It’s the underlying system. You can run tiny bare metal programs in your boot sector that simply call bios functions to output to the screen and write to disk and beep the speaker, just like you can call functions to the windows or Linux kernels to do the same.
Although granted the only functions called these days are to set the CPU to protected mode and goodbye BIOS until the next boot.
hmm. it’s a good point. it seems to me though that that just isn’t what “operating system” refers to, since these programs can’t actually manage the system in a meaningful way or do anything you’d really expect from an OS.
But circling back to OP’s screenshot it only mentions that it’s part of the OS. A pretty small part these days compared to DOS, but it’s still doing stuff.
I guess it comes down to whether you consider all the initialisation/bootstrap/hardware configuration routines to be part of an operating system.
It’s right there in the name:
Basic Input Output Operating System
It’s the first stage of whatever os you run.
If you don’t think the BIOS is part of your operating system, just remove it and see how far you get on the next boot.
Edit: I was always told the I in BIOS was “I/O”. WAS I DECEIVED FOR ALL THIS TIME!?
BIOS stands for Basic Input/Output System.
Semantically sure, it’s making your system operate, but it’s technically part of your motherboard’s firmware.
It’s the underlying system. You can run tiny bare metal programs in your boot sector that simply call bios functions to output to the screen and write to disk and beep the speaker, just like you can call functions to the windows or Linux kernels to do the same.
Although granted the only functions called these days are to set the CPU to protected mode and goodbye BIOS until the next boot.
hmm. it’s a good point. it seems to me though that that just isn’t what “operating system” refers to, since these programs can’t actually manage the system in a meaningful way or do anything you’d really expect from an OS.
But circling back to OP’s screenshot it only mentions that it’s part of the OS. A pretty small part these days compared to DOS, but it’s still doing stuff.
I guess it comes down to whether you consider all the initialisation/bootstrap/hardware configuration routines to be part of an operating system.
Which is Operating System too, just not windows.
“Operating system” has a specific meaning and BIOS isn’t one.
BIOOS?
Chant it with me… BIOOOOOOS haha.
There should be a slash in there.
Basic Input/Output Operating System.
At least, that’s what I was taught it was many decades ago.
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