A programmable vehicle or engine diagnostic tool includes an interface for
receiving a signal relating to a performance parameter of the vehicle or
engine, a user interface, and a central processing unit, for processing
the signal to generate information for presentation to the user. To
facilitate fast boot yet enable re-programming of the diagnostic tool,
the system utilizes a non-volatile random access memory main memory for
the processor based tool, to store the programming for execution by the
central processing unit. Disclosed examples of suitable memories include
magnetoresistive random access memory (MRAM), carbon nanotube random
access memory (CN-RAM) and programmable metallization memory cell (PMC)
memory.