Firmware

Like A Duck@programming.dev to Programmer Humor@programming.dev – 579 points –
33

Is this actually the reason it's called this? Like dead serious.

If it's fake, it's a decades old prank. I heard it used seriously pre-millennium.

It fits extremely well. Software changes regularly. Hardware never changes, while firmware is mostly fixed, but can change periodically.

then where else does firmware come from?

Well when a software and a hardware love each other very much...uh you see the SATA cable goes in the.. and then there's pin hole connectors of course.. auxiliary input... And then 2 days later the ups man brings you new firmware.

Okay bud? Alright goodnight.

It gets old on the device since it's never updated and eventually it starts to ferment. Fermware -> firmware.

Hardware never changes

We'll see what my soldering iron, multimeter, logic analyzer, and oscilloscope have to say about that.

Theseus' firmware. After how many changes does a board became a new component.

I love how everyone both believes this but is so upset that they didn't realize that they need confirmation

Is this true?

I want to believe...

Also halfway between a bit and a byte is a nibble.

I do love scientice's collective sense of humour. I'd give good odds it was initially suggested down the pub (or similar).

Science pubs are some of the best pubs.

QBasic came with NIBBLES.BAS, a snake game using text-mode characters as "pixels". Specifically it faked a 80x50 "pixel" grid using the standard 80x25 text screen where each 8-bit (=1 byte) text character made up two monochrome pixels using ▄ or ▀ or █ or an empty space.

I assume the name derived from the fact that, in a way, one pixel was "using half a byte", i. e. a nibble.