NAME

       pnpbios — support for embedded devices on the motherboard

DESCRIPTION

       The  pnpbios driver enumerates embedded ISA devices on the motherboard whose BIOS supports “Plug and Play
       BIOS Specification”.  It assigns ISA bus resources (interrupt line, DMA channel, I/O  ports,  and  memory
       region) to each device and activates it.

       If  it  cannot  assign necessary resources to a device without causing conflict with other devices in the
       system, the device will not be activated and will be unavailable to programs.

SEE ALSO

       pnp(4)

STANDARDS

       Compaq, Phenix, and Intel, Plug and Play BIOS Specification Version 1.0A, May 5, 1994.

       Compaq, Phenix, and Intel, Plug and Play BIOS CLARIFICATION Paper for Plug and  Play  BIOS  Specification
       Version 1.0A, October 6, 1994.

HISTORY

       The pnpbios driver first appeared in FreeBSD 4.0.

AUTHORS

       The pnpbios driver was written by Mike Smith.

CAVEATS

       There  is  no  explicit  way  to  disable  individual embedded devices.  The pnpbios driver will find all
       devices reported by the “Plug and Play (PnP)” BIOS and try to activate them all.

       There is no way to explicitly assign particular resource to a device.  The resource assignment  is  fully
       automatic and there is no provision for manual override.

Debian                                         September 20, 2001                                     PNPBIOS(4)