PROM monitor

PROM monitor

(operating system)a small program stored in PROM (orROM), responsible for both loading the OS and providingsome means to analyse OS crashes. It may also have somesort of user interface which can be used to examine andchange the contents of memory, control the boot process(specifying arguments to the kernel, or changing where tolook for the it), and so forth.

The main difference between a PROM monitor and a bootstrap loader is that the PROM monitor regains control when the OSterminates. This may enable a wizard to find out what wentwrong if the OS crashed, although it is usually of little helpfor the average sysadmin.