BIOS, Firmware, CMOS are they same

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

I am reading in some artical about PC hardware and came cross these
terms.. BIOS, Firmware, and CMOS setting.. since these articals from
different authors now I am confused if they mean the same.. I mean if
the authors use term BIOS and sometime Firmware or CMOS setting to
refere to the same thing?? Are they the same?? if not what are they
located each of them??

Any help would be very much appreciate it.. thanks a lot

 

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

esara123@hotmail.com (esara) astounded us with:
news:fd7d27e7.0404071611.d9cae5d@posting.google.com:

> I am reading in some artical about PC hardware and came cross these
> terms.. BIOS, Firmware, and CMOS setting.. since these articals from
> different authors now I am confused if they mean the same.. I mean if
> the authors use term BIOS and sometime Firmware or CMOS setting to
> refere to the same thing?? Are they the same?? if not what are they
> located each of them??
>
> Any help would be very much appreciate it.. thanks a lot
>

AFAIK, CMOS refers to the part of the BIOS that stores the changes you make
to the BIOS settings. Firmware would be the BIOS version.



--
Gene P

 

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Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

Gene Puhl wrote:
> esara123@hotmail.com (esara) astounded us with:
> news:fd7d27e7.0404071611.d9cae5d@posting.google.com:
>
>
>>I am reading in some artical about PC hardware and came cross these
>>terms.. BIOS, Firmware, and CMOS setting.. since these articals from
>>different authors now I am confused if they mean the same.. I mean if
>>the authors use term BIOS and sometime Firmware or CMOS setting to
>>refere to the same thing?? Are they the same?? if not what are they
>>located each of them??
>>
>>Any help would be very much appreciate it.. thanks a lot
>>
>
>
> AFAIK, CMOS refers to the part of the BIOS that stores the changes you make
> to the BIOS settings. Firmware would be the BIOS version.
>
>
>
BIOS = Basic Input/Output System
controls all the chips on the Mainboard, and the devices
only as far as loading their resources, and assigning them to be
recognized by an OS, by loading them into the volitile memory at boot-up.

CMOS = Complementary Metal Oxide Substrate - a technology of creating
integrated circuit chips, and semi-conductors.
Because the volitile memory in which the BIOS settings cna be stored is
very often a CMOS device, it became confused in some minds of
developers. 'CMOS Setup' actually refers to the setup of the BIOS to
properly identify, configure, and operate, a cpu at an optimum speed,
and to cause other peripheral devices connected to the mainboard, to be
recognized.

Firmware refers to placing a software program into a piece of digital
hardware, usually in the form of an integrated circuit, and then,
installing that 'firmware' device into a 'system' that performs some
computational operation. Most commonly used and known in the alarm
industries, computer industry, robotics, and embedded appliances (cell
phones, telephones,microwave ovens, blenders, household appliances,
automobiles, Gumstix 'Waysmall' computer http://gumnstix.org and
http://gumstix.com ).

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt (More info?)

On 7 Apr 2004 17:11:37 -0700, esara123@hotmail.com (esara) wrote:

>I am reading in some artical about PC hardware and came cross these
>terms.. BIOS, Firmware, and CMOS setting.. since these articals from
>different authors now I am confused if they mean the same.. I mean if
>the authors use term BIOS and sometime Firmware or CMOS setting to
>refere to the same thing?? Are they the same?? if not what are they
>located each of them??
>
>Any help would be very much appreciate it.. thanks a lot


BIOS is the firmware for your computer.

It does a number of things:
1: runs the P.O.S.T.
2: Configures the motherboard hardware per maufacturers specs and
CMOS parameters
3: has software hooks to ease use of the hardware (most modern OSes
don't use them though).
4: Boots the OS from mass storage (floppy, HDD, or CD/DVD-Rom)
5: has a program to allow the user to configure the components on the
motherobard (and to an extent, off the motherboard). That program
is called the CMOS setup.
6: It also looks for BIOS extension firmware, and executes that.
An example of a BIOS extension is your video card , as it has a
BIOS to configure itself, plus provide the character rom and
OS/APP hooks well. Other BIOS extension ROMs can be used to boot a
computer over a network, include support larger HDDs, or patch
other system BIOS fallibilites (such as Y2K).

Firmware is simply software ran by a system from a chip of some sort,
usually at a lower level code than operating systems and applications.

In PC terms, CMOS is non volatile memory where low level system
settings are stored, and the RTC is run.


In olden days, you used to run CMOS setup from a floppy,
(which would only set the clock, floppy, and HDD type.)
There was what was called Keyboard BIOS, which was a mask programmed
8042 microcontroller, sometimes specific to the Mobo mafufacturer or
design.