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BIOS interrupt calls perform hardware control or I/O functions requested by a program, return system information to the program, or do both. A key element of the purpose of BIOS calls is abstraction - the BIOS calls perform generally defined functions, and the specific details of how those functions are executed on the particular hardware of the system are encapsulated in the BIOS and hidden ...
Double boot (also known as cold double boot, double cold boot, double POST, power-on auto reboot, or fake boot) is a feature of the BIOS, and may occur after changes to the BIOS' settings or the system's configuration, or a power failure while the system was in one of certain sleep modes.
Furthermore, on a modern x86 system, BIOS calls can only be performed in Real mode, or Virtual 8086 mode. v8086 is not an option in Long mode. This means that a modern operating system, which operates in Protected mode (32 bit), or Long mode (64 bit), would need to switch into real mode and back to call the BIOS - a hugely expensive operation.
INT 13h is shorthand for BIOS interrupt call 13 hex, the 20th interrupt vector in an x86-based (IBM PC-descended) computer system.The BIOS typically sets up a real mode interrupt handler at this vector that provides sector-based hard disk and floppy disk read and write services using cylinder-head-sector (CHS) addressing.
During the POST, the BIOS must integrate multiple competing, changing, and even mutually exclusive standards and initiatives for the matrix of hardware and operating systems the PC is expected to support, although at most only simple memory tests and the setup screen are displayed. The principal duties of the main BIOS during POST include:
Award BIOS setup utility on a standard PC. A modern BIOS setup utility has a text user interface (TUI) or graphical user interface (GUI) accessed by pressing a certain key on the keyboard when the PC starts. Usually, the key is advertised for short time during the early startup, for example "Press DEL to enter Setup".
The last image we have of Patrick Cagey is of his first moments as a free man. He has just walked out of a 30-day drug treatment center in Georgetown, Kentucky, dressed in gym clothes and carrying a Nike duffel bag. The moment reminds his father of Patrick’s graduation from college, and he takes a picture of his son with his cell phone.
In the mid-1990s, a facility for supplying new microcode was initially referred to as the Pentium Pro BIOS Update Feature. [18] [19] It was intended that user-mode applications should make a BIOS interrupt call to supply a new "BIOS Update Data Block", which the BIOS would partially validate and save to nonvolatile BIOS memory; this could be supplied to the installed processors on next boot.