4 ms·

I never heard of using a literal flash to reprogram EPROMs, but this wikipedia entry[1] makes your story for the origin of the term “Flashing” seem likely EPRO

I never heard of using a literal flash to reprogram EPROMs, but this wikipedia entry[1] makes your story for the origin of the term “Flashing” seem likely EPROMs are easily recognizable by the transparent fused quartz (or on later models resin) window on the top of the package, through which the silicon chip is visible, and which permits exposure to ultraviolet light during erasing. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPROM https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EPROM

jmbwell 3y ago
It does look like all the references I can find point to engineers at Toshiba in 1980 coining the name, although Google ngrams shows some references to "flash EPROM" prior to 1980, so I can't help but wonder if the idea existed at least in some form prior to 1980
- monocasa 3y ago
  Looking into it, those references look miscategorized. It's some Zambian national report that's talking about 0.18um processes (aka, 180nm) in the same paragraph, which wouldn't have come out until the very late 90s.
radicalbyte 3y ago
These things were used in a number of computers from the early 90s, I have a few lying around for my Amiga.
hex4def6 3y ago
Heard from a greybeard that they had a demo night in university (this was probably early 80s), and one of the demos was was some sort of path-finding rover robot. Of course, it ended up being one of those projects that had show stopping bugs up until a few hours before showtime. During demo night, it was a big hit, until a stray camera flash got (un)lucky and wiped the microcontroller's EEPROM... Feels a little apocryphal (I'd assume most flashes have / had UV filters?)
- avidiax 3y ago
  This still happens today. Some chip packaging doesn't provide enough protection from UV. https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=99042 https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=99042
- asciimov 3y ago
  You would have put some tape over the window to keep that from happening. Also erasing takes like 15+ mins, it wasn’t quick.

jmbwell 3y ago

It does look like all the references I can find point to engineers at Toshiba in 1980 coining the name, although Google ngrams shows some references to "flash EPROM" prior to 1980, so I can't help but wonder if the idea existed at least in some form prior to 1980

monocasa 3y ago
Looking into it, those references look miscategorized. It's some Zambian national report that's talking about 0.18um processes (aka, 180nm) in the same paragraph, which wouldn't have come out until the very late 90s.

radicalbyte 3y ago

These things were used in a number of computers from the early 90s, I have a few lying around for my Amiga.

hex4def6 3y ago

Heard from a greybeard that they had a demo night in university (this was probably early 80s), and one of the demos was was some sort of path-finding rover robot. Of course, it ended up being one of those projects that had show stopping bugs up until a few hours before showtime. During demo night, it was a big hit, until a stray camera flash got (un)lucky and wiped the microcontroller's EEPROM... Feels a little apocryphal (I'd assume most flashes have / had UV filters?)

avidiax 3y ago
This still happens today. Some chip packaging doesn't provide enough protection from UV. https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=99042 https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=99042
asciimov 3y ago
You would have put some tape over the window to keep that from happening. Also erasing takes like 15+ mins, it wasn’t quick.