1. A method comprising: powering up a system with a system control circuitry (SCC) that contains a central processing unit (CPU); holding the CPU in a reset condition; retrieving, over a serial data bus using a serial communications protocol, information about a system memory configuration and a boot program from a first section of a first programmable read only memory (PROM); retrieving, over a serial data bus using the serial communications protocol, a first portion of the boot program from a second section of the first PROM using the information about the system memory configuration and the boot program; writing the first portion of the boot program into a system memory; releasing the CPU from the reset condition; and booting the system using the boot program.