BIOS

  • Thread starter Thread starter yaro137
  • Start date Start date
Y

yaro137

Are chips used for BIOS faster than RAM? Can we get one that would be
big enough to store the whole system?
 
Are chips used for BIOS faster than RAM? Can we get one that would be
big enough to store the whole system?
Click to expand...
No.
Yes, but why?

BIOS chips these days are usually FLASH chips and the fastest I work
with these days is 70ns... RAM, depends on what type. SRAM, DDR,
SDRAM, etc. varies dramatically in speed, quality, size, etc. SRAM can
be purchased that does 10-20ns access time; but SRAM is usually small
and fairly pricey compared to SDRAM. SDRAM has its own issues as far as
interface, etc. But, cheap per MB cost makes it effective.

James
 
Just thought if it's faster and cheap we could have the OS integrated
on on the motherboard.
As there are so many devices already integrated why not the system?
 
Just thought if it's faster and cheap we could have the OS integrated
on on the motherboard.
As there are so many devices already integrated why not the system?
Click to expand...

Of course the OS could be built into the MB on ROM chip(s)
-- provided (a) programmers were sure it would was fully fit for
its purpose and for all the hardware's expected lifetime, and
(b) the marketing department had demonstrated this production
line would be profitable. Probably these two conditions have
never been fufilled.
 
Would you spend the extra money to buy a computer like that would cost
over what you pay now? Would you be willing to pay replace it as bug
fixes are released? What do you believe you would gain for all the extra
money you would spend?
 
Just thought if it's faster and cheap we could have the OS integrated
on on the motherboard.
As there are so many devices already integrated why not the system?
Click to expand...

Google "Thin Client" terminals. Wyse, Dell and HP make/made some, and
are these are available on eBay for peanut prices in some cases. The
operating systems are embedded versions of Windows CE/NT/XP that run
from flash ROM. Once the OS is up, these things can talk to network
servers and load applications, profiles etc...
 
Back
Top