PC System Design Guide

Four versions of the PC System Design Guide were released. In PC-97, a distinction was made between the requirements of a Basic PC, a Workstation PC and an Entertainment PC. In PC-98, the Mobile PC was added as a category. In PC 2001, the Entertainment PC was dropped. PC-97 Required: • 120 MHz Pentium, MIPS R4x00, Digital Alpha 21064 (EV4) or IBM PowerPC architecture (latter three only under Windows NT) • 16 MB RAM Initial version. • Introduced color code for PS/2 keyboard (purple) and PS/2 mouse (green) connectors PC-98 Aimed at systems to be used with Windows 98 or Windows 2000. Required: • 200 MHz Pentium processor with MMX technology (or equivalent performance) • 256 KB L2 cache • 32 MB RAM (recommended: 64 MB of 66 MHz DRAM) • ACPI 1.0 (including power button behavior) • Fast BIOS power-up (limited RAM test, no floppy test, minimal startup display, etc.) • BIOS Y2K compliance • PXE preboot environment It was published as . PC-99 Required: • 300 MHz CPU • 64 MB RAM • USB • Comprehensive color-coding scheme for ports and connectors (see below) Strongly discouraged: • Non plug-and-play hardware • ISA slots It was published as . PC 2001 Required: • 667 MHz CPU • 64 MB RAM Final version. First to require IO-APICs to be enabled on all desktop systems. Places a greatly increased emphasis on legacy-reduced and legacy-free systems. Some "legacy" items such as ISA expansion slots and device dependence on MS-DOS are forbidden entirely, while others are merely strongly discouraged. PC 2001 removes compatibility for the A20 line: "If A20M# generation logic is still present in the system, this logic must be terminated such that software writes to I/O port 92, bit 1, do not result in A20M# being asserted to the processor." == Color-coding scheme for connectors and ports ==

connector on a Sound Blaster Perhaps the most end-user visible and lasting impact of PC 99 was that it introduced a color code for the various standard types of plugs and connectors used on PCs. As many of the connectors look very similar, particularly to a novice PC user, this made it far easier for people to connect peripherals to the correct ports on a PC. This color code was gradually adopted by almost all PC and motherboard manufacturers. Some of the color codes have also been widely adopted by peripheral manufacturers. ==Icons==

Another long lasting inpact of the PC System Design Guide is that it recommended a set of icons that were created by Microsoft. These icons first appeared in the Hardware Design Guide for Microsoft Windows 95. While the use of these icons were not required, they became de facto standard. This icon set was later extended by Hewlett-Packard and others. ==See also==