extended system configuration data

from The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)

Extended System Configuration Data
ESCD

   <operating system> (ESCD) An area of memory, not exceeding 32
   kilobytes in size, used by {MS-DOS}(?) as {NVRAM} for {PNP
   BIOS} and {PNP OS}.  It must be writeable at {run time}.

   Intel's {ICU} also uses ESCD to store information for PNP
   {ISA} cards and {legacy} ISA cards.

   (1999-11-22)