Bret,

FEEDBACK:
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Don't worry about the feedback, its all in fun. While it is good advice to read old messages and Frequently Asked Questions before posting, I bet the only peole that do smart things like that are the ones that read instructions before installing computers are software. I wouldn't know. :-)

BURN TIME: 8080 B.C.
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In the old days, to get a program into a chip you had send the factory a paper tape with all your code and mistakes. They'd take $50,000 from you and six months later give you a mountain of chips that you've discovered in the mean time, have a critical bug. These were called ROMs for "Read Only Memory" or "Removal of Money" as corporate saw it.

BURN TIME: PROM NIGHT
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After the microprocessor companies collected all the $50,000 bundles they'd ever be able to collect. They decided to advance the product to get other peoples' money. The Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory, EPROM o PROM was offered. It had a glass window through which UV light could be used to erase the program. Special devices called "Prom Burners" were connected to computers and the program was downloaded and cycled into the chip or into an external memory chip. This technology is still around but beware of it... FLASH is replacing it quickly.

BURN TIME: DINOSAUR FLASH
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EAPROM/EEPROM were the early attempts at the conveniense of today's flash. EEPROM found a niche as serial memory chips to store telephone numbers in and that industry drove the proces down. They are still used today. Electrically Erasable PROM work like RAM except they have a long write time. "BURN" isn't often used to refer to them.

BURN TIME: PRODUCTION RULES
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It turns out that the most expensive part of a EPROMs were the ceramic case and its glass or quartz lens. To make a more marketable product, manufacturers offered "OTP"s (One Time Programmables = EPROM without window case). You could buy them blank from the factory, and BURN in one program. You couldn't erase because it have no window. But you could reasonably afford to BURN several and throw them away and save money in many circumstances.

BURN TIME: THE PRESENT DAY
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Flash. Flash. Flash.
Use nothing else.
Flash. Flash. Flash.
Chip manufacturers realized that the flash technology pushed by laptops and modems, could make their products better and cheaper. This was/is very bad news for the industry of PROM burners and erasers, but we've made them rich enough over the years. Flash is the way to go if you are doing new designs for production. ISP (In System Programming) allows you to solder your microprocessor onto your printed circuit board UNPROGRAMMED... and using a little extra circuitry support, load the program later.

This means that if you find a mistake in your code, you can erase the programs of all you inventory and load the corrections. You also can use the FLASH to load test routines at various points along the production line, loading the application software at the final stage.

This is the way it always needed to be done.

BURN TIME: OOOOPS
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This is another BURN process usually caused by connecting the wrong power to your circuit. Its known often as, "...letting the smoke out of your chip."

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THAT SHOULD PUT IT ALL IN PERSPECTIVE

-Jay C. Box