| >Define boot. Good idea. Legitimate request. As it was understood with 1980's microprocessor desktops, booting was a more complex stepwise startup procedure than simply running the fully-functional factory OS or video game instantly from ROM. Booting required a storage medium other than memory (such as punch cards, paper tape, magnetic tape, disks) to peripherally store the actual OS or shell which had to be loaded into memory in a "bootstrapping" process before it could run. RAM was used for the working OS rather than ROM, so process control was "booted" to RAM right after the ROM code merely establishes a hardware interface and serves as an Initial Program Loader. Nobody ever talked about "booting" a C64 or Atari400 if all you were going to run was the factory BASIC command line. Which was the vast majority of non-gaming use. Far fewer users had external storage to begin with and almost all of them used it only for storing & loading their own code or non-ROM game files [0]. Only the uncommonly advanced operators (not me) were actually using their external storage to "boot" to a different OS or programming language, but it was necessary if you were going to use something like Pascal [1]: "Kyan PASCAL consists of two programs: the editor program (ED) and the compiler/assembler program (PC). When your Apple (ATARI) is booted (to boot the ATARI, push the <OPTION> key during power-up) with a KyanPASCAL disk in the drive the following will be displayed: KYANPASCAL VERSION 1.0 COPYRIGHT 1985 BY KYANSOFTWARE 1850 UNION STREET, SUITE 183 SAN FRANCISCO, CA 94123 >" IOW when you didn't push the <OPTION> key during power up (which very few users ever pushed) you weren't booting the Atari, but merely powering up and running the game or command line directly from ROM. It was not like an x86 PC which used its ROM firmware mainly as an Initial Program Loader, otherwise known as a bootloader, to load your desired OS from storage into RAM, giving you access to a correspronding command line the booting way. If you weren't going to run something like a Disk Operating System why would you want to boot anyway? It may be obvious but I really did like it with computers that you didn't need to boot. Sorry if I hurt anyone's feelings. [0] so BASIC was dabbled in more often and widely as a "game" similar to the regular game cartridges, where they had to start from the beginning each time you turned on the computer, and all progress was lost when you powered down. [1] http://www.atarimania.com/8bit/files/Kyan_Pascal_Manual.pdf |