<Ethan Dicks &lt;erd(a)infinet.com&gt; wrote: <> The only place I've seen the term "slushware" used is on the DECmate boxe <> AFAIK, its use there matches your use here. < <Not really. The slushware on a DECmate is in an entirely different addres <space from user code, and can only be invoked by trapped I/O instructions <and the like. It is much more like the System Management Mode of the recen <x86 processors (late-486-era to present). Cant speak for the kickstart code. Slushware is the softloadable diagnostic, boot and system service code for DECmateII/III systems. the code provides terminal and keyboard emulation and some device emulation. Due to the characteristics of the CMOS PDP-8 (6120) the device has the nominal 32KW of system space as 8 4k pages and also a duplicate space that is special in that it's assigned it's own unique front pannel interrupt. That address space and interrupt BTW is something a real PDP-8 does not have. Due to the way it's structured you can sort of use it as system space for things like rom, rom loaders and special purpose handlers. Also unique to the DMII/III is that IOTs for 603x and 604x (TTY IO on nominal -8, a few others as well) are trapped to CP space handlers for emulation of display and lk201 keyboard. It can be considered on other micros as boot and device code that runs is special banked memory. It is not however microcode. Allison