BIOS/Talk

I've moved the following fromt he front page b/c someone expressed reservations about whether it's true. I'm not the person to verify it, but I think it should be gone over, and the correct parts returned to the front page. --KQ

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I'm not sure about this bit...

Although BIOS technology helped to create a standard hardware platform for commodity operating systems, it also hindered the PC architecture.

Read-Only Memory (ROM) chips are much slower to read than Random Access Memory (RAM). True. See later.

The storage capability of a ROM is also an issue, computer programs placed in ROM must be small and limited in features. In addition, BIOS code is a guarded trade secret, and the handful of vendors are often obfuscated their BIOS code to protect it from reverse-engineering. As technology advances, the features and functionalities built into the BIOS code begin to remove most of the limitations, or provide a workaround for them.

Most systems these days copy the BIOS code from the slow ROM into the faster RAM. Known as shadow RAM... done to speed up the BIOS routines.

The latest BIOS code support Plug and Play hardware components and Operating Systems, making system configuration much easier. Also, more and more manufacturer's license BIOS technology and optimize it to work with their components or systems.