this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2023
2644 points (98.0% liked)
Technology
58303 readers
10 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I think most people get it intuitively without thinking too much about it.
It's software that is tied to the hardware, in the old days most commonly on ROM, which makes it "firm".
Also as many mention, it's tied to the hardware by the "firm" that made the hardware, although I think that is more accidental, it kind of works for the logic too IMO.
It's such a brilliant term that most people generally have an intuitive idea about what it means, without an actual explanation. Today though it's a bit more murky where the line is drawn between software and firmware, since much firmware is distributed through the OS and Drivers, and can be changed on the fly.