in full Basic Input/Output System
Computer EPROM and used by the {{link=CPU">CPU to perform start-up procedures when the computer is turned on.
Its two major procedures are determining what peripheral devices (keyboard, mouse, disk drives, printers, video cards, etc.) are available and loading the operating system (OS) into main memory. After start-up, the BIOS program manages data flow between the OS and the peripherals, so neither the OS nor the application programs need to know the details of the peripherals (such as hardware addresses).