Product specifications
specification development is driven by The Unified EFI Forum, an industry Special Interest Group.
EFI booting has been supported in only Microsoft Windows versions supporting GPT,
[30]
the Linux
kernel 2.6.1 and later, and Mac OS X on Intel-based Macs.
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Other alternatives to the functionality of the "Legacy BIOS" in the x86 world include coreboot.
A number of larger, more powerful servers and workstations use a platform-independent Open
Firmware (IEEE-1275) based on the Forth programming language; it is included with Sun's SPARC
computers, IBM's RS/6000 line, and other PowerPC systems such as the CHRP motherboards, along
with the x86-based OLPC XO-1. Later x86-based personal computer operating systems, like Windows
NT, use their own, native drivers; this makes it much easier to extend support to new hardware.
See also
ARCS (computing)
e820
Extended System Configuration Data
Double boot
Memtest86
Plug and play
Ralf Brown's Interrupt List
System Management BIOS
VESA BIOS Extensions
XDK Debug BIOS
Notes
1. ^ The signature at offset +0x1FE in boot sectors is 0x55 0xAA, that is 0x55 at offset +0x1FE and 0xAA at offset
+0x1FF. Since little-endian representation must be assumed in the context of IBM PC compatible machines,
this can be written as 16-bit word 0xAA55 in programs for x86 processors (note the swapped order), whereas
it would have to be written as 0x55AA in programs for other CPU architectures using a big-endian
representation. Since this has been mixed up numerous times in books and even in original Microsoft
reference documents, this article uses the offset-based byte-wise on-disk representation to avoid any
possible misinterpretation.
References
1. ^ The PC Guide - System BIOS (http://www.pcguide.com/ref/mbsys/bios/index.htm)
2. ^
a
b
Kildall, Gary A. (June 1975), CP/M 1.1 or 1.2 BIOS and BDOS for Lawrence Livermore
Laboratories, "An excerpt of the BDOS.PLM file header in the PL/M source code of CP/M 1.1 or CP/M
1.2 for Lawrence Livermore Laboratories (LLL):
/* C P / M B A S I C I / O S Y S T E M (B I O S)
COPYRIGHT (C) GARY A. KILDALL
JUNE, 1975 */