In the end, I don't care if microchip calls their electrically erasable
technology "flash", "eeprom", or "blinky winky", as long as they publish
enough of the technical details so that the actual characteristics can
be understood down to the programming characteristics and methods.  And
microchip is better at this than most.  (Try getting programming
instructions suitable for National's small processors, for example!)

Frankly, "flash" is a pretty broad term even when used correctly - our
company's main products use vast quantitites of in-circuit programmable
flash (4 to 16 Mbytes) (NOT a PIC product!), and we have to recognize chip
types in order to tweak the programming algorithms, which means that every
time we try to use a new vendors flash chips, all the software has to
change.  Bletch.

BillW