PNPBIOS(4)           NetBSD/i386 Kernel Interfaces Manual           PNPBIOS(4)

NAME
     pnpbios -- introduction to PnP BIOS support

SYNOPSIS
     pnpbios0 at mainbus?
     XX*      at pnpbios0 index ?

     options PNPBIOSVERBOSE
     options PNPBIOSDEBUG

INTRODUCTION
     pnpbios provides support for finding and attaching devices by extracting
     information from the PnP BIOS of a machine.

SUPPORTED DEVICES
     NetBSD includes the following pnpbios drivers, sorted by driver name:

           com      serial communications interface
           ess      ESS Technology AudioDrive family audio device driver
           fdc      floppy controller
           joy      game controller
           lpt      parallel port driver
           npx      math coprocessor
           pciide   PCI IDE controllers driver
           pckbc    PC keyboard/mouse controller
           sb       SoundBlaster family audio device driver
           wss      Windows Sound System hardware driver
           ym       Yamaha OPL3-SA3 sound driver

SEE ALSO
     com(4), ess(4), fdc(4), intro(4), isa(4), joy(4), lpt(4), npx(4), pci(4),
     pciide(4), pckbc(4), sb(4), wss(4), ym(4)

HISTORY
     The pnpbios driver appeared in NetBSD 1.5.

BUGS
     The pnpbios bus provides a different way to attach devices than the real
     buses (e.g., isa(4)).  The reason to use pnpbios instead of the real bus
     is that some machines have weird routings of, e.g., interrupts.  The
     exact information about these things can be found in the BIOS, which is
     why the pnpbios bus has a better chance of succeeding with getting it
     right.

     Many older BIOS implementations do not support PnP, and some newer ones
     do not follow the standards.

NetBSD 5.0_STABLE             September 27, 2002             NetBSD 5.0_STABLE
