147-453: In computing , BIOS ( / ˈ b aɪ ɒ s , - oʊ s / , BY -oss, -ohss ; Basic Input/Output System , also known as the System BIOS , ROM BIOS , BIOS ROM or PC BIOS ) is firmware used to provide runtime services for operating systems and programs and to perform hardware initialization during the booting process (power-on startup). The firmware comes pre-installed on
294-497: A breach of contract as well as any other relevant laws. That is because most end-user license agreements specifically prohibit it, and US courts have ruled that if such terms are present, they override the copyright law that expressly permits it (see Bowers v. Baystate Technologies ). According to Section 103(f) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ( 17 U.S.C. § 1201 (f) ), a person in legal possession of
441-510: A network adapter attempts booting by a procedure that is defined by its option ROM or the equivalent integrated into the motherboard BIOS ROM. As such, option ROMs may also influence or supplant the boot process defined by the motherboard BIOS ROM. With the El Torito optical media boot standard , the optical drive actually emulates a 3.5" high-density floppy disk to the BIOS for boot purposes. Reading
588-456: A 3D model. The physical object can be measured using 3D scanning technologies like CMMs , laser scanners , structured light digitizers , or industrial CT scanning (computed tomography). The measured data alone, usually represented as a point cloud , lacks topological information and design intent. The former may be recovered by converting the point cloud to a triangular-faced mesh . Reverse engineering aims to go beyond producing such
735-600: A ROM chip) that contains a BIOS extension ROM. The motherboard BIOS typically contains code for initializing and bootstrapping integrated display and integrated storage. The initialization process can involve the execution of code related to the device being initialized, for locating the device, verifying the type of device, then establishing base registers, setting pointers , establishing interrupt vector tables, selecting paging modes which are ways for organizing available registers in devices, setting default values for accessing software routines related to interrupts , and setting
882-408: A SEM is stitching the images together, which is necessary because each layer cannot be captured by a single shot. A SEM needs to sweep across the area of the circuit and take several hundred images to cover the entire layer. Image stitching takes as input several hundred pictures and outputs a single properly-overlapped picture of the complete layer. Next, the stitched layers need to be aligned because
1029-515: A SLIC can be preactivated with an OEM product key, and they verify an XML formatted OEM certificate against the SLIC in the BIOS as a means of self-activating (see System Locked Preinstallation , SLP). If a user performs a fresh install of Windows, they will need to have possession of both the OEM key (either SLP or COA) and the digital certificate for their SLIC in order to bypass activation. This can be achieved if
1176-484: A broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries an extensive range of information resources and services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents of the World Wide Web and the infrastructure to support email. Computer programming is the process of writing, testing, debugging, and maintaining the source code and documentation of computer programs. This source code
1323-507: A combination of geometric and freeform surfaces can provide a powerful method of 3D modeling . Areas of freeform data can be combined with exact geometric surfaces to create a hybrid model. A typical example of this would be the reverse engineering of a cylinder head, which includes freeform cast features, such as water jackets and high-tolerance machined areas. Reverse engineering is also used by businesses to bring existing physical geometry into digital product development environments, to make
1470-414: A competitor's product was built. That process is commonly used for "cracking" software and media to remove their copy protection , or to create a possibly-improved copy or even a knockoff , which is usually the goal of a competitor or a hacker. Malware developers often use reverse engineering techniques to find vulnerabilities in an operating system to build a computer virus that can exploit
1617-497: A computer's capabilities, but typically do not directly apply them in the performance of tasks that benefit the user, unlike application software. Application software, also known as an application or an app , is computer software designed to help the user perform specific tasks. Examples include enterprise software , accounting software , office suites , graphics software , and media players . Many application programs deal principally with documents . Apps may be bundled with
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#17330856112291764-502: A digital 3D record of their own products, or to assess competitors' products. It is used to analyze how a product works, what it does, what components it has; estimate costs; identify potential patent infringement; etc. Value engineering , a related activity that is also used by businesses, involves deconstructing and analyzing products. However, the objective is to find opportunities for cost-cutting. Reverse engineering of printed circuit boards involves recreating fabrication data for
1911-608: A hard disk that is bootable, but sometimes there is a removable-media drive that has higher boot priority, so the user can cause a removable disk to be booted. In most modern BIOSes, the boot priority order can be configured by the user. In older BIOSes, limited boot priority options are selectable; in the earliest BIOSes, a fixed priority scheme was implemented, with floppy disk drives first, fixed disks (i.e., hard disks) second, and typically no other boot devices supported, subject to modification of these rules by installed option ROMs. The BIOS in an early PC also usually would only boot from
2058-679: A lot in common with reverse engineering. The tester usually has the API but has the goals to find bugs and undocumented features by bashing the product from outside. Other purposes of reverse engineering include security auditing, removal of copy protection (" cracking "), circumvention of access restrictions often present in consumer electronics , customization of embedded systems (such as engine management systems), in-house repairs or retrofits, enabling of additional features on low-cost "crippled" hardware (such as some graphics card chip-sets), or even mere satisfaction of curiosity. Binary reverse engineering
2205-449: A mesh and to recover the design intent in terms of simple analytical surfaces where appropriate ( planes , cylinders , etc.) as well as possibly NURBS surfaces to produce a boundary-representation CAD model. Recovery of such a model allows a design to be modified to meet new requirements, a manufacturing plan to be generated, etc. Hybrid modeling is a commonly used term when NURBS and parametric modeling are implemented together. Using
2352-558: A message like "No bootable disk found"; some would prompt for a disk to be inserted and a key to be pressed to retry the boot process. A modern BIOS may display nothing or may automatically enter the BIOS configuration utility when the boot process fails. The environment for the boot program is very simple: the CPU is in real mode and the general-purpose and segment registers are undefined, except SS, SP, CS, and DL. CS:IP always points to physical address 0x07C00 . What values CS and IP actually have
2499-532: A network device or a SCSI adapter) in a cooperative way, it can use the BIOS Boot Specification (BBS) API to register its ability to do so. Once the expansion ROMs have registered using the BBS APIs, the user can select among the available boot options from within the BIOS's user interface. This is why most BBS compliant PC BIOS implementations will not allow the user to enter the BIOS's user interface until
2646-500: A particular circuit board. This is done primarily to identify a design, and learn the functional and structural characteristics of a design. It also allows for the discovery of the design principles behind a product, especially if this design information is not easily available. Outdated PCBs are often subject to reverse engineering, especially when they perform highly critical functions such as powering machinery, or other electronic components. Reverse engineering these old parts can allow
2793-422: A portion of the " upper memory area " (the part of the x86 real-mode address space at and above address 0xA0000) and runs each ROM found, in order. To discover memory-mapped option ROMs, a BIOS implementation scans the real-mode address space from 0x0C0000 to 0x0F0000 on 2 KB (2,048 bytes) boundaries, looking for a two-byte ROM signature : 0x55 followed by 0xAA. In a valid expansion ROM, this signature
2940-399: A previously made device, process, system, or piece of software accomplishes a task with very little (if any) insight into exactly how it does so. Depending on the system under consideration and the technologies employed, the knowledge gained during reverse engineering can help with repurposing obsolete objects, doing security analysis, or learning how something works. Although the process
3087-480: A process or artifact in which the manner of its construction, use, or internal processes has not been made clear by its creator. Patented items do not of themselves have to be reverse-engineered to be studied, for the essence of a patent is that inventors provide a detailed public disclosure themselves, and in return receive legal protection of the invention that is involved. However, an item produced under one or more patents could also include other technology that
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#17330856112293234-416: A program may reverse-engineer and circumvent its protection if that is necessary to achieve "interoperability", a term that broadly covers other devices and programs that can interact with it, make use of it, and to use and transfer data to and from it in useful ways. A limited exemption exists that allows the knowledge thus gained to be shared and used for interoperability purposes. EU Directive 2009/24 on
3381-402: A reproduction of the code and translation of its form are indispensable to obtain the necessary information to achieve the interoperability of an independently created program with other programs. It has therefore to be considered that, in these limited circumstances only, performance of the acts of reproduction and translation by or on behalf of a person having a right to use a copy of the program
3528-458: A reserved block of system RAM at addresses 0x00400–0x004FF with various parameters initialized during the POST. All memory at and above address 0x00500 can be used by the boot program; it may even overwrite itself. The BIOS ROM is customized to the particular manufacturer's hardware, allowing low-level services (such as reading a keystroke or writing a sector of data to diskette) to be provided in
3675-458: A set of instructions called a computer program . The program has an executable form that the computer can use directly to execute the instructions. The same program in its human-readable source code form, enables a programmer to study and develop a sequence of steps known as an algorithm . Because the instructions can be carried out in different types of computers, a single set of source instructions converts to machine instructions according to
3822-500: A simple boot loader in its ROM.) Versions of MS-DOS , PC DOS or DR-DOS contain a file called variously " IO.SYS ", " IBMBIO.COM ", "IBMBIO.SYS", or "DRBIOS.SYS"; this file is known as the "DOS BIOS" (also known as the "DOS I/O System") and contains the lower-level hardware-specific part of the operating system. Together with the underlying hardware-specific but operating system-independent "System BIOS", which resides in ROM , it represents
3969-605: A software licensing description table (SLIC), a digital signature placed inside the BIOS by the original equipment manufacturer (OEM), for example Dell . The SLIC is inserted into the ACPI data table and contains no active code. Computer manufacturers that distribute OEM versions of Microsoft Windows and Microsoft application software can use the SLIC to authenticate licensing to the OEM Windows Installation disk and system recovery disc containing Windows software. Systems with
4116-454: A standardized way to programs, including operating systems. For example, an IBM PC might have either a monochrome or a color display adapter (using different display memory addresses and hardware), but a single, standard, BIOS system call may be invoked to display a character at a specified position on the screen in text mode or graphics mode . The BIOS provides a small library of basic input/output functions to operate peripherals (such as
4263-435: A superposition, i.e. in both states of one and zero, simultaneously. Thus, the value of the qubit is not between 1 and 0, but changes depending on when it is measured. This trait of qubits is known as quantum entanglement , and is the core idea of quantum computing that allows quantum computers to do large scale computations. Quantum computing is often used for scientific research in cases where traditional computers do not have
4410-462: Is Windows 10 as Windows 11 requires a UEFI-compliant system (except for IoT Enterprise editions of Windows 11 since version 24H2). The term BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) was created by Gary Kildall and first appeared in the CP/M operating system in 1975, describing the machine-specific part of CP/M loaded during boot time that interfaces directly with the hardware . (A CP/M machine usually has only
4557-421: Is spintronics . Spintronics can provide computing power and storage, without heat buildup. Some research is being done on hybrid chips, which combine photonics and spintronics. There is also research ongoing on combining plasmonics , photonics, and electronics. Cloud computing is a model that allows for the use of computing resources, such as servers or applications, without the need for interaction between
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4704-460: Is a discipline that integrates several fields of electrical engineering and computer science required to develop computer hardware and software. Computer engineers usually have training in electronic engineering (or electrical engineering ), software design , and hardware-software integration, rather than just software engineering or electronic engineering. Computer engineers are involved in many hardware and software aspects of computing, from
4851-414: Is a person who writes computer software. The term computer programmer can refer to a specialist in one area of computer programming or to a generalist who writes code for many kinds of software. One who practices or professes a formal approach to programming may also be known as a programmer analyst. A programmer's primary computer language ( C , C++ , Java , Lisp , Python , etc.) is often prefixed to
4998-409: Is also synonymous with counting and calculating . In earlier times, it was used in reference to the action performed by mechanical computing machines , and before that, to human computers . The history of computing is longer than the history of computing hardware and includes the history of methods intended for pen and paper (or for chalk and slate) with or without the aid of tables. Computing
5145-414: Is an area of research that brings together the disciplines of computer science, information theory, and quantum physics. While the idea of information as part of physics is relatively new, there appears to be a strong tie between information theory and quantum mechanics. Whereas traditional computing operates on a binary system of ones and zeros, quantum computing uses qubits . Qubits are capable of being in
5292-417: Is an invasive and destructive form of analyzing a smart card . The attacker uses chemicals to etch away layer after layer of the smart card and takes pictures with a scanning electron microscope (SEM). That technique can reveal the complete hardware and software part of the smart card. The major problem for the attacker is to bring everything into the right order to find out how everything works. The makers of
5439-494: Is being used mostly for long and thorough reverse engineering tasks (complete analysis of a complex algorithm or big piece of software). In general, statistical classification is considered to be a hard problem, which is also true for software classification, and so few solutions/tools that handle this task well. A number of UML tools refer to the process of importing and analysing source code to generate UML diagrams as "reverse engineering". See List of UML tools . Although UML
5586-405: Is bootable by attempting to load the first sector ( boot sector ). If the sector cannot be read, the BIOS proceeds to the next device. If the sector is read successfully, some BIOSes will also check for the boot sector signature 0x55 0xAA in the last two bytes of the sector (which is 512 bytes long), before accepting a boot sector and considering the device bootable. When a bootable device is found,
5733-423: Is computer software designed to operate and control computer hardware, and to provide a platform for running application software. System software includes operating systems , utility software , device drivers , window systems , and firmware . Frequently used development tools such as compilers , linkers , and debuggers are classified as system software. System software and middleware manage and integrate
5880-476: Is denoted CMOS-integrated nanophotonics (CINP). One benefit of optical interconnects is that motherboards, which formerly required a certain kind of system on a chip (SoC), can now move formerly dedicated memory and network controllers off the motherboards, spreading the controllers out onto the rack. This allows standardization of backplane interconnects and motherboards for multiple types of SoCs, which allows more timely upgrades of CPUs. Another field of research
6027-449: Is followed by a single byte indicating the number of 512-byte blocks the expansion ROM occupies in real memory, and the next byte is the option ROM's entry point (also known as its "entry offset"). If the ROM has a valid checksum, the BIOS transfers control to the entry address, which in a normal BIOS extension ROM should be the beginning of the extension's initialization routine. At this point,
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6174-473: Is generally available only to large chip manufacturers. Furthermore, the payoff from this attack is low since other security techniques are often used such as shadow accounts. It is still uncertain whether attacks against chip-and-PIN cards to replicate encryption data and then to crack PINs would provide a cost-effective attack on multifactor authentication. Full reverse engineering proceeds in several major steps. The first step after images have been taken with
6321-485: Is intimately tied to the representation of numbers, though mathematical concepts necessary for computing existed before numeral systems . The earliest known tool for use in computation is the abacus , and it is thought to have been invented in Babylon circa between 2700 and 2300 BC. Abaci, of a more modern design, are still used as calculation tools today. The first recorded proposal for using digital electronics in computing
6468-710: Is its potential to support energy efficiency. Allowing thousands of instances of computation to occur on one single machine instead of thousands of individual machines could help save energy. It could also ease the transition to renewable energy source, since it would suffice to power one server farm with renewable energy, rather than millions of homes and offices. However, this centralized computing model poses several challenges, especially in security and privacy. Current legislation does not sufficiently protect users from companies mishandling their data on company servers. This suggests potential for further legislative regulations on cloud computing and tech companies. Quantum computing
6615-493: Is known to be NP-complete , but online learning can be done in polynomial time. An automatic offline approach has been demonstrated by Comparetti et al. and an online approach by Cho et al. Other components of typical protocols, like encryption and hash functions, can be reverse-engineered automatically as well. Typically, the automatic approaches trace the execution of protocol implementations and try to detect buffers in memory holding unencrypted packets. Reverse engineering
6762-400: Is legitimate and compatible with fair practice and must therefore be deemed not to require the authorisation of the rightholder. An objective of this exception is to make it possible to connect all components of a computer system, including those of different manufacturers, so that they can work together. Such an exception to the author's exclusive rights may not be used in a way which prejudices
6909-523: Is not patented and not disclosed. Indeed, one common motivation of reverse engineering is to determine whether a competitor's product contains patent infringement or copyright infringement . In the United States, even if an artifact or process is protected by trade secrets , reverse-engineering the artifact or process is often lawful if it has been legitimately obtained. Reverse engineering of computer software often falls under both contract law as
7056-555: Is not well defined. Some BIOSes use a CS:IP of 0x0000:0x7C00 while others may use 0x07C0:0x0000 . Because boot programs are always loaded at this fixed address, there is no need for a boot program to be relocatable. DL may contain the drive number, as used with interrupt 13h , of the boot device. SS:SP points to a valid stack that is presumably large enough to support hardware interrupts, but otherwise SS and SP are undefined. (A stack must be already set up in order for interrupts to be serviced, and interrupts must be enabled in order for
7203-545: Is one approach in providing "reverse engineering" more recent advances in international standards activities have resulted in the development of the Knowledge Discovery Metamodel (KDM). The standard delivers an ontology for the intermediate (or abstracted) representation of programming language constructs and their interrelationships. An Object Management Group standard (on its way to becoming an ISO standard as well), KDM has started to take hold in industry with
7350-462: Is performed each time the system is powered up. Without reprogrammable microcode, an expensive processor swap would be required; for example, the Pentium FDIV bug became an expensive fiasco for Intel as it required a product recall because the original Pentium processor's defective microcode could not be reprogrammed. Operating systems can update main processor microcode also. Some BIOSes contain
7497-595: Is performed if source code for a software is unavailable. This process is sometimes termed reverse code engineering , or RCE. For example, decompilation of binaries for the Java platform can be accomplished by using Jad. One famous case of reverse engineering was the first non- IBM implementation of the PC BIOS , which launched the historic IBM PC compatible industry that has been the overwhelmingly-dominant computer hardware platform for many years. Reverse engineering of software
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#17330856112297644-528: Is protected in the US by the fair use exception in copyright law . The Samba software , which allows systems that do not run Microsoft Windows systems to share files with systems that run it, is a classic example of software reverse engineering since the Samba project had to reverse-engineer unpublished information about how Windows file sharing worked so that non-Windows computers could emulate it. The Wine project does
7791-529: Is rebooting. When interrupt 19h is called, the BIOS attempts to locate boot loader software on a "boot device", such as a hard disk , a floppy disk , CD , or DVD . It loads and executes the first boot software it finds, giving it control of the PC. The BIOS uses the boot devices set in Nonvolatile BIOS memory ( CMOS ), or, in the earliest PCs, DIP switches . The BIOS checks each device in order to see if it
7938-404: Is reverse-engineered back to the analysis phase, in an inversion of the traditional waterfall model . Another term for this technique is program comprehension . The Working Conference on Reverse Engineering (WCRE) has been held yearly to explore and expand the techniques of reverse engineering. Computer-aided software engineering (CASE) and automated code generation have contributed greatly in
8085-480: Is running. The interrupt vectors corresponding to the BIOS interrupts have been set to point at the appropriate entry points in the BIOS, hardware interrupt vectors for devices initialized by the BIOS have been set to point to the BIOS-provided ISRs, and some other interrupts, including ones that BIOS generates for programs to hook, have been set to a default dummy ISR that immediately returns. The BIOS maintains
8232-559: Is sometimes considered a sub-discipline of electrical engineering , telecommunications, computer science , information technology, or computer engineering , since it relies upon the theoretical and practical application of these disciplines. The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users. This includes millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks, ranging in scope from local to global. These networks are linked by
8379-404: Is specific to the object on which it is being performed, all reverse engineering processes consist of three basic steps: information extraction, modeling, and review. Information extraction is the practice of gathering all relevant information for performing the operation. Modeling is the practice of combining the gathered information into an abstract model, which can be used as a guide for designing
8526-455: Is tested by genetic perturbation experiments followed by dynamic modelling, based on the principle that removing one network node has predictable effects on the functioning of the remaining nodes of the network. Applications of the reverse engineering of gene networks range from understanding mechanisms of plant physiology to the highlighting of new targets for anticancer therapy. Reverse engineering applies primarily to gaining understanding of
8673-687: Is the application of computers and telecommunications equipment to store, retrieve, transmit, and manipulate data, often in the context of a business or other enterprise. The term is commonly used as a synonym for computers and computer networks, but also encompasses other information distribution technologies such as television and telephones. Several industries are associated with information technology, including computer hardware, software, electronics , semiconductors , internet, telecom equipment , e-commerce , and computer services . DNA-based computing and quantum computing are areas of active research for both computing hardware and software, such as
8820-418: Is the creation of new representation of the computer code so that it is easier to understand. Meanwhile, design recovery is the use of deduction or reasoning from general knowledge or personal experience of the product to understand the product's functionality fully. It can also be seen as "going backwards through the development cycle". In this model, the output of the implementation phase (in source code form)
8967-420: Is the process of identifying similarities between different software binaries (such as two different versions of the same binary) used to detect code relations between software samples. The task was traditionally done manually for several reasons (such as patch analysis for vulnerability detection and copyright infringement ), but it can now be done somewhat automatically for large numbers of samples. This method
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#17330856112299114-509: Is the study of complementary networks of hardware and software (see information technology) that people and organizations use to collect, filter, process, create, and distribute data . The ACM 's Computing Careers describes IS as: "A majority of IS [degree] programs are located in business schools; however, they may have different names such as management information systems, computer information systems, or business information systems. All IS degrees combine business and computing topics, but
9261-449: Is thus often developed by a team of domain experts, each a specialist in some area of development. However, the term programmer may apply to a range of program quality, from hacker to open source contributor to professional. It is also possible for a single programmer to do most or all of the computer programming needed to generate the proof of concept to launch a new killer application . A programmer, computer programmer, or coder
9408-658: Is unique among PCs in having two ROM cartridge slots on the front. Cartridges in these slots map into the same region of the upper memory area used for option ROMs, and the cartridges can contain option ROM modules that the BIOS would recognize. The cartridges can also contain other types of ROM modules, such as BASIC programs, that are handled differently. One PCjr cartridge can contain several ROM modules of different types, possibly stored together in one ROM chip. The 8086 and 8088 start at physical address FFFF0h. The 80286 starts at physical address FFFFF0h. The 80386 and later x86 processors start at physical address FFFFFFF0h. When
9555-429: Is written in a programming language , which is an artificial language that is often more restrictive than natural languages , but easily translated by the computer. Programming is used to invoke some desired behavior (customization) from the machine. Writing high-quality source code requires knowledge of both the computer science domain and the domain in which the application will be used. The highest-quality software
9702-554: The CPU type. The execution process carries out the instructions in a computer program. Instructions express the computations performed by the computer. They trigger sequences of simple actions on the executing machine. Those actions produce effects according to the semantics of the instructions. Computer hardware includes the physical parts of a computer, including the central processing unit , memory , and input/output . Computational logic and computer architecture are key topics in
9849-561: The CPU , chipset , RAM , motherboard , video card , keyboard , mouse , hard disk drive , optical disc drive and other hardware , including integrated peripherals . Early IBM PCs had a routine in the POST that would download a program into RAM through the keyboard port and run it. This feature was intended for factory test or diagnostic purposes. After the motherboard BIOS completes its POST, most BIOS versions search for option ROM modules, also called BIOS extension ROMs, and execute them. The motherboard BIOS scans for extension ROMs in
9996-444: The function of the program it implements, either by directly providing instructions to the computer hardware or by serving as input to another piece of software. The term was coined to contrast with the old term hardware (meaning physical devices). In contrast to hardware, software is intangible. Software is also sometimes used in a more narrow sense, meaning application software only. System software, or systems software,
10143-423: The "first sector" of a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM is not a simply defined operation like it is on a floppy disk or a hard disk. Furthermore, the complexity of the medium makes it difficult to write a useful boot program in one sector. The bootable virtual floppy disk can contain software that provides access to the optical medium in its native format. If an expansion ROM wishes to change the way the system boots (such as from
10290-467: The "subject system" is the end product of software development. Reverse engineering is a process of examination only, and the software system under consideration is not modified, which would otherwise be re-engineering or restructuring. Reverse engineering can be performed from any stage of the product cycle, not necessarily from the functional end product. There are two components in reverse engineering: redocumentation and design recovery. Redocumentation
10437-430: The 1980s under MS-DOS , when programmers observed that using the BIOS video services for graphics display were very slow. To increase the speed of screen output, many programs bypassed the BIOS and programmed the video display hardware directly. Other graphics programmers, particularly but not exclusively in the demoscene , observed that there were technical capabilities of the PC display adapters that were not supported by
10584-424: The BIOS after completing its initialization process. Once (and if) an option ROM returns, the BIOS continues searching for more option ROMs, calling each as it is found, until the entire option ROM area in the memory space has been scanned. It is possible that an option ROM will not return to BIOS, pre-empting the BIOS's boot sequence altogether. After the POST completes and, in a BIOS that supports option ROMs, after
10731-407: The BIOS interrupt calls after startup. Most BIOS implementations are specifically designed to work with a particular computer or motherboard model, by interfacing with various devices especially system chipset . Originally, BIOS firmware was stored in a ROM chip on the PC motherboard. In later computer systems, the BIOS contents are stored on flash memory so it can be rewritten without removing
10878-600: The BIOS to carry out most input/output tasks within the PC. Calling real mode BIOS services directly is inefficient for protected mode (and long mode ) operating systems. BIOS interrupt calls are not used by modern multitasking operating systems after they initially load. In the 1990s, BIOS provided some protected mode interfaces for Microsoft Windows and Unix-like operating systems, such as Advanced Power Management (APM), Plug and Play BIOS , Desktop Management Interface (DMI), VESA BIOS Extensions (VBE), e820 and MultiProcessor Specification (MPS). Starting from
11025-408: The BIOS transfers control to the loaded sector. The BIOS does not interpret the contents of the boot sector other than to possibly check for the boot sector signature in the last two bytes. Interpretation of data structures like partition tables and BIOS Parameter Blocks is done by the boot program in the boot sector itself or by other programs loaded through the boot process. A non-disk device such as
11172-630: The BIOS. Code in option ROMs runs before the BIOS boots the operating system from mass storage . These ROMs typically test and initialize hardware, add new BIOS services, or replace existing BIOS services with their own services. For example, a SCSI controller usually has a BIOS extension ROM that adds support for hard drives connected through that controller. An extension ROM could in principle contain operating system, or it could implement an entirely different boot process such as network booting . Operation of an IBM-compatible computer system can be completely changed by removing or inserting an adapter card (or
11319-696: The IBM BIOS and could not be taken advantage of without circumventing it. Since the AT-compatible BIOS ran in Intel real mode , operating systems that ran in protected mode on 286 and later processors required hardware device drivers compatible with protected mode operation to replace BIOS services. In modern PCs running modern operating systems (such as Windows and Linux ) the BIOS interrupt calls are used only during booting and initial loading of operating systems. Before
11466-880: The above titles, and those who work in a web environment often prefix their titles with Web . The term programmer can be used to refer to a software developer , software engineer, computer scientist , or software analyst . However, members of these professions typically possess other software engineering skills, beyond programming. The computer industry is made up of businesses involved in developing computer software, designing computer hardware and computer networking infrastructures, manufacturing computer components, and providing information technology services, including system administration and maintenance. The software industry includes businesses engaged in development , maintenance , and publication of software. The industry also includes software services , such as training , documentation , and consulting. Computer engineering
11613-542: The analogue to the " CP/M BIOS ". The BIOS originally proprietary to the IBM PC has been reverse engineered by some companies (such as Phoenix Technologies ) looking to create compatible systems. With the introduction of PS/2 machines, IBM divided the System BIOS into real- and protected-mode portions. The real-mode portion was meant to provide backward compatibility with existing operating systems such as DOS, and therefore
11760-404: The analysis of hardware for commercial or military advantage. However, the reverse engineering process may not always be concerned with creating a copy or changing the artifact in some way. It may be used as part of an analysis to deduce design features from products with little or no additional knowledge about the procedures involved in their original production. In some cases, the goal of
11907-499: The boot sequence by inserting its own boot actions into it, by preventing the BIOS from detecting certain devices as bootable, or both. Before the BIOS Boot Specification was promulgated, this was the only way for expansion ROMs to implement boot capability for devices not supported for booting by the native BIOS of the motherboard. The user can select the boot priority implemented by the BIOS. For example, most computers have
12054-409: The broad language set as well as evolution. KDM is compatible with UML, BPMN, RDF, and other standards enabling migration into other environments and thus leverage system knowledge for efforts such as software system transformation and enterprise business layer analysis. Protocols are sets of rules that describe message formats and how messages are exchanged: the protocol state machine . Accordingly,
12201-454: The card is not supported by the motherboard BIOS and the card needs to be initialized or made accessible through BIOS services before the operating system can be loaded (usually this means it is required in the boot process). An additional advantage of ROM on some early PC systems (notably including the IBM PCjr) was that ROM was faster than main system RAM. (On modern systems, the case is very much
12348-404: The card try to hide keys and operations by mixing up memory positions, such as by bus scrambling. In some cases, it is even possible to attach a probe to measure voltages while the smart card is still operational. The makers of the card employ sensors to detect and prevent that attack. That attack is not very common because it requires both a large investment in effort and special equipment that
12495-457: The challenges in implementing computations. For example, programming language theory studies approaches to the description of computations, while the study of computer programming investigates the use of programming languages and complex systems . The field of human–computer interaction focuses on the challenges in making computers and computations useful, usable, and universally accessible to humans. The field of cybersecurity pertains to
12642-771: The chip from the motherboard. This allows easy, end-user updates to the BIOS firmware so new features can be added or bugs can be fixed, but it also creates a possibility for the computer to become infected with BIOS rootkits . Furthermore, a BIOS upgrade that fails could brick the motherboard. Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) is a successor to the legacy PC BIOS, aiming to address its technical limitations. UEFI firmware may include legacy BIOS compatibility to maintain compatibility with operating systems and option cards that do not support UEFI native operation. Since 2020, all PCs for Intel platforms no longer support Legacy BIOS. The last version of Microsoft Windows to officially support running on PCs which use legacy BIOS firmware
12789-560: The computer and its system software, or may be published separately. Some users are satisfied with the bundled apps and need never install additional applications. The system software manages the hardware and serves the application, which in turn serves the user. Application software applies the power of a particular computing platform or system software to a particular purpose. Some apps, such as Microsoft Office , are developed in multiple versions for several different platforms; others have narrower requirements and are generally referred to by
12936-501: The computer's motherboard . The name originates from the Basic Input/Output System used in the CP/M operating system in 1975. The BIOS firmware was originally proprietary to the IBM PC ; it was reverse engineered by some companies (such as Phoenix Technologies ) looking to create compatible systems. The interface of that original system serves as a de facto standard . The BIOS in older PCs initializes and tests
13083-484: The computer, and if it was lost the system settings could not be changed. The same applied in general to computers with an EISA bus, for which the configuration program was called an EISA Configuration Utility (ECU). A modern Wintel -compatible computer provides a setup routine essentially unchanged in nature from the ROM-resident BIOS setup utilities of the late 1990s; the user can configure hardware options using
13230-490: The computing power to do the necessary calculations, such in molecular modeling . Large molecules and their reactions are far too complex for traditional computers to calculate, but the computational power of quantum computers could provide a tool to perform such calculations. Reverse engineer Reverse engineering (also known as backwards engineering or back engineering ) is a process or method through which one attempts to understand through deductive reasoning how
13377-427: The correlation of the various layers of system knowledge for either detailed analysis (such as root cause, impact) or derived analysis (such as business process extraction). Although efforts to represent language constructs can be never-ending because of the number of languages, the continuous evolution of software languages, and the development of new languages, the standard does allow for the use of extensions to support
13524-448: The design of individual microprocessors , personal computers, and supercomputers , to circuit design . This field of engineering includes not only the design of hardware within its own domain, but also the interactions between hardware and the context in which it operates. Software engineering is the application of a systematic, disciplined, and quantifiable approach to the design, development, operation, and maintenance of software, and
13671-414: The development of quantum algorithms . Potential infrastructure for future technologies includes DNA origami on photolithography and quantum antennae for transferring information between ion traps. By 2011, researchers had entangled 14 qubits . Fast digital circuits , including those based on Josephson junctions and rapid single flux quantum technology, are becoming more nearly realizable with
13818-415: The development of tools and analysis environments that can deliver the extraction and analysis of source, binary, and byte code. For source code analysis, KDM's granular standards' architecture enables the extraction of software system flows (data, control, and call maps), architectures, and business layer knowledge (rules, terms, and process). The standard enables the use of a common data format (XMI) enabling
13965-439: The device's configuration using default values. In addition, plug-in adapter cards such as SCSI , RAID , network interface cards , and video cards often include their own BIOS (e.g. Video BIOS ), complementing or replacing the system BIOS code for the given component. Even devices built into the motherboard can behave in this way; their option ROMs can be a part of the motherboard BIOS. An add-in card requires an option ROM if
14112-437: The discovery of nanoscale superconductors . Fiber-optic and photonic (optical) devices, which already have been used to transport data over long distances, are starting to be used by data centers, along with CPU and semiconductor memory components. This allows the separation of RAM from CPU by optical interconnects. IBM has created an integrated circuit with both electronic and optical information processing in one chip. This
14259-686: The emphasis between technical and organizational issues varies among programs. For example, programs differ substantially in the amount of programming required." The study of IS bridges business and computer science , using the theoretical foundations of information and computation to study various business models and related algorithmic processes within a computer science discipline. The field of Computer Information Systems (CIS) studies computers and algorithmic processes, including their principles, their software and hardware designs, their applications, and their impact on society while IS emphasizes functionality over design. Information technology (IT)
14406-644: The engineering paradigm. The generally accepted concepts of Software Engineering as an engineering discipline have been specified in the Guide to the Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK). The SWEBOK has become an internationally accepted standard in ISO/IEC TR 19759:2015. Computer science or computing science (abbreviated CS or Comp Sci) is the scientific and practical approach to computation and its applications. A computer scientist specializes in
14553-479: The expansion ROMs have finished executing and registering themselves with the BBS API. Also, if an expansion ROM wishes to change the way the system boots unilaterally, it can simply hook interrupt 19h or other interrupts normally called from interrupt 19h, such as interrupt 13h, the BIOS disk service, to intercept the BIOS boot process. Then it can replace the BIOS boot process with one of its own, or it can merely modify
14700-416: The extension ROM code takes over, typically testing and initializing the hardware it controls and registering interrupt vectors for use by post-boot applications. It may use BIOS services (including those provided by previously initialized option ROMs) to provide a user configuration interface, to display diagnostic information, or to do anything else that it requires. An option ROM should normally return to
14847-434: The field of computer hardware. Computer software, or just software , is a collection of computer programs and related data, which provides instructions to a computer. Software refers to one or more computer programs and data held in the storage of the computer. It is a set of programs, procedures, algorithms, as well as its documentation concerned with the operation of a data processing system. Program software performs
14994-464: The field of reverse engineering. Software anti-tamper technology like obfuscation is used to deter both reverse engineering and re-engineering of proprietary software and software-powered systems. In practice, two main types of reverse engineering emerge. In the first case, source code is already available for the software, but higher-level aspects of the program, which are perhaps poorly documented or documented but no longer valid, are discovered. In
15141-671: The fields or by intelligence operations. It was often used during the Second World War and the Cold War . Here are well-known examples from the Second World War and later: Reverse engineering concepts have been applied to biology as well, specifically to the task of understanding the structure and function of gene regulatory networks . They regulate almost every aspect of biological behavior and allow cells to carry out physiological processes and responses to perturbations. Understanding
15288-465: The first floppy disk drive or the first hard disk drive, even if there were two drives installed. On the original IBM PC and XT, if no bootable disk was found, the BIOS would try to start ROM BASIC with the interrupt call to interrupt 18h . Since few programs used BASIC in ROM, clone PC makers left it out; then a computer that failed to boot from a disk would display "No ROM BASIC" and halt (in response to interrupt 18h). Later computers would display
15435-442: The first silicon dioxide field effect transistors at Bell Labs, the first transistors in which drain and source were adjacent at the surface. Subsequently, a team demonstrated a working MOSFET at Bell Labs 1960. The MOSFET made it possible to build high-density integrated circuits , leading to what is known as the computer revolution or microcomputer revolution . A computer is a machine that manipulates data according to
15582-511: The first working transistor , the point-contact transistor , in 1947. In 1953, the University of Manchester built the first transistorized computer , the Manchester Baby . However, early junction transistors were relatively bulky devices that were difficult to mass-produce, which limited them to a number of specialised applications. In 1957, Frosch and Derick were able to manufacture
15729-639: The full contents of a Windows system's live memory including a binary-level, graphical reverse engineering of all running processes. Another classic, if not well-known, example is that in 1987 Bell Laboratories reverse-engineered the Mac OS System 4.1, originally running on the Apple Macintosh SE , so that it could run it on RISC machines of their own. Reverse engineering of software can be accomplished by various methods. The three main groups of software reverse engineering are Software classification
15876-418: The important circuitry and separates it from the uninteresting background and insulating materials. Finally, the wires can be traced from one layer to the next, and the netlist of the circuit, which contains all of the circuit's information, can be reconstructed. Reverse engineering is often used by people to copy other nations' technologies, devices, or information that have been obtained by regular troops in
16023-486: The initial. Then, the schematics for the circuit are finally generated using an appropriate tool. In 1990, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) defined (software) reverse engineering (SRE) as "the process of analyzing a subject system to identify the system's components and their interrelationships and to create representations of the system in another form or at a higher level of abstraction" in which
16170-403: The keyboard and video display. The modern Wintel machine may store the BIOS configuration settings in flash ROM, perhaps the same flash ROM that holds the BIOS itself. Peripheral cards such as hard disk drive host bus adapters and video cards have their own firmware, and BIOS extension option ROM code may be a part of the expansion card firmware; that code provides additional capabilities in
16317-654: The keyboard, rudimentary text and graphics display functions and so forth). When using MS-DOS, BIOS services could be accessed by an application program (or by MS-DOS) by executing an interrupt 13h interrupt instruction to access disk functions, or by executing one of a number of other documented BIOS interrupt calls to access video display , keyboard , cassette, and other device functions. Operating systems and executive software that are designed to supersede this basic firmware functionality provide replacement software interfaces to application software. Applications can also provide these services to themselves. This began even in
16464-476: The legal protection of computer programs, which superseded an earlier (1991) directive, governs reverse engineering in the European Union . The unauthorised reproduction, translation, adaptation or transformation of the form of the code in which a copy of a computer program has been made available constitutes an infringement of the exclusive rights of the author. Nevertheless, circumstances may exist when such
16611-457: The new PCB. The quality of these images that is necessary for suitable reverse engineering is proportional to the complexity of the PCB itself. More complicated PCBs require well lighted photos on dark backgrounds, while fairly simple PCBs can be recreated simply with just basic dimensioning. Each layer of the PCB is carefully recreated in the software with the intent of producing a final design as close to
16758-436: The new object or system. Review is the testing of the model to ensure the validity of the chosen abstract. Reverse engineering is applicable in the fields of computer engineering , mechanical engineering , design , electronic engineering , software engineering , chemical engineering , and systems biology . There are many reasons for performing reverse engineering in various fields. Reverse engineering has its origins in
16905-526: The operating system's first graphical screen is displayed, input and output are typically handled through BIOS. A boot menu such as the textual menu of Windows, which allows users to choose an operating system to boot, to boot into the safe mode , or to use the last known good configuration, is displayed through BIOS and receives keyboard input through BIOS. Many modern PCs can still boot and run legacy operating systems such as MS-DOS or DR-DOS that rely heavily on BIOS for their console and disk I/O, providing that
17052-425: The option ROM scan is completed and all detected ROM modules with valid checksums have been called, the BIOS calls interrupt 19h to start boot processing. Post-boot, programs loaded can also call interrupt 19h to reboot the system, but they must be careful to disable interrupts and other asynchronous hardware processes that may interfere with the BIOS rebooting process, or else the system may hang or crash while it
17199-460: The owner of these resources and the end user. It is typically offered as a service, making it an example of Software as a Service , Platforms as a Service , and Infrastructure as a Service , depending on the functionality offered. Key characteristics include on-demand access, broad network access, and the capability of rapid scaling. It allows individual users or small business to benefit from economies of scale . One area of interest in this field
17346-480: The platform they run on. For example, a geography application for Windows or an Android application for education or Linux gaming . Applications that run only on one platform and increase the desirability of that platform due to the popularity of the application, known as killer applications . A computer network, often simply referred to as a network, is a collection of hardware components and computers interconnected by communication channels that allow
17493-538: The point of successfully initializing a video display adapter. Options on the IBM PC and XT were set by switches and jumpers on the main board and on expansion cards . Starting around the mid-1990s, it became typical for the BIOS ROM to include a "BIOS configuration utility" (BCU) or "BIOS setup utility", accessed at system power-up by a particular key sequence. This program allowed the user to set system configuration options, of
17640-500: The problem of protocol reverse-engineering can be partitioned into two subproblems: message format and state-machine reverse-engineering. The message formats have traditionally been reverse-engineered by a tedious manual process, which involved analysis of how protocol implementations process messages, but recent research proposed a number of automatic solutions. Typically, the automatic approaches group observe messages into clusters by using various clustering analyses , or they emulate
17787-522: The protection of computer systems and networks. This includes information and data privacy , preventing disruption of IT services and prevention of theft of and damage to hardware, software, and data. Data science is a field that uses scientific and computing tools to extract information and insights from data, driven by the increasing volume and availability of data. Data mining , big data , statistics, machine learning and deep learning are all interwoven with data science. Information systems (IS)
17934-582: The protocol implementation tracing the message processing. There has been less work on reverse-engineering of state-machines of protocols. In general, the protocol state-machines can be learned either through a process of offline learning , which passively observes communication and attempts to build the most general state-machine accepting all observed sequences of messages, and online learning , which allows interactive generation of probing sequences of messages and listening to responses to those probing sequences. In general, offline learning of small state-machines
18081-423: The reconstruction of the PCB if it performs some crucial task, as well as finding alternatives which provide the same function, or in upgrading the old PCB. Reverse engineering PCBs largely follow the same series of steps. First, images are created by drawing, scanning, or taking photographs of the PCB. Then, these images are ported to suitable reverse engineering software in order to create a rudimentary design for
18228-583: The reverse engineering process can simply be a redocumentation of legacy systems . Even when the reverse-engineered product is that of a competitor, the goal may not be to copy it but to perform competitor analysis . Reverse engineering may also be used to create interoperable products and despite some narrowly-tailored United States and European Union legislation, the legality of using specific reverse engineering techniques for that purpose has been hotly contested in courts worldwide for more than two decades. Software reverse engineering can help to improve
18375-610: The reverse of this, and BIOS ROM code is usually copied ("shadowed") into RAM so it will run faster.) Option ROMs normally reside on adapter cards. However, the original PC, and perhaps also the PC XT, have a spare ROM socket on the motherboard (the "system board" in IBM's terms) into which an option ROM can be inserted, and the four ROMs that contain the BASIC interpreter can also be removed and replaced with custom ROMs which can be option ROMs. The IBM PCjr
18522-596: The rules and data formats for exchanging information in a computer network, and provide the basis for network programming . One well-known communications protocol is Ethernet , a hardware and link layer standard that is ubiquitous in local area networks . Another common protocol is the Internet Protocol Suite , which defines a set of protocols for internetworking, i.e. for data communication between multiple networks, host-to-host data transfer, and application-specific data transmission formats. Computer networking
18669-635: The same thing for the Windows API , and OpenOffice.org is one party doing that for the Microsoft Office file formats. The ReactOS project is even more ambitious in its goals by striving to provide binary (ABI and API) compatibility with the current Windows operating systems of the NT branch, which allows software and drivers written for Windows to run on a clean-room reverse-engineered free software ( GPL ) counterpart. WindowsSCOPE allows for reverse-engineering
18816-449: The sample, after etching, cannot be put into the exact same position relative to the SEM each time. Therefore, the stitched versions will not overlap in the correct fashion, as on the real circuit. Usually, three corresponding points are selected, and a transformation applied on the basis of that. To extract the circuit structure, the aligned, stitched images need to be segmented, which highlights
18963-431: The second case, there is no source code available for the software, and any efforts towards discovering one possible source code for the software are regarded as reverse engineering. The second usage of the term is more familiar to most people. Reverse engineering of software can make use of the clean room design technique to avoid copyright infringement. On a related note, black box testing in software engineering has
19110-454: The sharing of resources and information. When at least one process in one device is able to send or receive data to or from at least one process residing in a remote device, the two devices are said to be in a network. Networks may be classified according to a wide variety of characteristics such as the medium used to transport the data, communications protocol used, scale, topology , and organizational scope. Communications protocols define
19257-671: The stack set up by BIOS is unknown and its location is likewise variable; although the boot program can investigate the default stack by examining SS:SP, it is easier and shorter to just unconditionally set up a new stack. At boot time, all BIOS services are available, and the memory below address 0x00400 contains the interrupt vector table . BIOS POST has initialized the system timers, interrupt controller(s), DMA controller(s), and other motherboard/chipset hardware as necessary to bring all BIOS services to ready status. DRAM refresh for all system DRAM in conventional memory and extended memory, but not necessarily expanded memory, has been set up and
19404-430: The structure and the dynamic behavior of gene networks is therefore one of the paramount challenges of systems biology, with immediate practical repercussions in several applications that are beyond basic research. There are several methods for reverse engineering gene regulatory networks by using molecular biology and data science methods. They have been generally divided into six classes: Often, gene network reliability
19551-411: The study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and the development of both hardware and software. Computing has scientific, engineering, mathematical, technological, and social aspects. Major computing disciplines include computer engineering , computer science , cybersecurity , data science , information systems , information technology , and software engineering . The term computing
19698-442: The study of these approaches. That is, the application of engineering to software. It is the act of using insights to conceive, model and scale a solution to a problem. The first reference to the term is the 1968 NATO Software Engineering Conference , and was intended to provoke thought regarding the perceived software crisis at the time. Software development , a widely used and more generic term, does not necessarily subsume
19845-419: The system hardware components ( power-on self-test or POST for short), and loads a boot loader from a mass storage device which then initializes a kernel . In the era of DOS , the BIOS provided BIOS interrupt calls for the keyboard, display, storage, and other input/output (I/O) devices that standardized an interface to application programs and the operating system. More recent operating systems do not use
19992-528: The system has a BIOS, or a CSM-capable UEFI firmware. Intel processors have reprogrammable microcode since the P6 microarchitecture. AMD processors have reprogrammable microcode since the K7 microarchitecture. The BIOS contain patches to the processor microcode that fix errors in the initial processor microcode; microcode is loaded into processor's SRAM so reprogramming is not persistent, thus loading of microcode updates
20139-479: The system is initialized, the first instruction of the BIOS appears at that address. If the system has just been powered up or the reset button was pressed (" cold boot "), the full power-on self-test (POST) is run. If Ctrl+Alt+Delete was pressed (" warm boot "), a special flag value stored in nonvolatile BIOS memory (" CMOS ") tested by the BIOS allows bypass of the lengthy POST and memory detection. The POST identifies, tests and initializes system devices such as
20286-405: The system timer-tick interrupt, which BIOS always uses at least to maintain the time-of-day count and which it initializes during POST, to be active and for the keyboard to work. The keyboard works even if the BIOS keyboard service is not called; keystrokes are received and placed in the 15-character type-ahead buffer maintained by BIOS.) The boot program must set up its own stack, because the size of
20433-555: The system vulnerabilities. Reverse engineering is also being used in cryptanalysis to find vulnerabilities in substitution cipher , symmetric-key algorithm or public-key cryptography . There are other uses to reverse engineering: As computer-aided design (CAD) has become more popular, reverse engineering has become a viable method to create a 3D virtual model of an existing physical part for use in 3D CAD , CAM , CAE , or other software . The reverse-engineering process involves measuring an object and then reconstructing it as
20580-446: The theory of computation and the design of computational systems. Its subfields can be divided into practical techniques for its implementation and application in computer systems , and purely theoretical areas. Some, such as computational complexity theory , which studies fundamental properties of computational problems , are highly abstract, while others, such as computer graphics , emphasize real-world applications. Others focus on
20727-439: The time required to understand the source code, thus reducing the overall cost of the software development. Reverse engineering can also help to detect and to eliminate a malicious code written to the software with better code detectors. Reversing a source code can be used to find alternate uses of the source code, such as detecting the unauthorized replication of the source code where it was not intended to be used, or revealing how
20874-457: The type formerly set using DIP switches , through an interactive menu system controlled through the keyboard. In the interim period, IBM-compatible PCs—including the IBM AT —held configuration settings in battery-backed RAM and used a bootable configuration program on floppy disk, not in the ROM, to set the configuration options contained in this memory. The floppy disk was supplied with
21021-567: The understanding of the underlying source code for the maintenance and improvement of the software, relevant information can be extracted to make a decision for software development and graphical representations of the code can provide alternate views regarding the source code, which can help to detect and fix a software bug or vulnerability. Frequently, as some software develops, its design information and improvements are often lost over time, but that lost information can usually be recovered with reverse engineering. The process can also help to cut down
21168-776: The user performs a restore using a pre-customised image provided by the OEM. Power users can copy the necessary certificate files from the OEM image, decode the SLP product key, then perform SLP activation manually. Some BIOS implementations allow overclocking , an action in which the CPU is adjusted to a higher clock rate than its manufacturer rating for guaranteed capability. Overclocking may, however, seriously compromise system reliability in insufficiently cooled computers and generally shorten component lifespan. Overclocking, when incorrectly performed, may also cause components to overheat so quickly that they mechanically destroy themselves. Some older operating systems , for example MS-DOS , rely on
21315-529: The year 2000, most BIOSes provide ACPI , SMBIOS , VBE and e820 interfaces for modern operating systems. After operating systems load, the System Management Mode code is still running in SMRAM. Since 2010, BIOS technology is in a transitional process toward UEFI . Computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computing machinery . It includes
21462-432: Was named "CBIOS" (for "Compatibility BIOS"), whereas the "ABIOS" (for "Advanced BIOS") provided new interfaces specifically suited for multitasking operating systems such as OS/2 . The BIOS of the original IBM PC and XT had no interactive user interface. Error codes or messages were displayed on the screen, or coded series of sounds were generated to signal errors when the power-on self-test (POST) had not proceeded to
21609-488: Was the 1931 paper "The Use of Thyratrons for High Speed Automatic Counting of Physical Phenomena" by C. E. Wynn-Williams . Claude Shannon 's 1938 paper " A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits " then introduced the idea of using electronics for Boolean algebraic operations. The concept of a field-effect transistor was proposed by Julius Edgar Lilienfeld in 1925. John Bardeen and Walter Brattain , while working under William Shockley at Bell Labs , built
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