On 02/06/2016 09:49 AM, dick balaska wrote:
> Am 2016-06-02 01:22, also sprach clipka:
>
>> No; the BIOS uses the same principle, but different interrupts.
>>
>> BIOS-level disk I/O, for instance, uses INT 13h.
>
> I haven't been inside of Windows since ... XP. Do they *still* use that?
> I recall an early Linux decision was to get the hell away from the BIOS
> asap and stay away. -- Device drivers uber alles.

AFAIK, both Windows and Linux use the BIOS to figure out your hardware 
layout early in the boot sequence... and then never touch it ever again.

Basically, once the OS kernel has figured out your memory map and which 
regions to not clobber, it switches to its own native device drivers, 
exits real mode and enters protected mode, and never looks back.

[U]EFI changes this, in that it allows a protected-mode OS to directly 
request services from it. Even so, nobody really uses this except for 
boot configuration tasks. (If only because your OS still needs to work 
on old BIOS systems as well...)

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