Initial Program Load
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Initial Program Load or IPL is an obsolete term for the start-up phase of a computer's operation, which is today commonly called bootstrapping abbreviated to booting in the U.S. programming community and others. It remains a fairly common term in some circles, especially at IBM.
The term IPL is commonly used in large commercial IBM MVS mainframe "shops" which processed huge amounts of data for various industries like printing, wholesale hardware distribution, and banking to name a few. It is also used for IBM AS/400 systems, and is used in current IBM manuals for either type of system.