List of
Contents
Page
INTRODUCTION
... ............
...
........ .... ......... ........ ..... ...... 1
BIOS FEATURES - OVERVIEW OF CAPABILITIES ... 2
Foreground
and
Background Operations ....................... 2
Multi-sector
Reads
and
Writes ....................................... 3
Tri-buffer ......................................................................... 3
Apricot
Control
Device
.................................................. 4
System
Configuration
Block
.......................................... 4
MicroScreen
Driver
........................................................ 4
Time
and
Date
Clock
...................................................... 5
Calculator
....................................................................... 5
General
Hardware
Support
............................................. 5
INTRODUCTION
The
control
software
for
the
Apricot
Computer
consists
of
two
modules:
the
BIOS
and
the
DOS, collectively referred
to
as
the
OPERATING
SYSTEM.
The
BIOS (an
acronym
for
Basic
Input
Output
System) is generally
'in
charge' of
the
hardware
in
the
computer.
The
DOS (Disk
Operating
System) is
the
interface
between
the
user, application
program
and
the
BIOS.
The
DOS is loaded
into
memory
by
the
BIOS
when
the
system
is
booted
up
and
then
takes
control of
the
entire
system.
It
can
be
considered as a
"black
box",
which
can
request
various services from
the
BIOS. For
example,
if
the
DOS
wants
to
print
a
character
on
the
screen,
it
has
to
interrupt
the
BIOS
and
giveit
the
necessary
instructions
to
carry
out
the
operation.
The
DOS is
Microsoft's
MS-DOS Version 2.0,
which
has
many
advanced
features
to
make
the
running
of application
software
extremely
efficient.
The
BIOS
was
written
by
ACT
(Advanced Technology) Ltd. specifically
to
run
in
conjunction
with
MS-DOS 2.0
on
the
Apricot,
and
contains
a
number
of
additions
to
make
applications software
both
more
powerful
and
more
user-friendly.
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