Memphis, 5.0 timed for evolving platforms

Electronic News, April 14, 1997 by Jim DeTar

Mr. Gates and Carl Stork, GM of Microsoft's Windows Operating System division, provided a first glimpse of the Memphis operating system and Window NT 5.0 at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC 97) here last week. Also at WinHEC, Microsoft and Intel jointly unveiled a reviewers' draft of the proposed PC98 Design Guide, successor to PC97, created to provide guidelines for developers of Windows/Intel x86 (Wintel) PCs, as well as consumer electronic devices and other systems on the Wintel platform.

The current draft of PC98, version 0.6, is available for review now at the Intel and Microsoft Web sites. The draft already includes contributions from Compaq and others in the industry. The final version of the guide is scheduled to be available this summer on Microsoft and Intel web sites, with printed versions slated for release by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, as the explosion of new systems types occurs, simplicity will be the watchword at Microsoft, Mr. Gates said in a keynote address. "Our priorities are simplicity and manageability, going beyond personal productivity and extending the scalable family." He returned to the theme of simplicity of design many times during the course of the conference.

"We're hard at work on the next need-to releases--Memphis and Windows NT 5.0--which are very important" for Microsoft's future, he added. Microsoft released a developers' version of Memphis earlier this month, the first step toward final release at an unspecified date.

The standard PC of 1990 has subdivided into a variety of platforms in 1997, Mr. Gates noted, including servers for business and mobile PCs, the "home PC" and specialized devices targeting specific application segments. This fragmentation of the PC market is expected to continue, with a host of products on the horizon that will require added functionality in Microsoft operating systems.

Mr. Stork categorized the new systems that are evolving out of the older PC paradigm. Among them: enterprise server clusters with multiprocessor, high-capacity storage capabilities, and integrated departmental servers. Newer workstations and standard PCs, along with the Net PC and mobile PCs, will assume some of the functions previously performed by the home PC. And specialized devices such as the home office PC, living room PC and home server are expected to emerge from the home PC, while newer form factors such as the HPC (handheld PC) automobile (in-dash type) computer and wallet computer may gain popularity.

Memphis features will include: the Win32 Driver Model; OnNow/ACPI; USB, 1394 and AGP; WDM classes for HID, still image, streaming and audio; DirectX 5.0 and ActiveMovie 2.0; full DVD support; multi-monitor capability; OSR2 (an OEM service) features such as FAT32, PCI, IRQ, Cardbus and power management; Internet system update, platform for a new management design called Zero Administration Windows (ZAW); as well as distributed client services and updated devices drivers. "We are making an active effort to bring up to date all drivers," Mr. Stork said.

Additional Windows NT 5.0 features will include: Windows 95/Memphis features as well as I2O support, larger memory, clustering support, storage enhancements, Internet Explorer 4.0 and ZAW.

Microsoft also provided a rough timeline for product rollout, saying it will have a Windows NT 5.0 beta 1 and device driver kit available in 3Q97. the release of the beta 1 version of Memphis will be the next milestone for that product, and is scheduled to take place within the next two months, Mr. Stork said. The company refused, however, to name a date for final release of either operating system.

Playing on the fact that Windows 95 was far beyond its originally scheduled release date when it finally became available, Mr. Stork commented "We've learned we can't make an accurate prediction on release dates so it's our intent to get customer feedback" before final release. He added that the company will put out the final releases of the new operating systems "as early as practical."

Admitting that "Today, the story of hardware development and drivers is pretty disparate," Mr. Stork outlined the company's vision for hardware innovation in the Memphis and Windows 5.0 operating systems, with an eye toward achieving consistency between them. One component of this new consistency will be the Win32 Driver Model (WDM).

"The Win32 driver model is a critical element to drive consistency between Windows NT 5.0 and Memphis," Mr. Stork said. To that end, there is a core architecture evolution taking place based on the Windows NT I/O subsystem. "We've added a core set of Windows NT services into Memphis," that will lower the latencies on Memphis, he said.

Microsoft has also developed what it calls WDM class drivers because existing Windows 95 and Windows NT drivers are not WDM-compatible. The new drivers will include emerging bus classes such as Universal Serial Bus (USB) and 1394 and, "The first two device classes will be the human interface device (HID) class that includes such things as joysticks, keyboards and mice, and a stream class for video, motion camera and DVD."