BIOS like UI with C++

Question

Does anyone know how I can make a program with user interface like BIOS has? Like an API or something. I've seen some shops having software using an interface like BIOS has at the shop's computer(s) for checking product availability etc. I'm talking about a UI like this:

Answer 1

it is called NCurses , and is basically a library to create UI interfaces in text virtual terminals

Here is a somewhat decent tutorial about how to use it

EDIT for windows platforms, you need a port library called PDCurses . I Think it relies on mingw but i can't tell for sure since i've haven't used it

Answer 2

You can refer to the NT32 emulator in the open source UEFI implementation, EDK II. It has mature UI components included. You can write your form in VFR format. Check out some screen shot at http://blog.fpmurphy.com/2011/01/edk2-uefi-emulator-on-fedora-14.html .