Duh, that's the definition of a PROM.
They reverse engineered the software.
Actually, they reverse-engineered an entire published specification, of which the software was a part.
This all started because you claimed they reverse-engineered the hardware and then you tried to claim firmware was hardware.
This all started because you wanted to make a mountain out of a molehill. You lost the main argument, so you started delving into semantics and definitions.
antiRepublicrat: Duh, that's the definition of a PROM.
Actually you are confused on two counts.
First I was replying to your statement:
antiRepublicrat: ...to be placed on a ROM (or EPROM, can't remember)
Second: EPROM's are PROM's
Actually, they reverse-engineered an entire published specification, of which the software was a part.
Not true. First, the IBM bios was proprietary - it was not a published specification. Second, the hardware was a published standard so reverse-engineering was not needed.
This all started because you wanted to make a mountain out of a molehill. You lost the main argument, so you started delving into semantics and definitions.
You made an incorrect statement when you claimed Compaq reverse-engineered that hardware and you have spent days unsuccessfully trying to spin it into truth - bringing use to the core nonsense statement of firmware<>software.
A mountain has been made, but is looks like you were the builder.