Kickstart is the bootstrap firmware of the Amiga computers developed by Commodore International. Its purpose is to initialize the Amiga hardware and core components of AmigaOS and then attempt to boot from a bootable volume, such as a floppy disk. Most Amiga models were shipped with the Kickstart firmware stored on ROM chips.
Kickstart 3.0 ROM chips installed in an Amiga 1200
Kickstart 1.2 floppy disk
In computing, firmware is software that provides low-level control of computing device hardware.
For a relatively simple device, firmware may perform all control, monitoring and data manipulation functionality.
For a more complex device, firmware may provide relatively low-level control as well as hardware abstraction services to higher-level software such as an operating system.
Firmware is commonly stored in an EEPROM, which makes use of an I/O protocol such as SPI.
ROM BIOS firmware on a Baby AT motherboard
Updating the firmware of a Fuji Instax camera