Even legacy BIOS effectively served a similar purpose before the functionality provided ended up being too limited. The name BIOS, Basic Input/Output System, i

Even legacy BIOS effectively served a similar purpose before the functionality provided ended up being too limited. The name BIOS, Basic Input/Output System, in fact focuses on this functionality of serving the I/O function calls more than initialization/booting the system. Of course these days a modern OS just ignores the BIOS and drives the hardware itself once booted (at least partially due to the fact its design predates protected mode).