PROM monitor

operating system a small program stored in PROM (or

ROM), responsible for both loading the OS and providing

some means to analyse OS crashes. It may also have some

sort of user interface which can be used to examine and

change the contents of memory, control the boot process

(specifying arguments to the kernel, or changing where to

look for the it), and so forth.

The main difference between a PROM monitor and a bootstraploader is that the PROM monitor regains control when the OS

terminates. This may enable a wizard to find out what went

wrong if the OS crashed, although it is usually of little help

for the average sysadmin.

(1996-12-03)