Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Function Keys are also heavily used in the BIOS interface. Generally during the power-on self-test, BIOS access can be gained by hitting either a function key or the Del key. In the BIOS keys can have different purposes depending on the BIOS. However, F10 is the de facto standard for save and exit which saves all changes and restarts the system.
Prior to the development and ubiquitous adoption of the Plug and Play BIOS standard, an add-on device such as a hard disk controller or a network adapter card (NIC) was generally required to include an option ROM in order to be bootable, as the motherboard BIOS did not include any support for the device and so could not incorporate it into the BIOS's boot protocol.
After the motherboard BIOS completes its POST, most BIOS versions search for option ROM modules, also called BIOS extension ROMs, and execute them. The motherboard BIOS scans for extension ROMs in a portion of the " upper memory area " (the part of the x86 real-mode address space at and above address 0xA0000) and runs each ROM found, in order.
ROM BIOS firmware on a Baby AT motherboard. In some respects, the various firmware components are as important as the operating system in a working computer. However, unlike most modern operating systems, firmware rarely has a well-evolved automatic mechanism of updating itself to fix any functionality issues detected after shipping the unit.
On IBM PC compatible personal computers from the 1980s, the BIOS allowed the user to hold down the Alt key and type a decimal number on the keypad. It would place the corresponding code into the keyboard buffer so that it would look (almost) as if the code had been entered by a single keystroke.
The original motivation for EFI came during early development of the first Intel–HP Itanium systems in the mid-1990s. BIOS limitations (such as 16-bit real mode, 1 MB addressable memory space, [7] assembly language programming, and PC AT hardware) had become too restrictive for the larger server platforms Itanium was targeting. [8]
HP-86B with 9121 dual diskette drive. The first model of the Series 80 was the HP-85, introduced in January 1980. [1] BYTE wrote "we were impressed with the performance ... the graphics alone make this an attractive, albeit not inexpensive, alternate to existing small systems on the market ... it is our guess that many personal computer experimenters and hackers will want this machine."
BIOS POST card for ISA bus BIOS POST card for PCI bus Professional BIOS POST card for PCI bus Two POST seven-segment displays integrated on a computer motherboard. The original IBM BIOS made POST diagnostic information available by outputting a number to I/O port 0x80 (a screen display was not possible with some failure modes). Both progress ...