Maintainability

Field ROM upgrades are expensive. Open Firmware provides a "self-patching" facility that allows many types of firmware bugs to be fixed without changing the system ROM (or re-flashing, in the case where the firmware is stored in a "flash" memory). Changes are stored in the same non-volatile memory which is used to store configuration variables.

This same facility enables additional firmware capabilities to be added to systems in the field, or user customizations to be made to various aspects of the firmware, without changing (or re-flashing) the firmware ROMs.

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Last Modified: October 27, 1997