The following program allows an 80C51 family microcontroller to load most of its code into a RAM over a serial link after power up and execute out of the RAM for normal operation. This can allow a final product to have firmware updates done by a simple diskette mailing. Such a program is often called a “bootstrap loader”. For this example, it is assumed that the code download is done via a serial communication link, although the program could be adapted to other forms of download. The comments at the beginning of the listing are intended to document the program and its use completely.