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Appendix C Glossary of Terms 43
B
BIOS
An acronym for Basic Input/Output System. This is usually an
EPROM with computer program instructions in it. A motherboard
BIOS (usually by companies such as Phoenix, Award, and AMI)
controls the basic functions of the computer (such as controlling
the keyboard, monitor, etc.).
With a SCSI host adapter, the BIOS is used to control SCSI hard
disk drives and perform the boot function (PCM-3420 including
the BIOS). If a host adapter does not have a BIOS, then hard disk
drives controlled by that host adapter cannot be used to boot
from (booting must be done from another source, such as floppy,
IDE, or another SCSI host adapter with a BIOS). The BIOS must
be enabled in order to function (e.g. a host adapter with a BIOS
that is disabled acts the same as a host adapter without a BIOS).
The BIOS can also contain useful software utilities, such as
Adaptec’s SCSISelect utility, which can be used to change the
host adapter settings, format disks, and run simple SCSI diagnos-
tics.
BOOTING
Booting is a process by which a computer starts and automatical-
ly loads the operating system.
BUS
A pathway for data in a computer system. All PCs have an
expansion bus, which is designed to host add-on (expansion)
devices, such as modems, adapter boards and video adapters.
Expansion devices use the bus to send data to and receive data
from the PC’s CPU or memory. ISA,PC/104, EISA and Micro
Channel are the major bus standards used in PC's’s.