Bios load for a personal computer system having a removable processor card 5,355,489

[Louis Ohland]

An apparatus for loading BIOS stored on a direct access storage device
in a personal computer system, the system comprising direct access
storage device, and a processor card removably mounted to a planar
board. The processor card comprises a system processor and ROM memory,
while the planar board includes a main memory. A master boot record is
stored on the direct access storage device. The master boot record
contains a data segment and an executable code segment, the data segment
representing the hardware configuration of the personal computer system.
A first portion of BIOS included in the ROM memory initializes the
system and causes loading of the master boot record into main memory.
This first portion of BIOS further compares the hardware configuration
data of the master boot record with the hardware configuration data in
the ROM memory to verify compatibility with the system processor. Once
compatibility of the master boot record with the system processor is
verified, the first portion of BIOS transfers control to an executable
code segment of the master boot record to effect loading of the
remaining portion of BIOS into main memory, and the first portion of
BIOS is discarded.