Where does the word 'booting' comes from when referring to electronic devices?

How did the word booting come to be used for "starting" when applied to electronic devices?

I've generally encountered the word applied to computing devices; is it used in connection to simpler electric machines as well?

See also: What's the meaning of "bootstrap"?

Solution 1:

This, as has been mentioned, goes back a ways.

The actual usage was associated with a bootstrap loader. This is a small program which (in the early PCs and minicomputers) was entered into the computer via the front panel switches. This method required that the loader be very small.

EDIT - It wouldn't surprise me if mainframes did the same thing, but I have no experience in the field. END EDIT

Once this loader was active, it would load a larger program (typically the OS), and then transfer control to it. In doing so, the PC or mini only used the resources which were part of the computer in the first place, so the phrase "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" came easily to mind, and running the loader was called booting up the machine.

After a while, the hardware evolved to the point that the bootstrap loader became part of the BIOS, and was automatically invoked on power-up. This phase of self-loading was called, by continuity, booting, even though it no longer was obvious what was happening to an external observer.

Solution 2:

By way of further documentation for WhatRoughBeast's answer, I offer two discussions of the origin of the term. First, from Eric Raymond, The New Hacker's Dictionary, third edition (1996):

boot v.n. {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 [such as cold boot, warm boot, soft boot, and hard boot]. ...

Historical note: this term drives 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 just 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 the bootstraps' to a useful operating state. ...

And from Oxford Dictionary of Computing, sixth edition (2008):

boot To start a computer by turning the power on. Specifically, to invoke a bootstrap, especially to read from backing store the operating system of a computer and load it into the empty memory.

...

bootstrap ... The term originates from a story told by Baron Munchausen, who boasted that, finding himself trapped and sinking in a swamp, he lifted himself by the bootstraps and carried himself to safety on firm ground.