Bootstrap

Bootstrap (word origin)

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Look up bootstrapping, bootstrap, pull oneself up by one's bootstraps in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

[edit] 1 Origin of the word "bootstrap"
A pair of boots with one bootstrap visible.
A pair of boots with one bootstrap visible.

Tall boots may have a tab, loop or handle at the top known as a bootstrap, allowing one to use fingers or a tool to provide better leverage in pulling the boots on. The saying "to pull yourself up by your bootstraps." [1] was already in use during the 1800s as an example of an impossible task. Bootstrap as a metaphor, meaning to better oneself by one's own unaided efforts, was in use in 1922.[2] This metaphor spawned additional metaphors for a series of self-sustaining processes that proceed without external help. [3]

The computer word bootstrap began as a 1950s metaphor derived from using a strap to pull on leather boots without outside help. In computers, pressing a bootstrap button caused a hardwired program to read a bootstrap program from an input unit and then execute the bootstrap program which became a self-sustaining process that proceeded without external help. As a computing term, bootstrap has been used since at least 1958[4].

The bootstrap concept was used in the IBM 701 computer (1952-1956) which had a "load button" which initiated reading of the first 36-bit word from a punched card in a card reader, or from a magnetic tape unit, or drum unit (predecessor of the harddisk drive). The left 18-bit half-word was then executed as an instruction which read additional words into memory.[5]

The term bootstrap was used in Robert A. Heinlein's 1941 short story By His Bootstraps about recursive time travel.

[edit] 1.1 See also

* Bootstrap, disambiguation page listing various bootstrap metaphors
* Booting, main article for computer bootstrap loading

[edit] 2 References

* Pull straps for boots
* Dictionary.com entries for Bootstrap
* Freedictionary.com entries for Bootstrap

1. ^ Bootstrap citations from 1800s
2. ^ Ulysses cited in the Oxford English Dictionary
3. ^ Phrase Finder
4. ^ Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University.
5. ^ From Gutenberg to the Internet, Jeremy M. Norman, 2005, page 436, ISBN 0-930405-87-0

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This page was last modified on 2008-08-29, at 06:59:34. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details.)
Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a U.S. registered 501(c)(3) tax-deductible nonprofit charity.
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