Check BIOS Date and video card type

Check BIOS Date
The below debug routine is to check the date of your BIOS. All BIOS dates on PC compatible computers is stored at memory address FFFF5h. To display the date of your BIOS do the following: At the C:\> type debug - d FFFF:5 L 8 After typing the above command you should receive a string similar to: FFFF:0000 30 34 2F-33 30 2F 39 38 4/30/98 The 4/30/98 would be the date of your computer BIOS.
Video Card Type
The below debug routine will list the type of video card within your computer. This is an excellent way of determining the chipset on the card or the card within your computer without opening the computer. At the C:\> type debug -d c000:0040 After typing the above command you should receive several lines of text similar to:
C000:0040 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
C000:0050 E9 63 7B 00 B4 10 49 27 - E9 FE 2B E9 F7 2B 50 4D .c{...I'..+..+PM
C000:0060 49 44 58 00 5B 00 00 00 - 00 A0 00 B0 00 B8 00 C0 IDX.[...........
C000:0070 00 5B 53 54 42 20 6E 56 - 49 44 49 41 20 54 4E 54 .[STB nVIDIA TNT
C000:0080 20 76 65 72 2E 20 31 2E - 31 30 20 0D 0A 00 1B 43 ver. 1.10 ....C
C000:0090 6F 70 79 72 69 67 68 74 - 28 43 29 31 39 39 38 20 copyright(C)1998
C000:00A0 53 54 42 20 53 79 73 74 - 65 6D 73 20 49 6E 63 0D STB Systems Inc.
C000:00B0 0A 00 22 6C 2C 0A 01 00 - C3 50 24 7F E8 60 36 58 .."1,....P$..'6X

As you can pick out in the above dump, this gives you enough information to determine the make and the year made on the video card. On line 4 you can see the make of this video card, which in this case is a N VIDIA TNT which would be the Riva TNT chipset. The next line you notice the version of the card and finally the line thereafter is the copyright or the year manufactured, generally. If you are unable to capture any information which sounds like the video card, you can also type -d c000:0090