A PC course-which way is the frontier?

A new course in an area of microcomputers has resulted from requests by other out-of-area faculty. It was desired to establish a course that would be different from software or PC-as-a-computing-tool courses, as well as to one different from beginning microprocessor courses. The complexity of PC hardware presented a problem-since detailed exploration of the PC itself was inappropriate, should students build boards, add to existing boards, or use pre-built boards? How could the course avoid software obsolescence? Should students interface to DOS or Windows, and should they develop custom graphical interfaces? How much software can be learned when there is such a large hardware content? Should this be called a Junior, Senior or Graduate course? There were conflicting suggestions and recommendations. The issues and politics of these decisions are described Finally, the challenge of teaching a course in an area where the instructor is not yet an expert is described. Steps to finding help and ways to keep up to date are suggested