And "flash memory" itself can't be flashed anymore. Isn't it called that because you could erase an EEPROM with a light?
That would be EPROM, not EEPROM. The 'EE' meant Electrically Erasable, so it didn't have (and didn't need) that little window on the top of the DIP package to shine the UV light upon the chip itself of EPROM.
Which was still a vast improvement upon PROM, which was write-once.
My first encounter with that stuff was a 2nd gen version of the floppy disk controller for my RS Color Computer. The newer version wasn't compatible with the Deft Pascal [1] compiler I had purchased, so some guys at the user group helped me to program the older 1.0 version of the firmware to see if that would work. It didn't. :-( The text editor was still handy though.
I eventually got OS-9 Level III running and picked up a C compiler on sale though.
"Flash memory (both NOR and NAND types) was invented by Fujio Masuoka while working for Toshiba circa 1980. According to Toshiba, the name "flash" was suggested by Masuoka's colleague, Shōji Ariizumi, because the erasure process of the memory contents reminded him of the flash of a camera."
That's really weird and not what I remember being written back in the day when flash was invented. There is no 'flash' (optical erase process using UV) to go with flash memory, the erasure is electrical.
The 'eWeek' article that that paragraph was sourced from doesn't contain any explanation of why the association between the two was made, maybe early 'flash' memory did have an optical erase process?
Here is the quora link for the question why 'flash' is called 'flash':
Which is apparently sourced from a book about FPGA's, not directly accessible but roughly what I remember being written about flash at the time it came out.
Optically erasable memories existed but I'm not aware of any that have erasure times < several 10's of seconds in ideal conditions and minutes in more practical settings, certainly nothing in the sub second range that would justify the term 'flash'.
Eeproms (electrically erasable eproms) already existed well before 'flash' came along and flash is an improvement in speed on those, not a re-vamp of the optically erasable eproms.
It would be interesting to contact Toshiba to see if that quote from the inventor of flash memory can be substantiated and how to determine what the association with photography is if it does not refer to optical erasure.
I imagine the issue was a lack of working drives, and Alto systems to run them.