Why do computer users talk of 'booting up' the computer, meaning to start it ? Where does this expression come from? Some of us would like to apply a boot to ,or up, a computer sometimes but that would not even kick- start it
Actually, it is short for bootstrap (see M-W link 4[verb]-5), which was the term used starting in the 50s, the idea being that the first program pulled the others up by their bootstraps.
