pnpbios(4)

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.

CAVEATS

There is no explicit way to disable individual embedded de

vices. 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.

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.

BSD September 20, 2001

BSD