What Is Plug And Play; What Really Happens When You Turn The Computer On - Toshiba Satellite 200 Series User Manual

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What's Really Going On?

What Is Plug and Play?

What Is Plug and Play?
Plug and Play is a clever name for a new technology developed
jointly by Intel and Microsoft that seeks to make upgrading a com-
puter system easy.
Computer systems, such as the Satellite 200 Series, operating soft-
ware and add-on products that are designed according to this stan-
dard work together the first time you connect them. Plug and Play
eliminates the time-consuming frustration of figuring out which
IRQ and memory addresses to assign.
Since Plug and Play is an important part of Windows 95, your
Satellite 200 Series computer lets you take advantage of all its
features.
What Really Happens When You Turn the
Computer On?
When you press the power button, the following occurs:
1 The computer's BIOS (Basic Input/Output System) loads
a bootstrap program.
This program, named from the expression "pull yourself up by
your bootstraps," checks and displays the amount of memory
in the system before proceeding.
2 The bootstrap program attempts to load Windows 95.
It looks first for a diskette in the diskette drive and then at the
hard disk. If a diskette without the necessary startup files is in
the drive, the bootstrap program displays an error message.
If you've changed the Boot Priority option in TSETUP, the
computer will check the hard disk before the diskette drive.
3 As Windows 95 loads, it configures the system.
4 Windows 95 loads the desktop.