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Blurring The Line Between BIOS And OS

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the daddy-what-were-hard-drives dept.

Jon Kincade writes "The Register has an article about Phoenix Technologies cME software that allows users on anything from servers to embedded systems to run diagnostics, browse the web and other things without having to boot into a full fledged OS. The primary use seems to be recovery from system crashes. Also, this may explain why the Phoenix browser was asked to change its name a few months ago."

1 of 290 comments (clear)

  1. Basic by phorm · · Score: 0, Redundant

    BIOS=Basic Input Output System
    If you tag a bunch of O/S stuff in there, suddenly you're getting to be a lot less basic... so maybe it would be an IIOS (Integrated Input Output System) or AIOS (Advanced Input Output System).

    However: There were days when machines had no hard-drive and came with 2 floppy drives and a build-in GWBasic (we had these in Elementary). If we're talking very basic OS, with maybe the option to mount into a greater OS, it wouldn't be bad. Integrating a complete and functional OS into future BIOS is not a good idea. But really, an OS comes on a hard-drive... if you fry something, you can format the drive, or replace it. Frying a BIOS OS would be a lot worse.