MEaster t1_jarrb8q wrote on March 3, 2023 at 4:19 PM

Reply to comment by byllz in TIL "to pull oneself up by one's bootstraps" is an example of an impossible task. The idiom dates at least to 1834, from the Workingman's Advocate: "It is conjectured that Mr. Murphee will now be enabled to hand himself over the Cumberland river or a barn yard fence by the straps of his boots. by meat-juice

For those wondering how this is solved, a simplified explanation is that when the processor leaves its reset state, it starts executing from a fixed address in memory, which is connected to a permanent storage instead of RAM, and which holds a small program that then loads more complex software off a disc.