Abstract: Disclosed herein is a temperature monitoring system including a circuit board and a thermochromic coating covering at least a portion of the circuit board, wherein the thermochromic coating is capable of indicating a temperature gradient on the circuit board. The thermochromic coating may comprise a color forming leuco dye, an activator, and optionally a deprotecting agent.

Abstract: Firmware updates for embedded systems are accomplished by using PROM in favor of conventional ROM, dividing the PROM into pages zero, one, two, etc., that can each contain an entire version of the embedded system. Pages of PROM are addressable by MSB address bits that originate from a circuit that selects page zero upon power-up, and that is responsive to a command in the firmware of the embedded system to increment the value of the MSB address bits. Upon initial fabrication, a product containing the embedded system has entirely unprogrammed PROM. An initial embedded system is zapped into page zero when the product is tested after being turned on for the first time. Replacement versions can be zapped into successive pages as the need arises. Each version includes an initialization routine and its own Get Next Page (GNP) bit.