Electrical computers and digital processing systems: support – Digital data processing system initialization or configuration
Patent
1998-10-21
2000-10-03
Palys, Joseph E.
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: support
Digital data processing system initialization or configuration
709301, 710 72, 712 36, G06F 9445
Patent
active
061287318
ABSTRACT:
An .times.86 based computer system that implements a firmware based boot process without an .times.86 BIOS that supports expansion devices coupled to the computer system, wherein the expansion devices include their own respective BIOS extensions. The computer system includes an .times.86 processor coupled to a volatile memory and a non-volatile memory via a bus. The non-volatile memory includes firmware which when executed by the processor cause the computer system to implement the boot process. The firmware initializes device drivers for the computer system and initializes an application programming interface for the device drivers. The firmware then initializes a compatibility component for interfacing with the device drivers, wherein the compatibility component is operable for translating accesses by a first software application to an .times.86 BIOS into corresponding accesses to the device drivers. This enables the first software application to execute on the computer system by using the compatibility component while a second software application is able to execute on the computer system by accessing the application programming interface directly. The firmware then runs an expansion device BIOS extension from an expansion device coupled to the computer system to initialize a memory area in volatile memory. The memory area is configured by the BIOS extension to interface with the expansion device, such that the expansion device is made available to the first application and the second application.
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Brown Daniel
Sully John
Wilcox Edward E.
Zarrin Saeed S.
Mai Ri Jue
Palys Joseph E.
Silicon Graphics Inc.
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