Portal:Amiga/Selected article/2
Kickstart is the bootstrap firmware of the Amiga computers developed by Commodore.
Most Amiga models were shipped with the Kickstart firmware stored on ROM chips. 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.
Commodore's AmigaOS was formed of both the Kickstart firmware and a software component provided on disk (with the software portion often termed as Workbench). For most AmigaOS updates the Kickstart version number was matched to the Workbench version number. Confusingly, Commodore also used internal revision numbers for Kickstart chips. For example, there were several Kickstart revisions designated as version 2.0. (Full article...)