CMOS has been used as slang for BIOS for many years. The word CMOS means complimentary metal oxide semiconductor, and these days most chips (integrated circuits) are CMOS devices. The BIOS (basic input output system) is assembly code that is stored on a CMOS flash memory chip. There are many people even in the IT industry who still use the term CMOS for BIOS. The BIOS code is both a setup program, to configure hardware, and low level device code to run pre-boot assessment tests to validate processor and memory, initialize peripherals, monitor temperatures, etc. People certainly do access BIOS by pressing F2 on many computers, or rather part of BIOS, the setup program part. -- Doug
