https://www.baldengineer.com/tag/bootloaderRecent content in bootloader on Bald EngineerHugoen-USWed, 15 Jun 2016 04:10:34 +0000https://www.baldengineer.com/arduino-bootloader.htmlWed, 15 Jun 2016 13:00:14 +0000https://www.baldengineer.com/?p=6066<p>Almost all microcontroller (and microprocessor) development systems use some form of a bootloader. Often called firmware, mistakenly, the <a href="https://www.arduino.cc/en/Hacking/Bootloader?from=Tutorial.Bootloader">Arduino bootloader</a> is one example. Since it is a rather popular platform, let&rsquo;s use it as an example. Let&rsquo;s talk about what a bootloader does and how it works.</p> <p>When a microcontroller turns on, it only knows how to do one thing.  Typically, that one thing is to run an instruction found at a specific memory location. Often this location address 0x0000, but not always. Usually, this memory location will contain a jump instruction to another place in memory, which is the start of the user program. The bootloader, however, exists in a slightly separate memory space from the user program.</p>