what is meant by bootloader with respect to the microcontrollers

one person who has devoloped one host application is saying to me that he wants one bootloader application from me( i am on the frmware side)

please tell me...what he means to say..
what does bootloader application means exactly

 

See if the Wikipedia article makes sense - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booting

 

Hi there,

A bootloader is a small program that resides at a location within the microcontrollers program memory. on switch on or reset, it looks for a signal on the serial input pin. If it finds it, it loads that program code serialy from the programmer / PC and then runs that program. If no signal is detected, it will just carry on and run as normal. It simply means that you can program and re-program in curcuit and not have to keep putting it in the programmer.

Daniel.

 

thanks a lot....