The PC System Design Guide (also known as the PC-97, PC-98, PC-99, or PC 2001 specification) is a series of hardware design requirements and recommendations for IBM PC compatible personal computers, compiled by Microsoft and

Intel Corporation Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 series ...

during 1997–2001. They were aimed at helping manufacturers provide hardware that made the best use of the capabilities of the

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

operating system, and to simplify setup and use of such computers. Every part of a standard computer and the most common kinds of peripheral devices are defined with specific requirements. Systems and devices that meet the specification should be automatically recognized and configured by the operating system.

Versions

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 or MIPS R4x00 or Digital Alpha 21064 (EV4) or

IBM PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple Inc., App ...

architecture (latter three only under Windows NT) * 16 MB RAM Initial version. * Introduced color code for

PS/2 keyboard The PS/2 port is a 6-pin mini-DIN connector used for connecting keyboards and mice to a PC compatible computer system. Its name comes from the IBM Personal System/2 series of personal computers, with which it was introduced in 1987. The PS/2 mo ...

(purple) and

PS/2 mouse The PS/2 port is a 6-pin mini-DIN connector used for connecting keyboards and mice to a PC compatible computer system. Its name comes from the IBM Personal System/2 series of personal computers, with which it was introduced in 1987. The PS/2 ...

(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 In computing, BIOS (, ; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization during the ...

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 Isa or ISA may refer to: Places * Isa, Amur Oblast, Russia * Isa, Kagoshima, Japan * Isa, Nigeria * Isa District, Kagoshima, former district in Japan * Isa Town, middle class town located in Bahrain * Mount Isa, Queensland, Australia * Mount Is ...

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.

Color-coding scheme for connectors and ports

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.PC 99 System Design Guide
Intel Corporation and Microsoft Corporation, 14 July 1999. Chapter 3: PC 99 basic requirements
PC 99 System Design Guide (Self-extracting .exe archive)
Requirement 3.18.3: Systems use a color-coding scheme for connectors and ports. Accessed 2009-02-05 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 A motherboard (also called mainboard, main circuit board, mb, mboard, backplane board, base board, system board, logic board (only in Apple computers) or mobo) is the main printed circuit board (PCB) in general-purpose computers and other expand ...

manufacturers. Some of the color codes have also been widely adopted by peripheral manufacturers.

References

External links

Legacy PC Design Guides
– Microsoft Download Center PDF versions:
PC-98 System Design Guide

PC-99 System Design Guide

{{Audio and video interfaces and connectors Color codes Computer standards IBM PC compatibles