Book details of 'PC 99 System Design Guide (Microsoft Professional Editions)'

Title	PC 99 System Design Guide (Microsoft Professional Editions)
Author(s)	Microsoft Corporation, Intel Corporation, Microsoft Press
ISBN	0735605181
Language	English
Published	November 1998
Publisher	Microsoft Press

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Reviewer Rob Slade wrote:
Come gather round children, all you not-quite-dry-behind-the-ears young techies, and I will tell you tales of "IBM compatible," VAX equivalents, ISA, AT, Microchannel, OSI, MPC, and many more. (Let's not forget BOB.) I will tell you fairy tales of client/server, open systems, interoperability, and plug and play. I will tell you of the architectures of yesterday, whose bleached bones you can still find in the sedimentary files of old standards documents. No, you're probably correct. I don't think there will be any bidding war for the movie rights. Once more unto the standards committee dear friends, once more. Microsoft has presented a new architecture. Like MPC (and its children) before, this is loosely based on the computer you probably want (as in, "the computer you want always costs $5,000") with a few prods in the "right" direction. (Is there any point to this type of exercise? I can sympathize with the attempt to provide some guidance to beleaguered consumers who are at the mercy of all-too-often-ignorant salespeople, but the plain fact is that a} if a configuration supports useful and/or fun applications people will buy it, regardless of standard, and b} any "buying" standard tends to have a lifespan of about six months. I've seen very few references to the PC99 standard, and many of those were by people trying to show off detailed knowledge of the industry. In any case, NT 5, one of the two operating system platforms that PC99 was intended for, is now apparently never to be seen. Will PC99 last? But that has nothing to do with the book itself.) There are two chapters of general overview, and then outlines of the requirements for PC99 basic, workstation, entertainment, and mobile systems. Part three goes into bus specifications for USB (Universal Serial Bus), IEEE 1394, PCI (peripheral component interconnect), ATA and ATAPI (AT attachment and ATA packet interface), SCSI (small computer systems interface), and PCMCIA (personal computer memory card international association). Part four looks at specific systems, such as I/O ports and devices, graphics, video, monitors, audio, storage, modems, networks, printers, and digital images. The presentation is oddly humourless. Or rather, since you don't really expect standards documents to be a barrel of laughs, it takes itself rather seriously. Early overviews of the architecture, for example, keep referring to IEEE 1394. This is actually a bit of a problem, since no details are given of the standard, and the tables never bother to point out that a reasonable, if terse, description is included in chapter eight. However, only one reference, buried deep in the index, admits that IEEE 1394 is more widely known by a somewhat less formal name--Firewire. Other "design requirements" assume an admonitory tone with brain damaged hardware engineers: "3.6. All expansion slots in the system are accessible for users to insert cards". Given that this is supposed to be a standard, a significant amount of material is confusing, and even contradictory. For example, page five states that only printers are allowed to use the old COM or LPT ports, and even that is considered declasse. On the other hand, item 3.32 allows COM ports. Similar confusion surrounds ISA (Industry Standard Architecture) slots, which are expressly forbidden in a number of places, but tacitly allowed in others. copyright Robert M. Slade, 1999
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Book description:

To qualify for the Microsoft(r) Windows(r) and Intel(r) logo programs, hardware and peripheral devices must be compliant with the system-design guidelines as promulgated in this book. This is the single-source for specifications on: Power management, including OnNow and ACPI Plug and Play Drivers and buses, including USB, IEEE 1394, DVD, audio, digital cameras, scanners, etc. Graphics, sound, video, and other input devices Broadcast services Home networking, modems, ADSL, etc.