OK, you can remove it by desoldering or whatever, but what about the distinction between the unprogrammed part, e.g. FPGA when the power's off, and when it's on and loaded? It's still hardware, isn't it? It's just different hardware when the configuration code is in it and powered, or is it? Now, what about the pseudo hard-disks sold on PCMCIA cards as "flash-disk" or whatever. Is the stuff stored there firmware or is it software? I see a change in the generalized definition of "soft" vs. "hard" in this context in a much more general sense. People talk about machine-readable copy, e.g. data on floppy disk, as "soft" copy, and they talk about purportedly fixed specifications or code segments, or definitions, as being "hard" implying they're, at least relatively, "etched in concrete," as opposed to being etched in "silly-putty" as some spec's are. It's just an observation. I was just getting comfortable referring to loadable programs/data, as one might store on rotating memory, as software, nonvolatile programs and data (Yes, tables in a code body are data.) stored in PALs, NVRAM, PROM, ROM, etc, as firmware. There's never been a question about what the stuff you see, touch, hear when it's running, and may smell when it's not, as hardware. Who knows, though. I couldn't believe it when I learned that "duhh" was in the dictionary as a word. I heard yesterday that the latest Webster has the Seinfeldism "yadda yadda yadda" as a word. <sigh> Dick -----Original Message----- From: Dwight Elvey &lt;elvey(a)hal.com&gt; To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers &lt;classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu&gt; Date: Thursday, August 19, 1999 10:21 AM Subject: Re: Article on old software programs (for IBM, Apple, Borland, etc)