IF01006

CMOS, or Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor.

You can change hardware configurations that are stored in the CMOS, or Complementary Metal Oxide Semiconductor.

To perform its tasks, the BIOS need to know various parameters (hardware configuration). These are permanently saved in a little piece (64 bytes) of CMOS RAM (short: CMOS). The CMOS power is supplied by a little battery, so its contents will not be lost after the PC is turned off. Therefore, there is a battery and a small RAM memory on board, which never (should...) lose its information. The memory was in earlier times a part of the clock chip, now it's part of such a highly Integrated Circuit (IC). CMOS is the name of a technology which needs very low power so the computer's battery is not too much in use.

Additionally, the CMOS setup allows you to specify disk drive and memory configuration. In order for your hard drive to work with your system, it must be configured in the CMOS setup. The exception to that rule is SCSI drives with adaptor cards, as most have their own built in BIOS. Floppy drives can be setup in the CMOS as well; a: can be made to be b: in many systems, and other configuration options can be changed as well.

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