Method and article of manufacture for differentiating between a non-volatile memory device and an emulator for purposes of in-circuit programming

A method to determine whether a software program is executing in a non-volatile memory device or an emulator, comprising:

• selecting a memory location as a test location;
• reading a binary representation of a first value stored at the test location;
• changing the binary representation of the first value to create a binary representation of a second value;
• writing the binary representation of the second value to the test location;
• reading a resulting value stored at the test location;
• and
• determining whether the resulting value corresponds to the first value or the second value.

An article of manufacture having computer-readable program means embodied therein for determining whether a software program is executing in a non-volatile memory device or an emulator, comprising:

• computer-readable program means for reading a binary representation of a first value stored at a test location;
• computer-readable program means for changing the binary representation of the first value to create a binary representation of a second value;
• computer-readable program means for writing the binary representation of the second value to the test location;
• computer-readable program means for reading a resulting value stored at the test location;
• computer-readable program means for determining whether the resulting value corresponds to the first value or the second value;
• and
• computer-readable program means for writing the binary representation of the first value to the test location if the resulting value corresponds to the second value.