AMI is a company that writes BIOS software. It can't be edited. The BIOS can, but why? Or maybe you're trying to replace ("flash") it? And what does telnet have to do with it? Please elaborate.

I probably couldn't help you even if you answered my questions. I'm just pointing out that your question needs a lot of work before anyone can answer it.

(Oops, meant to reply to the OP. No biggy)

What I need to do is set specific settings in bios prior to installing the operating system. Settings inclue the boot device and can change depending on the configuration.

Perl needs an operating system to run; it won't run on bare hardware without some sort of BIOS. You might be able to write some sort of BIOS updating utility invoked from a bootable medium which will change BIOS firmware, but the interesting details there have little to do with Perl.

Since there's no OS on the computer, the only things I can think of are:

• Use another computer and connect it to the JTAG header on your motherboard (assuming it has one) and write a script to drive your JTAG software to make the update.
• Write your edit program into an EPROM and boot the motherboard from the EPROM. (You used to be able to put an EPROM in many network cards for booting from the network. I don't know if it's still common or possible, though.)
• If you can set the values from the setup screen, get/make a keyboard faking device that you can drive via another computer.

...roboticus