The EFI specification is primarily intended for the IA-32 and
Itaniumarchitecture-based
computers. The EFI specification defines a model for
the interface between operating systems and
platform firmware. The interface consists of data tables
that contain platform-related information, plus
boot and runtime service calls that are available to the
operating system and its loader. Together,
these provide a standard environment for booting an operating system and running
pre-boot applications. EFI is an outgrowth of the "Intel Boot Initiative" (IBI)
program that began in 1998.*
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