computer program
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Also known as: Basic Input/Output System
Written and fact-checked by
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
BIOS, computer program that is typically stored in EPROM and used by the CPU to perform start-up procedures when the computer is turned on. Its two major procedures are determining what peripheral devices (keyboard, mouse, disk drives, printers, video cards, etc.) are available and loading the operating system (OS) into main memory. After start-up, the BIOS program manages data flow between the OS and the peripherals, so neither the OS nor the application programs need to know the details of the peripherals (such as hardware addresses). In the early 21st century, BIOS was supplanted by United Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI), which can handle much larger drives and operate faster than BIOS.
