What do I need to view the bios code?

[jaffa]

I have an old computer that is ready for recykling so I am not afraid of destorying my motherboard/bios.

I therefore wonder if there is a way for me to get a look at the bios source code...

Is it impossible or can I do it with help from some kind of program?

 

[grooge]

Use DOS as the OS, use DEBUG to dump the memory content from 0000 to the end adress to a TXT file and you'll have it. Or find a dissambler to read the same memory loaction...

But, if you did not figure a way to do that, then I guess that you won't see anything usefull in all those hex number you'll get...

 

[jaffa]

Thank you for your very quick reply.

I guess ran into problems directly because I don't have DOS in any of my systems and I don't have the os on any diskettes either...

Would it suffice to install win98 and start the system in "ms-dos mode"?

 

[grooge]

I don't think. maybe you could try to search for some BIOS HEX editor to download or view what's inside BIOS files too. But as I said, unless you know machine code, you won't do a lot with what you'll see inside..

 

[Peter]

The source code is not on the shipping product. All you get is the binary image file. You can only disassemble it to get an uncommented assembly code view into what it's doing. Reading and understanding that would also require data manuals of every single chip on that mainboard, as well as the schematics of the mainboard itself and half a roomful of generic specifications.