B.I.O.S. ?

Factual Questions
1

I just read the thread about the beeping Toshiba. Now, if I knew how to import an active hyperlink hint, plea for help here I’d insert it. Sorry, I don’t know how to do that yet.

AAANYWAY- my OP is this- What does B.I.O.S. stand for? I’ve noodled around various BIOS screens since I had my first 8088. Ahhh, the good old days. A real keyboard, that HURT to type on ! A Winchester hard drive with a surging whopping 20 Megs of memory !

I’ve always wondered, so dear dopers, a clean fast answer ? ( If This becomes a Man from U.N.C.L.E. thread, I’ll…I’ll…I’ll… buy Manny a case of Glenfiddich)

Cartooniverse

2

Basic In Out System.

3

<<Grin>> What took you so long???

Thanks. A tiny scrap of ignorance, pummelled to death. God bless The Straight Dope.

Cartooniverse

4

Basic Input-Output System. It is the system that accepts input from the peripherals (keyboard, disk drives, etc.) and translates it into signals the processing-memory systems can understand. It also sends output to the screen and speakers. It is set by the manufacturer and is a level below the operating system. It would handle multiple operating systems if you partitioned your hard drive that way.
You put hyperlinks in a post either by typing in the full address and having the ‘Automatically parse URLs’ box checked or by putting in tags. For example, if I wanted to link to http://www.straightdope.com , (notice the space between the address and the comma) I would either type the address and let the board parse it into a link or I would type in this: {url=“http://www.straightdope.com”}The Straight Dope{/url}. Notice that you must replace the brackets ‘{’ and ‘}’ with square brackets ‘[’ and ‘]’. Those tags would make ‘The Straight Dope’ text inside them a link to the Straight Dope website.

5

I have an original IBM PC Technical Reference Manual (OK, OK, so I’m a geek), and that manual refers to it as “The basic input/output system (BIOS)”.

(That’s the manual that included a complete source listing of the BIOS. Remember the days when you could get that sort of information from the manufacturer?)