AMIBIOS 1.x: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 12:50, 25 August 2024

AMIBIOS 1.x (or 1.0, version number presumed) is the first version of AMIBIOS released by Access Methods Inc. (the predecessor of American Megatrends) in 1985. Like its competitors PhoenixBIOS and AwardBIOS, it was fully compatible with the original IBM PC BIOS, allowing other OEMs to produce fully compatible clones of the system without having to reverse-engineer its original BIOS themselves, usually at a lower price or with better specifications, or both.

It was replaced with AMIBIOS 2.x in 1986.

POST screen

The POST screen of AMIBIOS 1.x is very similar to those of AMIBIOS 2.x and AMI Plus BIOS, with a prompt (usually set to the Escape key) to skip the enhanced memory test at the top and copyright text with the BIOS identification string (labelled the reference number or "Ref no.") at the bottom.

However, on some instances unlike on newer versions, there is no copyright text at the top. On these instances, only the memory test result (in kilobytes) can be found there. On other instances, a top copyright text is present, however it's in a different format (BIOS (C)AMI for (OEM/brand)) compared to the ones in the newer versions.

The detected error list and the "RUN SETUP" prompt are also different from the newer ones. Both the list and the prompt have an additional empty space before each line and on the "RUN SETUP UTILITY" line there are three starts before and after the text. On newer versions, both the empty spaces and the stars were removed.

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-AMIBIOS 1.x (or 1.0, version number presumed) is the first version of [[AMIBIOS]] released by Access Methods Inc. (the predecessor of American Megatrends) in 1985. Like its competitors [[PhoenixBIOS]] and [[AwardBIOS]], it was fully compatible with the original IBM PC BIOS.
+AMIBIOS 1.x (or 1.0, version number presumed) is the first version of [[AMIBIOS]] released by Access Methods Inc. (the predecessor of [[American Megatrends]]) in 1985. Like its competitors [[PhoenixBIOS]] and [[AwardBIOS]], it was fully compatible with the original IBM PC BIOS, allowing other OEMs to produce fully compatible clones of the system without having to reverse-engineer its original BIOS themselves, usually at a lower price or with better specifications, or both.
-As of August 2024, very little is known about this version, as there is no known documentation, ROM dumps, or photos available for it. However, it was probably replaced by AMIBIOS 2.x after a short time (probably in 1986). It is also unknown if this version was ever licensed to OEMs under the copyright of American Megatrends instead of Access Methods Inc. after 1986 when the former replaced the latter.
+It was replaced with [[AMIBIOS 2.x]] in 1986.
+== POST screen ==
+The POST screen of AMIBIOS 1.x is very similar to those of [[AMIBIOS 2.x]] and [[AMI Plus BIOS]], with a prompt (usually set to the Escape key) to skip the enhanced memory test at the top and copyright text with the BIOS identification string (labelled the reference number or "Ref no.") at the bottom.
+However, on some instances unlike on newer versions, there is no copyright text at the top. On these instances, only the memory test result (in kilobytes) can be found there. On other instances, a top copyright text is present, however it's in a different format (<code>BIOS (C)AMI for (OEM/brand)</code>) compared to the ones in the newer versions.
+The detected error list and the "RUN SETUP" prompt are also different from the newer ones. Both the list and the prompt have an additional empty space before each line and on the "RUN SETUP UTILITY" line there are three starts before and after the text. On newer versions, both the empty spaces and the stars were removed.