Change to 'Bios' will make for PCs that boot in seconds (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

By Mark Ward
Technology correspondent, BBC News

New PCs could start in just seconds, thanks to an update to one of the oldest parts of desktop computers.

The upgrade will spell the end for the 25-year-old PC start-up software known as Bios that initialises a machine so its operating system can get going.

The code was not intended to live nearly this long, and adapting it to modern PCs is one reason they take as long as they do to warm up.

Bios' replacement, known as UEFI, will predominate in new PCs by 2011.

The acronym stands for Unified Extensible Firmware Interface and is designed to be more flexible than its venerable predecessor.
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more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11430069

[Warren DeMontague]

1. Techmology! Bad! Ooog No Like! Bad!

Smash! Smash Machines!

[Pab Sungenis]

2. The "BIOS boot" portion will only be a couple of seconds

but some machines already have that down to about 10 or 15 seconds already.

The REAL slowdown is booting your operating system and waiting for it to get up to speed. It's not BIOS that takes 2-3 minutes to get everything on your desktop functional; it's Windows.

[ScarletFyre]

3. My computer already boots in seconds...

I'm guessing it's because I use Linux and not Windows.

[TroglodyteScholar]

4. My thought exactly.

Never gets stuck when shutting down either.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

5. Ain't it the truth. n/t

[Ezlivin]

7. On a Mac here and same thing

But I'm using an SSD as a boot drive. That seems to be the real difference in boot speed.

Macs have been using UEFI since 2006.

In January 2006, Apple Inc. shipped its first Intel-based Macintosh computers. These systems use EFI and the Framework instead of Open Firmware, which had been used on its previous PowerPC-based systems.] On April 5, 2006, Apple first released Boot Camp, which produces a Windows drivers disk and a non-destructive partitioning tool to allow the installation of Windows XP or Vista without requiring a reinstallation of Mac OS X. A firmware update was also released that added BIOS support to its EFI implementation. Subsequent Macintosh models shipped with the newer firmware. All current Macintosh systems are also able to boot BIOS Operating Systems such as Windows XP and Vista. (Wikipedia)

[DireStrike]

6. I hate to admit it, but windows 7 is a LOT faster at booting up.

They made at least one positive change. Amazing.