JSI Tip 0232 - What is happening with those . . .dots on the blue screen during boot?

After receiving:

Microsoft (R) Windows NT (TM) Version 4.0 (Build 1381)
2 System Processor (128 MB Memory)

the dots indicate progress as the Kernel:

·Initializes the low-level device drivers that were loaded in the previous phase.
·Loads and initializes other device drivers.
·Runs programs, such as Chkdsk, that need to be run before any services are loaded.
·Loads and initializes services.
·Creates the page file.
·Starts subsystems that are needed to run Windows NT.