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An updated version of BIOS is in development, which is expected to dramatically improve boot times for PCs.
According to the BBC, the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) is designed to be far more flexible than its 25 year-old predecessor.
Much of the problem with BIOS is that its core design expects the host PC to have the same set-up as a 25 year-old machine. Therefore, getting a control device that doesn’t use an AT or PS/2 port is technically very difficult, similarly, a technical work-around means that USB drives and devices are only recognised as a hard disk or floppy drive.
In addition to this, BIOS is only configured to work with drive sizes of up to two terabytes, which will soon be an issue as storage memory capacity grows.
“Conventional BIOS is up there with some of the physical pieces of the chip set that have been kicking around the PC since 1979,” said the head of the UEFI Forum, Mark Doran.
“It’s original creators are as amazed as anyone else that it is still alive and well in a lot of systems. It was never really designed to be extensible over time.”
