[techspeak; from ‘by one's bootstraps’] To load and
initialize the operating system on a machine. This usage is no longer
jargon (having passed into techspeak) but has given rise to some
derivatives that are still jargon.
The derivative reboot implies
that the machine hasn't been down for long, or that the boot is a
bounce (sense 4) intended to clear some state of
wedgitude. This is sometimes used of human thought
processes, as in the following exchange: “You've lost me.”
“OK, reboot. Here's the theory....”
This term is also found in the variants cold boot (from power-off condition) and
warm boot (with the CPU and all
devices already powered up, as after a hardware reset or software
crash).
Another variant: soft boot,
reinitialization of only part of a system, under control of other software
still running: “If you're running the mess-dos
emulator, control-alt-insert will cause a soft-boot of the emulator, while
leaving the rest of the system running.”
Opposed to this there is hard
boot, which connotes hostility towards or frustration with the
machine being booted: “I'll have to hard-boot this losing
Sun.” “I recommend booting it hard.” One often
hard-boots by performing a power cycle.
Historical note: this term derives from bootstrap loader, a short program that was read
in from cards or paper tape, or toggled in from the front panel switches.
This program was always very short (great efforts were expended on making
it short in order to minimize the labor and chance of error involved in
toggling it in), but was just smart enough to read in a slightly more
complex program (usually from a card or paper tape reader), to which it
handed control; this program in turn was smart enough to read the
application or operating system from a magnetic tape drive or disk drive.
Thus, in successive steps, the computer ‘pulled itself up by its
bootstraps’ to a useful operating state. Nowadays the bootstrap is
usually found in ROM or EPROM, and reads the first stage in from a fixed
location on the disk, called the ‘boot block’. When this
program gains control, it is powerful enough to load the actual OS and hand
control over to it.
