cannot be affected by the microprocessor; these patterns are not lost when power is removed and are normally used to hold the program which defines the behavior of a microprocessor based system. ROMs can be read like RAMs, but unlike RAMs they cannot be used to store variable information. Some ROMs have their data patterns put in during manufacture, while others are programmable by the user by means of special equipment and are called programmable ROMs. The widely used programmable ROMs are erasable by means of special ultraviolet lamps and are referred to as EPROMs, short for Erasable Programmable Read Only Memories. Other new types of device can be erased electrically without the need for ultraviolet light, which are called Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memories, EEPROMs.