PC Multimedia History

Virtually every computer on the market today is equipped with some type of audio adapter and a 0CD-ROM or CD-ROMcompatible drive such as a CD-RW or DVD drive. Computers equipped with an audio adapter and a CD-ROMcompatible drive are often referred to as multimedia PCs after the old MPC-1, MPC-2, and MPC-3 standards that were used to rate early multimedia computers. Since 1996, all computers with onboard sound and a CD-ROM or compatible optical drive have exceeded MPC-3 standards by increasingly huge margins.

Note

For more information about the MPC series of multimedia standards, see the section "Multimedia" in Chapter 20 of Upgrading and Repairing PCs, 11th Edition, available in electronic form on the disc accompanying this book.

Because the MPC specifications reflect multimedia's past, users who want to know what comes next need to turn somewhere else for guidance. Microsoft and Intel have jointly produced a series of PC System Design Guides. Although the PC System Design Guide's last version is known as PC 2001 and no further updates are planned, it and its predecessor (PC 99) are still useful references for multimedia hardware and software design and are still widely followed by the industry. For example, most I/O ports on recent systems use the PC 99 color-coding standard.

Note

You can download the PC 2001 and earlier PC System Design Guides from Microsoft's website at http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/pcdesign/desguide/pcguides.mspx.

Updated Microsoft-specific system design information is available at http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/pcdesign/desguide/default.mspx.

Although virtually every computer is a "multimedia PC" today, the features of the audio adapter or onboard audio solution in your system will help determine how satisfied you will be with the wide range of specialized uses for multimedia-equipped systems.

Later in this chapter, you learn more about the features you need to specify to ensure your audio adapterregardless of typeis ready to work for you.