December 30, 2003

Remember your BIOS. Well it might be "bye, bye" time.

My spin:When your PC "boots" up, it relys in the "Basic Input Output Sytem" to give it an initial start up. The BIOS handles your sytem timing, hard disk configurations and other important things. You know the black screen on your computer at times giving cryptic messages when your PC first boots up, often before the Windows screen - well that's your BIOS in operation.

Microsoft and INTEL are working on a new boot up system entitled, EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface). Cnet has a good story on this. While this MIGHT be good for the industry, some are saying and it does have some truth, that it's simply WinTel (Windows and Intel aka Microsoft and INTEL) trying to push their own ideas forward. Well of course it is, didn't Ford push his ideas on us many years ago?

Cnet: Intel and Microsoft are gearing up to move toward the first major overhaul of the innermost workings of the personal computer--the boundary where software and hardware meet--during 2004.

The pair will establish a forum to promote the specification as a standard. If EFI-based software is accepted broadly, it could prompt the first changing of the guard in preboot software in the history of the PC industry--even though some critics say the transition may take a while or may not happen at all. (full story)

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