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> Marcin Nowak <Marcin.Nowak@remove_it.cern.ch> wrote in message
> news:<acvgdrfk.fsf@remove_it.cern.ch>...
>
>
> The industry already tried this nonsense in the mid 90s. It was called
> MPC or Multimedia PC, which set standards on a computer to make sure
> it would run consumer-based titles like Myst and what not. Back then,
> "multimedia" was a huge buzzword. Among the requirements of MPC was
> having a CD-ROM drive. By the time the MPC2 standard was updated, the
> "multimedia" buzzword had faded away. I think they went as high as
> MPC3 before realizing how useless the system was. I don't know of any
> hardware or software vendors that actually made use of it, and in any
> case people still had to pay attention to raw system specs since the
> MPC defined a baseline rather than a fixed configuration. It would
> only be useful in the latter case, but that would essentially reduce
> compliant PCs to black boxes. Although that wouldn't necessarily be a
> disadvantage since the only people who would need a numbering scheme
> probably shouldn't be poking around in the computer anyway.