Micro Firmware Announces PhoenixBIOS Upgrades for Gateway 2000 PCs
Updated BIOS Provides Full Support for Larger Hard Disk Drives
NORMAN OKLA. August 8, 1994 Micro Firmware Inc. today announced the release of its Phoenix BIOS 4.03 Upgrade products for most older Gateway 2000 personal computers which require an updated BIOS to support today's larger hard drives. BIOS is the ROM based software resident on the system logic board ("motherboard") of all IBM
compatible computers. The original IBM BIOS standard can only accommodate hard disk drives up to 504 megabytes.
Now that larger hard drives are commonplace and rapidly dropping in price, many PC owners are finding that they need to upgrade the BIOS in order to fully support the higher performance and capacity of their new hard drive.


The new Phoenix BIOS software supports hard drives up to eight gigabytes (about 8.4 billion bytes) and fully supports the Logical Block Addressing (LBA) and Multiple Block Transfer options of the newer, high-performance ATA/IDE interface hard disk drives.

PhoenixBIOS 4.03 also provides the following significant enhancements:
 * Allows for 32K more Upper Memory Block (UMB) space for loading programs and drivers into high memory

 * Memory tests and performance-critical sections rewritten using 32-bit instructions and
 memory model for faster memory tests and bootup

 * Security and virus protection features including multi-level password security floppy
 disk access restriction and boot sector write protection

 * Fully compatible with Microsoft Windows 32-bit Disk Access drivers for large drives
 such at Western Digital's WDCDRV

 * Fully compatible with new and upcoming operating systems

 * Full support and automatic detection and configuration of popular CPU upgrades

 * Automatic configuration of hard drive parameters

For systems which utilize conventional EPROM chips to store the BIOS the new BIOS consists of one or two replacement EPROM's which are easily replaced by the end-user. No technical experience or special tools are required.

For the newer models which utilize Flash ROM technology the new BIOS comes on a diskette and the user need only run a simple installation program to update the Flash ROM with the new BIOS. In either case the process of upgrading the BIOS takes less than five minutes.


Supported models include most 80386 sod 80486 Gateway 2000 systems with Micronics motherboards. Supported systems are identified by the version number of the original BIOS which appears on the screen at bootup. The following BIOS versions are upgradeable to the 1994 PhoenixBIOS 4.03 release:

 Phoenix 80386 ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 Mxx
 Phoenix 80386 ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.19 Gxx
 Phoenix 80486 ROM BIOS PLUS Version 9.19 Fxx
 Phoenix 80486 ROM BIOS PLUS Version 9.19 Gxx
 Phoenix 80486 ROM BIOS PLUS Version 0.10 GLBxx
 Phoenix 80486 ROM BIOS PLUS Version 0.10 JX-30-xx (available 8/15/04)
 Phoenix 80486 ROM BIOS PLUS Version 0.10 JX30G-xx (available 8/15/04)
 (xx denotes any two digits)

Customers who wish to order can call 1-800-767-5465 within the United States or Canada or 405-321-8333 elsewhere.

Micro Firmware Inc. is the only company licensed by Phoenix Technologies to develop and distribute BIOS Upgrade products and is the premiere third-party developer of BIOS Upgrades. Based in Norman Oklahoma Micro Firmware has been providing BIOS Upgrade solutions since 1987.
Phoenix Technologies Ltd. is the pioneer in developing PC BIOS compatibility software. With headquarters in Norwood, Massachusetts, Phoenix is the leading supplier of system-level software to PC manufacturers. For system software, such as BIOS, power management, PCMCIA, and Plug and Play, Phoenix's customers include virtually all major PC manufacturers worldwide