computer" is (i.e. keyboard, mouse, monitor, hard drive, motherboard, etc) regardless of the OS, as opposed to, say, a PLC (Programmable Logic Controller) which has the single purpose of solving logic and only consists of the processor and some IO cards.

If all you need to do is take some inputs, do some logic, and set some outputs, its a lot easier and more robust if you use something that only does that.