Ever wonder what the typical PC of 1999 will be like? Look no further: Microsoft and Intel have released their PC99 specification, which provides hardware manufacturers with guidelines for baseline business desktop systems. By mid-1999, a basic desktop should include a 300 MHz Pentium II processor, at least 64 MB of RAM, and no ISA slots. ISA slots, which have existed in some form since the original IBM PC debuted in 1983, do not support Plug and Play. The two companies have been recommending the death of ISA for some time now, and finally support for the slow-speed bus does appear to be dwindling.
"The goal is to ensure the availability of hardware and drivers that provide a good user experience with Windows NT and Windows 98," said Sriram Subramanian, a product manager for Windows hardware at Microsoft