PC BIOS AND its nasty features

in #bios7 years ago

The PC is 37 years old by now
it was built upon an intel 8086 then the 8088 cpu the very first PC had no setup no nvram
no post output .... just a black screen
Then came the XT with a post output but yet no setup nor nvram
Then long story short people gets to confuse the BIOS by itself and its utility called setup
Its how funny thing to see people call the setup "the bios" because all the already not so
visible code is even more hidden using that confusing and inappropriate term ...
The setup as its name pretend is written to help configuring the BIOS.
While the BIOS by itself contains few pieces of software : POST , INIT , BOOTLOGIC + sometimes
the setup utility by itself but this one can be hidden anywhere else such as on the hard disk drive
on an hidden partition.
when a code is misbehaving no one can see the code but only the output of this code
if one hide a name behind another it will get harder and harder to understand what the problem is ....
illustration_bios.png