PC FAQs & Answers

Now, there is Win95 and Plug and Play. Installation is usually easier if the hardware you are adding is Plug and Play, but can be falsely identified if it is pre-Plug and Play. This is the main reason installing Win95 on an older PC fails or at best experiences occasional lockups.

When configured properly a Legacy computer can work well and glitche free with Win95. "Legacy" is a term for any pre-Plug and Play hardware.

Plug and Play is a standard for PC hardware that requires the hardware to communicate its resource requirements to the PC's BIOS (Basic In and Out of System) and operating system and allow the system's software to set the configuration.

What you need to take full advantage of Plug and Play is these three elements:

• 1. A PC with a Plug and Play Bios.
• 2. An operating system that provides full Plug and Play support. (Win95 r2)
• 3. Hardware that meets the Plug and play standards.

The two most common Peripherals bus architectures are:

• 1. ISA (Industry Standard Architecture). This type is usually not Plug and Play unless it has been manufactured within the last year.
• 2. PCI (Peripheral Component Interconnect) Almost all are Plug and Play.

Some others that are usually Legacy devices are VESA (Video Electronics Standards Association) and SCSI (Small Computer System Interphase).

Win98 is due to be released in the second quarter of 1998 and with it some new bus architectures support to outdate your new PC.

Some of these are USB (Universal Serial Bus), ACPI (Advanced Configuration and Power Interphase), IEEE1394 (Fireware) AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port). Some of these terms may seem like hieroglyphics on the pyramid walls but, it all adds up to faster and easier to use computers.