Subject:
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Definition of firmare [was: legOS]
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.robotics
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Date:
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Tue, 1 Dec 1998 14:23:07 GMT
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Original-From:
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stephen p spackman <stephen@acm.NOMORESPAMorg>
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Viewed:
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2766 times
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Ok, my turn!!!!
Hardware is the thing you can't change without a soldering iron or other
tools.
Software is what you think it is.
Firmware is those things that are *both*: it's written like software,
but you need to perform hardware-style actions to change it (switch a
ROM, erase an EPROM).
This division is fast becoming irrelevant because EPROMS are
electrically erasable nowadays, static RAMs have low enough draw to be
used for persistant storage, hardware and software architectures provide
better protection against accidental corruption of system software, and
compilers are better (so we use a single compiler for all levels of the
s/w architecture where once we use assembler at the low level and an
interpreter at the high level).
So the distinction being used nowadays is more impressionistic, but
generally comes down to the notion that firmware is the part of the
overall system that, while technically software, is conceptualised as
part of the product itself, non-user-serviceable, this voids your
warranty.
Of course, even that is blurring, since hardware manufacturers are
lately moving more and more burden into software, while corporate
lawyers try to exert more and more control over your computer to
"compensate". [Which is why you can, for example, buy cetain sound cards
and discover when you open the box that half the advertised hardware
features are actually performed by your CPU so they don't even *exist*
except on wintel platforms (and even then they use up the processor).]
But that's not terminology, that's just evil.
Drivers really, really ought to be shipped in source.
stephen
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Message has 1 Reply:
 | | Re: Definition of firmare [was: legOS]
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| stephen p spackman writes: > Hardware is the thing you can't change without a soldering iron or other > tools. > > Software is what you think it is. This thread has wandered too far afield. Take this discussion off the list please. (26 years ago, 1-Dec-98, to lugnet.robotics)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | Re: legOS
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| (...) I'd have to disagree on this point. I write in assembler which manipulates register bits directly and is considered software. Firmware is simply software that does NOT reside on magnetic media. (...) Jim West NIC Team Lead MCI Worldcom (...) (26 years ago, 1-Dec-98, to lugnet.robotics)
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