Книга: Writing Windows WDM Device Drivers

The Specification

The Specification

The PC 99 specification is in the MSDN Library CD Books section. It has many useful appendices and checklists. There are required, recommended, and optional features.

The specification is also available in book form. The PC 99 System Design Guide, version 1.0 is available from Microsoft Press (ISBN 0-7356-0518-1).

The general drift of the specification is to move PCs away from the traditional IBM-compatible PC to one dominated by PCI, SCSI, USB, and IEEE 1394 devices. No ISA slots are now allowed!

For each PC type, it defines what standard devices must be available and what are the possible options. For example, a basic PC (a 300Mhz Pentium with MMX with 32Mb memory) must have hard disk, keyboard, mouse, serial, and parallel ports, V.90 modem, a graphics adapter, and two USB ports. If possible, most external devices should use the USB bus.

Standard PC options include wireless operation, DVD drive, network card, floppy disk, audio, MPEG-2, video input and capture, and a TV tuner.

A PC should attempt to reduce the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) by supporting Plug and Play and OnNow Power Management.

Plug and Play uses the ACPI specification to ease the management of resources as devices are added or removed from the system. Insertions or removals while the power is on (hot-swapping) is supported on appropriate buses.

The OnNow initiative aims to make PCs start up quicker. The PC can be put to sleep, in effect, rather than turned off completely.

It is recommended that the physical design and software support the accessibility initiatives.

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