At least what gets flashed in can be flashed out.
Of course, supposedly intel's x86 microcode update system is based around
some kind of encryption such that only an intel-approved update could go
into it (mostly to prevent people from putting the wrong patch in and hosing
their CPU--which btw would make one nasty virus).
I don't know how it works, (intel's website wasn't exactly technically
detailed about it--they just wanted to point out that it could have fixed
the fdiv bug) but MS got mfgs to do something like that... ouch.
===
Evan Jeffrey
erjeffre@artsci.wustl.edu
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress
depends on the unreasonable man.