PC 98 Goals

The goals for PC 98 include the following:

• Advancing the quality of PC hardware, firmware, and device drivers by driving PC hardware platform initiatives and technical capabilities to maximize customer benefit, satisfaction, and ease of use. This will result in greater customer satisfaction and lower cost of support.
  
  
• Ensuring the availability of high-quality hardware, including hardware that supports advanced Windows 98 and Windows NT features while also ensuring the availability of lower-cost PCs that best run Windows 98 and Windows NT.
  
  
• Encouraging innovation so manufacturers and designers can pursue new design solutions and make advances for hardware. PC 98 enables new uses and new users by advancing new platform types and new usage models.

To this end, the PC 98 guidelines refer to existing industry standards or specify performance goals or benchmarks rather than prescribing fixed hardware implementations. Where this is not possible (for example, for CPU and RAM requirements), it is because acceptable benchmarks were not yet available. When appropriate benchmarks and tests are available, these will be incorporated in the design guidelines.

Selection of guidelines included in this guide was based on an evaluation of features to determine how the requirements and recommendations would support PC 98 goals. Two additional considerations governed selection:

• Clarification of system support or design related to Windows 98 and Windows NT operating system architecture.
  
  
• Assurance of driver quality for both Windows 98 and Windows NT.