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In computing, BIOS (/ ˈ b aɪ ɒ s,-oʊ s /, BY-oss, -ohss; Basic Input/Output System, also known as the System BIOS, ROM BIOS, BIOS ROM or PC BIOS) is a type of firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization during the booting process (power-on startup). [1]
In Windows 3.1, additional options are available, such as /3, which starts Windows in 386 enhanced mode, and /S, which starts Windows in standard mode [2] A startup sound was first added in Windows 3.0 after installing the Multimedia Extensions (MME), [ 3 ] but not enabled by default until Windows 3.1.
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]
A computer's firmware may be manually updated by a user via a small utility program. In contrast, firmware in mass storage devices (hard-disk drives, optical disc drives, flash memory storage e.g. solid state drive) is less frequently updated, even when flash memory (rather than ROM, EEPROM) storage is used for the firmware.
With this utility, many different forms or logos could be stored as images, and printed when needed, all using the same standard blank paper, thus eliminating the need to stock many preprinted forms, and the need for operators to stop the printer and change paper.
Typical POST screen (AMI BIOS) Typical UEFI-compliant BIOS POST screen (Phoenix Technologies BIOS) Summary screen after POST and before booting an operating system (AMI BIOS) A power-on self-test ( POST ) is a process performed by firmware or software routines immediately after a computer or other digital electronic device is powered on.
Windows NT was originally designed for ARC-compatible platforms, relying on its boot manager support and providing only osloader.exe, a loading program accepting ordinary command-line arguments specifying Windows directory partition, location or boot parameters, which is launched by ARC-compatible boot manager when a user chooses to start specific Windows NT operating system.
In computing, the System Management BIOS (SMBIOS) specification defines data structures (and access methods) that can be used to read management information produced by the BIOS of a computer. [1] This eliminates the need for the operating system to probe hardware directly to discover what devices are present in the computer.