= A =

abbrev: /*-breev'/, /*-brev'/ n. Common abbreviation for
   `abbreviation'.

ABEND: [ABnormal END] /ah'bend/, /*-bend'/ n. Abnormal
   termination (of software); {crash}; {lossage}.  Derives from an
   error message on the IBM 360; used jokingly by hackers but
   seriously mainly by {code grinder}s.  Usually capitalized, but may
   appear as `abend'.  Hackers will try to persuade you that ABEND is
   called `abend' because it is what system operators do to the
   machine late on Friday when they want to call it a day, and hence
   is from the German `Abend' = `Evening'.

accumulator: n. 1. Archaic term for a register.  On-line use of it
   as a synonym for `register' is a fairly reliable indication that
   the user has been around for quite a while and/or that the
   architecture under discussion is quite old.  The term in full is
   almost never used of microprocessor registers, for example, though
   symbolic names for arithmetic registers beginning in `A' derive
   from historical use of the term `accumulator' (and not, actually,
   from `arithmetic').  Confusingly, though, an `A' register name
   prefix may also stand for `address', as for example on the
   Motorola 680x0 family.  2. A register being used for arithmetic or
   logic (as opposed to addressing or a loop index), especially one
   being used to accumulate a sum or count of many items.  This use is
   in context of a particular routine or stretch of code.  "The
   FOOBAZ routine uses A3 as an accumulator."  3. One's in-basket
   (esp. among old-timers who might use sense 1).  "You want this
   reviewed?  Sure, just put it in the accumulator."  (See {stack}.)

ACK: /ak/ interj. 1. [from the ASCII mnemonic for 0000110]
   Acknowledge.  Used to register one's presence (compare mainstream
   *Yo!*).  An appropriate response to {ping} or {ENQ}.
   2. [from the comic strip "Bloom County"] An exclamation of
   surprised disgust, esp. in "Ack pffft!"  Semi-humorous.
   Generally this sense is not spelled in caps (ACK) and is
   distinguished by a following exclamation point.  3. Used to
   politely interrupt someone to tell them you understand their point
   (see {NAK}).  Thus, for example, you might cut off an overly
   long explanation with "Ack.  Ack.  Ack.  I get it now".

   There is also a usage "ACK?" (from sense 1) meaning "Are you
   there?", often used in email when earlier mail has produced no
   reply, or during a lull in {talk mode} to see if the person has
   gone away (the standard humorous response is of course {NAK}
   (sense 2), i.e., "I'm not here").

ad-hockery: /ad-hok'*r-ee/ [Purdue] n. 1. Gratuitous assumptions
   made inside certain programs, esp. expert systems, which lead to
   the appearance of semi-intelligent behavior but are in fact
   entirely arbitrary.  For example, fuzzy-matching input tokens that
   might be typing errors against a symbol table can make it look as
   though a program knows how to spell.  2. Special-case code to cope
   with some awkward input that would otherwise cause a program to
   {choke}, presuming normal inputs are dealt with in some cleaner
   and more regular way.  Also called `ad-hackery', `ad-hocity'
   (/ad-hos'*-tee/).  See also {ELIZA effect}.

Ada:: n. A {{Pascal}}-descended language that has been made
   mandatory for Department of Defense software projects by the
   Pentagon.  Hackers are nearly unanimous in observing that,
   technically, it is precisely what one might expect given that kind
   of endorsement by fiat; designed by committee, crockish, difficult
   to use, and overall a disastrous, multi-billion-dollar boondoggle
   (one common description is "The PL/I of the 1980s").  Hackers
   find Ada's exception-handling and inter-process communication
   features particularly hilarious.  Ada Lovelace (the daughter of
   Lord Byron who became the world's first programmer while
   cooperating with Charles Babbage on the design of his mechanical
   computing engines in the mid-1800s) would almost certainly blanch
   at the use to which her name has latterly been put; the kindest
   thing that has been said about it is that there is probably a good
   small language screaming to get out from inside its vast,
   {elephantine} bulk.

adger: /aj'r/ [UCLA] vt. To make a bonehead move with consequences
   that could have been foreseen with a slight amount of mental
   effort.  E.g., "He started removing files and promptly adgered the
   whole project".  Compare {dumbass attack}.

admin: /ad-min'/ n. Short for `administrator'; very commonly
   used in speech or on-line to refer to the systems person in charge
   on a computer.  Common constructions on this include `sysadmin'
   and `site admin' (emphasizing the administrator's role as a site
   contact for email and news) or `newsadmin' (focusing specifically
   on news).  Compare {postmaster}, {sysop}, {system
   mangler}.

ADVENT: /ad'vent/ n. The prototypical computer adventure game, first
   implemented on the {PDP-10} by Will Crowther as an attempt at
   computer-refereed fantasy gaming, and expanded into a
   puzzle-oriented game by Don Woods.  Now better known as Adventure,
   but the {{TOPS-10}} operating system permitted only 6-letter
   filenames.  See also {vadding}.

   This game defined the terse, dryly humorous style now expected in
   text adventure games, and popularized several tag lines that have
   become fixtures of hacker-speak:  "A huge green fierce snake bars
   the way!"  "I see no X here" (for some noun X).  "You are in a
   maze of twisty little passages, all alike."  "You are in a little
   maze of twisty passages, all different."  The `magic words'
   {xyzzy} and {plugh} also derive from this game.

   Crowther, by the way, participated in the exploration of the
   Mammoth & Flint Ridge cave system; it actually *has* a
   `Colossal Cave' and a `Bedquilt' as in the game, and the `Y2' that
   also turns up is cavers' jargon for a map reference to a secondary
   entrance.

AI-complete: /A-I k*m-pleet'/ [MIT, Stanford: by analogy with
   `NP-complete' (see {NP-})] adj. Used to describe problems or
   subproblems in AI, to indicate that the solution presupposes a
   solution to the `strong AI problem' (that is, the synthesis of a
   human-level intelligence).  A problem that is AI-complete is, in
   other words, just too hard.

   Examples of AI-complete problems are `The Vision Problem'
   (building a system that can see as well as a human) and `The
   Natural Language Problem' (building a system that can understand
   and speak a natural language as well as a human).  These may appear
   to be modular, but all attempts so far (1991) to solve them have
   foundered on the amount of context information and `intelligence'
   they seem to require. See also {gedanken}.

AI koans: /A-I koh'anz/ pl.n. A series of pastiches of Zen
   teaching riddles created by Danny Hillis at the MIT AI Lab around
   various major figures of the Lab's culture (several are included in
   appendix A).  See also {ha ha only serious}, {mu}, and
   {{Humor, Hacker}}.

AIDS: /aydz/ n. Short for A* Infected Disk Syndrome (`A*' is a
   {glob} pattern that matches, but is not limited to, Apple),
   this condition is quite often the result of practicing unsafe
   {SEX}.  See {virus}, {worm}, {Trojan horse},
   {virgin}.

airplane rule: n. "Complexity increases the possibility of
   failure; a twin-engine airplane has twice as many engine problems
   as a single-engine airplane."  By analogy, in both software and
   electronics, the rule that simplicity increases robustness (see
   also {KISS Principle}).  It is correspondingly argued that the
   right way to build reliable systems is to put all your eggs in one
   basket, after making sure that you've built a really *good*
   basket.

aliasing bug: n. A class of subtle programming errors that can
   arise in code that does dynamic allocation, esp. via
   `malloc(3)' or equivalent.  If more than one pointer addresses
   (`aliases for') a given hunk of storage, it may happen that the
   storage is freed through one alias and then referenced through
   another, which may lead to subtle (and possibly intermittent) lossage
   depending on the state and the allocation history of the malloc
   {arena}.  Avoidable by use of allocation strategies that never
   alias allocated core.  Also avoidable by use of higher-level
   languages, such as {LISP}, which employ a garbage collector
   (see {GC}).  Also called a {stale pointer bug}.  See also
   {precedence lossage}, {smash the stack}, {fandango on core},
   {memory leak}, {overrun screw}, {spam}.

   Historical note: Though this term is nowadays associated with
   C programming, it was already in use in a very similar sense in the
   Algol-60 and FORTRAN communities in the 1960s.

all-elbows: adj. Of a TSR (terminate-and-stay-resident) IBM PC
   program, such as the N pop-up calendar and calculator utilities
   that circulate on {BBS} systems: unsociable.  Used to describe a
   program that rudely steals the resources that it needs without
   considering that other TSRs may also be resident.  One particularly
   common form of rudeness is lock-up due to programs fighting over
   the keyboard interrupt.  See also {mess-dos}.

alpha particles: n. See {bit rot}.

ALT: /awlt/ 1. n. The ALT shift key on an IBM PC or {clone}.
   2. [possibly lowercased] n. The `clover' or `Command' key on a
   Macintosh; use of this term usually reveals that the speaker hacked
   PCs before coming to the Mac (see also {command key}).  Some Mac
   hackers, confusingly, reserve `ALT' for the Option key.  3. n.obs.
   [PDP-10] Alternate name for the ASCII ESC character (ASCII
   0011011), after the keycap labeling on some older terminals.  Also
   `ALTMODE' (/awlt'mohd/).  This character was almost never
   pronounced `escape' on an ITS system, in {TECO}, or under
   TOPS-10 --- always ALT, as in "Type ALT ALT to end a TECO
   command" or "ALT U onto the system" (for "log onto the [ITS]
   system").  This was probably because ALT is more convenient to say
   than `escape', especially when followed by another ALT or a
   character (or another ALT *and* a character, for that matter).

alt bit: /awlt bit/ [from alternate] adj. See {meta bit}.

Aluminum Book: [MIT] n. `Common LISP: The Language', by
   Guy L.  Steele Jr. (Digital Press, first edition 1984, second
   edition 1990).  Note that due to a technical screwup some printings
   of the second edition are actually of a color the author describes
   succinctly as "yucky green".  See also {{book titles}}.

amoeba: n. Humorous term for the Commodore Amiga personal computer.

amp off: [Purdue] vt. To run in {background}.  From the UNIX shell `&'
   operator.

amper: n. Common abbreviation for the name of the ampersand (`&',
   ASCII 0100110) character.  See {ASCII} for other synonyms.

angle brackets: n. Either of the characters `<' (ASCII
   0111100) and `>' (ASCII 0111110) (ASCII less-than or
   greater-than signs).  The {Real World} angle brackets used by
   typographers are actually taller than a less-than or greater-than
   sign.
   See {broket}, {{ASCII}}.

angry fruit salad: n. A bad visual-interface design that uses too
   many colors.  This derives, of course, from the bizarre day-glo
   colors found in canned fruit salad.  Too often one sees similar
   affects from interface designers using color window systems such as
   {X}; there is a tendency to create displays that are flashy and
   attention-getting but uncomfortable for long-term use.

AOS: 1. /aws/ (East Coast), /ay-os/ (West Coast) [based on a
   PDP-10 increment instruction] vt.,obs. To increase the amount of
   something.  "AOS the campfire."  Usage: considered silly, and now
   obsolete.  Now largely supplanted by {bump}.  See {SOS}.  2. A
   {{Multics}}-derived OS supported at one time by Data General.  This
   was pronounced /A-O-S/ or /A-os/.  A spoof of the standard
   AOS system administrator's manual (`How to load and generate
   your AOS system') was created, issued a part number, and circulated
   as photocopy folklore.  It was called `How to goad and
   levitate your chaos system'.  3. Algebraic Operating System, in
   reference to those calculators which use infix instead of postfix
   (reverse Polish) notation.

   Historical note: AOS in sense 1 was the name of a {PDP-10}
   instruction that took any memory location in the computer and added
   1 to it; AOS meant `Add One and do not Skip'.  Why, you may ask,
   does the `S' stand for `do not Skip' rather than for `Skip'?  Ah,
   here was a beloved piece of PDP-10 folklore.  There were eight such
   instructions: AOSE added 1 and then skipped the next instruction
   if the result was Equal to zero; AOSG added 1 and then skipped if
   the result was Greater than 0; AOSN added 1 and then skipped
   if the result was Not 0; AOSA added 1 and then skipped Always;
   and so on.  Just plain AOS didn't say when to skip, so it never
   skipped.

   For similar reasons, AOJ meant `Add One and do not Jump'.  Even
   more bizarre, SKIP meant `do not SKIP'!  If you wanted to skip the
   next instruction, you had to say `SKIPA'.  Likewise, JUMP meant
   `do not JUMP'; the unconditional form was JUMPA.  However, hackers
   never did this.  By some quirk of the 10's design, the {JRST}
   (Jump and ReSTore flag with no flag specified) was actually faster
   and so was invariably used.  Such were the perverse mysteries of
   assembler programming.

app: /ap/ n. Short for `application program', as opposed to a
   systems program.  What systems vendors are forever chasing
   developers to create for their environments so they can sell more
   boxes.  Hackers tend not to think of the things they themselves run
   as apps; thus, in hacker parlance the term excludes compilers,
   program editors, games, and messaging systems, though a user would
   consider all those to be apps.  Oppose {tool}, {operating
   system}.

arc: [primarily MSDOS] vt. To create a compressed {archive} from a
   group of files using SEA ARC, PKWare PKARC, or a compatible
   program.  Rapidly becoming obsolete as the ARC compression method
   is falling into disuse, having been replaced by newer compression
   techniques.  See {tar and feather}, {zip}.

arc wars: [primarily MSDOS] n. {holy wars} over which archiving
   program one should use.  The first arc war was sparked when System
   Enhancement Associates (SEA) sued PKWare for copyright and
   trademark infringement on its ARC program.  PKWare's PKARC
   outperformed ARC on both compression and speed while largely
   retaining compatibility (it introduced a new compression type that
   could be disabled for backward-compatibility).  PKWare settled out
   of court to avoid enormous legal costs (both SEA and PKWare are
   small companies); as part of the settlement, the name of PKARC was
   changed to PKPAK.  The public backlash against SEA for bringing
   suit helped to hasten the demise of ARC as a standard when PKWare
   and others introduced new, incompatible archivers with better
   compression algorithms.

archive: n. 1. A collection of several files bundled into one file
   by a program such as `ar(1)', `tar(1)', `cpio(1)',
   or {arc} for shipment or archiving (sense 2).  See also {tar
   and feather}.  2. A collection of files or archives (sense 1) made
   available from an `archive site' via {FTP} or an email server.

arena: [UNIX] n. The area of memory attached to a process by
   `brk(2)' and `sbrk(2)' and used by `malloc(3)' as
   dynamic storage.  So named from a semi-mythical `malloc:
   corrupt arena' message supposedly emitted when some early versions
   became terminally confused.  See {overrun screw}, {aliasing
   bug}, {memory leak}, {smash the stack}.

arg: /arg/ n. Abbreviation for `argument' (to a function),
   used so often as to have become a new word (like `piano' from
   `pianoforte').  "The sine function takes 1 arg, but the
   arc-tangent function can take either 1 or 2 args."  Compare
   {param}, {parm}, {var}.

armor-plated: n. Syn. for {bulletproof}.

asbestos: adj. Used as a modifier to anything intended to protect
   one from {flame}s.  Important cases of this include {asbestos
   longjohns} and {asbestos cork award}, but it is used more
   generally.

asbestos cork award: n. Once, long ago at MIT, there was a {flamer}
   so consistently obnoxious that another hacker designed, had made,
   and distributed posters announcing that said flamer had been
   nominated for the `asbestos cork award'.  Persons in any doubt as
   to the intended application of the cork should consult the
   etymology under {flame}.  Since then, it is agreed that only a
   select few have risen to the heights of bombast required to earn
   this dubious dignity --- but there is no agreement on *which*
   few.

asbestos longjohns: n. Notional garments often donned by {USENET}
   posters just before emitting a remark they expect will elicit
   {flamage}.  This is the most common of the {asbestos} coinages.
   Also `asbestos underwear', `asbestos overcoat', etc.

ASCII:: [American Standard Code for Information Interchange]
   /as'kee/ n. The predominant character set encoding of present-day
   computers.  Uses 7 bits for each character, whereas most earlier
   codes (including an early version of ASCII) used fewer.  This
   change allowed the inclusion of lowercase letters --- a major
   {win} --- but it did not provide for accented letters or any
   other letterforms not used in English (such as the German sharp-S
   and the ae-ligature
   which is a letter in, for example, Norwegian).  It could be worse,
   though.  It could be much worse.  See {{EBCDIC}} to understand how.
   
   Computers are much pickier and less flexible about spelling than
   humans; thus, hackers need to be very precise when talking about
   characters, and have developed a considerable amount of verbal
   shorthand for them.  Every character has one or more names --- some
   formal, some concise, some silly.  Common jargon names for ASCII
   characters are collected here.  See also individual entries for
   {bang}, {excl}, {open}, {ques}, {semi}, {shriek},
   {splat}, {twiddle}, and {Yu-Shiang Whole Fish}.

   This list derives from revision 2.3 of the USENET ASCII
   pronunciation guide.  Single characters are listed in ASCII order;
   character pairs are sorted in by first member.  For each character,
   common names are given in rough order of popularity, followed by
   names that are reported but rarely seen; official ANSI/CCITT names
   are surrounded by brokets: <>.  Square brackets mark the
   particularly silly names introduced by {INTERCAL}.  Ordinary
   parentheticals provide some usage information.

     !
          Common: {bang}; pling; excl; shriek; <exclamation mark>.
          Rare: factorial; exclam; smash; cuss; boing; yell; wow; hey;
          wham; [spark-spot]; soldier.

     "
          Common: double quote; quote.  Rare: literal mark;
          double-glitch; <quotation marks>; <dieresis>; dirk;
          [rabbit-ears]; double prime.

     #
          Common: <number sign>; pound; pound sign; hash; sharp;
          {crunch}; hex; [mesh]; octothorpe.  Rare: flash; crosshatch;
          grid; pig-pen; tictactoe; scratchmark; thud; thump; {splat}.

     $
          Common: dollar; <dollar sign>.  Rare: currency symbol; buck;
          cash; string (from BASIC); escape (when used as the echo of
          ASCII ESC); ding; cache; [big money].

     %
          Common: percent; <percent sign>; mod; grapes.  Rare:
          [double-oh-seven].

     &
          Common: <ampersand>; amper; and.  Rare: address (from C);
          reference (from C++); andpersand; bitand; background (from
          `sh(1)'); pretzel; amp.  [INTERCAL called this `ampersand';
          what could be sillier?]

     '
          Common: single quote; quote; <apostrophe>.  Rare: prime;
          glitch; tick; irk; pop; [spark]; <closing single quotation
          mark>; <acute accent>.

     ()
          Common: left/right paren; left/right parenthesis; left/right; paren/thesis;
          open/close paren; open/close; open/close parenthesis; left/right banana.
          Rare: so/al-ready; lparen/rparen; <opening/closing parenthesis>;
          open/close round bracket, parenthisey/unparenthisey; [wax/wane];
          left/right ear.

     *
          Common: star; [{splat}]; <asterisk>.  Rare: wildcard; gear;
          dingle; mult; spider; aster; times; twinkle; glob (see
          {glob}); {Nathan Hale}.

     +
          Common: <plus>; add.  Rare: cross; [intersection].

     ,
          Common: <comma>.  Rare: <cedilla>; [tail].

     -
          Common: dash; <hyphen>; <minus>.  Rare: [worm]; option; dak;
          bithorpe.

     .
          Common: dot; point; <period>; <decimal point>.  Rare: radix
          point; full stop; [spot].

     /
          Common: slash; stroke; <slant>; forward slash.  Rare:
          diagonal; solidus; over; slak; virgule; [slat].

     :
          Common: <colon>.  Rare: dots; [two-spot].

     ;
          Common: <semicolon>; semi.  Rare: weenie; [hybrid],
          pit-thwong.

     <>
          Common: <less/greater than>; left/right angle bracket;
          bra/ket; left/right broket.  Rare: from/{into, towards}; read
          from/write to; suck/blow; comes-from/gozinta; in/out;
          crunch/zap (all from UNIX); [angle/right angle].

     =
          Common: <equals>; gets; takes.  Rare: quadrathorpe;
          [half-mesh].

     ?
          Common: query; <question mark>; {ques}.  Rare: whatmark;
          [what]; wildchar; huh; hook; buttonhook; hunchback.

     @
          Common: at sign; at; strudel.  Rare: each; vortex; whorl;
          [whirlpool]; cyclone; snail; ape; cat; rose; cabbage;
          <commercial at>.

     V
          Rare: [book].

     []
          Common: left/right square bracket; <opening/closing bracket>;
          bracket/unbracket; left/right bracket.  Rare: square/unsquare;
          [U turn/U turn back].

     \
          Common: backslash; escape (from C/UNIX); reverse slash; slosh;
          backslant; backwhack.  Rare: bash; <reverse slant>; reversed
          virgule; [backslat].

     ^
          Common: hat; control; uparrow; caret; <circumflex>.  Rare:
          chevron; [shark (or shark-fin)]; to the (`to the power of');
          fang; pointer (in Pascal).

     _
          Common: <underline>; underscore; underbar; under.  Rare:
          score; backarrow; [flatworm].

     `
          Common: backquote; left quote; left single quote; open quote;
          <grave accent>; grave.  Rare: backprime; [backspark];
          unapostrophe; birk; blugle; back tick; back glitch; push;
          <opening single quotation mark>; quasiquote.

     {}
          Common: open/close brace; left/right brace; left/right
          squiggly; left/right squiggly bracket/brace; left/right curly
          bracket/brace; <opening/closing brace>.  Rare: brace/unbrace;
          curly/uncurly; leftit/rytit; left/right squirrelly;
          [embrace/bracelet].

     |
          Common: bar; or; or-bar; v-bar; pipe; vertical bar.  Rare:
          <vertical line>; gozinta; thru; pipesinta (last three from
          UNIX); [spike].

     ~
          Common: <tilde>; squiggle; {twiddle}; not.  Rare: approx;
          wiggle; swung dash; enyay; [sqiggle (sic)].

   The pronunciation of `#' as `pound' is common in the U.S. but
   a bad idea; {{Commonwealth Hackish}} has its own, rather more apposite
   use of `pound sign' (confusingly, on British keyboards the pound
   graphic
   happens to replace `#'; thus Britishers sometimes call `#'
   on a U.S.-ASCII keyboard `pound', compounding the American error).
   The U.S. usage derives from an old-fashioned commercial practice of
   using a `#' suffix to tag pound weights on bills of lading.
   The character is usually pronounced `hash' outside the U.S.

   The `uparrow' name for circumflex and `leftarrow' name for
   underline are historical relics from archaic ASCII (the 1963
   version), which had these graphics in those character positions
   rather than the modern punctuation characters.

   The `swung dash' or `approximation' sign is not quite the same
   as tilde in typeset material
   but the ASCII tilde serves for both (compare {angle
   brackets}).

   Some other common usages cause odd overlaps.  The `#',
   `$', `>', and `&' characters, for example, are all
   pronounced "hex" in different communities because various
   assemblers use them as a prefix tag for hexadecimal constants (in
   particular, `#' in many assembler-programming cultures,
   `$' in the 6502 world, `>' at Texas Instruments, and
   `&' on the BBC Micro, Sinclair, and some Z80 machines).  See
   also {splat}.

   The inability of ASCII text to correctly represent any of the
   world's other major languages makes the designers' choice of 7 bits
   look more and more like a serious {misfeature} as the use of
   international networks continues to increase (see {software
   rot}).  Hardware and software from the U.S. still tends to embody
   the assumption that ASCII is the universal character set; this is a
   a major irritant to people who want to use a character set suited
   to their own languages.  Perversely, though, efforts to solve this
   problem by proliferating `national' character sets produce an
   evolutionary pressure to use a *smaller* subset common to all
   those in use.


ASCII art: n. The fine art of drawing diagrams using the ASCII
   character set (mainly `|', `-', `/', `\', and
   `+').  Also known as `character graphics' or `ASCII
   graphics'; see also {boxology}.  Here is a serious example:


         o----)||(--+--|<----+   +---------o + D O
           L  )||(  |        |   |             C U
         A I  )||(  +-->|-+  |   +-\/\/-+--o -   T
         C N  )||(        |  |   |      |        P
           E  )||(  +-->|-+--)---+--)|--+-o      U
              )||(  |        |          | GND    T
         o----)||(--+--|<----+----------+     

            A power supply consisting of a full
            wave rectifier circuit feeding a
            capacitor input filter circuit

                               Figure 1.

   And here are some very silly examples:


       |\/\/\/|     ____/|              ___    |\_/|    ___
       |      |     \ o.O|   ACK!      /   \_  |` '|  _/   \
       |      |      =(_)=  THPHTH!   /      \/     \/      \
       | (o)(o)        U             /                       \
       C      _)  (__)                \/\/\/\  _____  /\/\/\/
       | ,___|    (oo)                       \/     \/
       |   /       \/-------\         U                  (__)
      /____\        ||     | \    /---V  `v'-            oo )
     /      \       ||---W||  *  * |--|   || |`.         |_/\

                               Figure 2.

   There is an important subgenre of humorous ASCII art that takes
   advantage of the names of the various characters to tell a
   pun-based joke.

     +--------------------------------------------------------+
     |      ^^^^^^^^^^^^                                      |
     | ^^^^^^^^^^^            ^^^^^^^^^                       |
     |                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
     |        ^^^^^^^         B       ^^^^^^^^^               |
     |  ^^^^^^^^^          ^^^            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^      |
     +--------------------------------------------------------+
                  " A Bee in the Carrot Patch "

                               Figure 3.

   Within humorous ASCII art, there is for some reason an entire
   flourishing subgenre of pictures of silly cows.  Four of these are
   reproduced in Figure 2; here are three more:


              (__)              (__)              (__)
              (\/)              ($$)              (**)
       /-------\/        /-------\/        /-------\/
      / | 666 ||        / |=====||        / |     ||
     *  ||----||       *  ||----||       *  ||----||
        ~~    ~~          ~~    ~~          ~~    ~~ 
     Satanic cow    This cow is a Yuppie   Cow in love

                               Figure 4.

attoparsec: n. `atto-' is the standard SI prefix for
   multiplication by 10^{-18}.  A parsec (parallax-second) is
   3.26 light-years; an attoparsec is thus 3.26 * 10^{-18} light
   years, or about 3.1 cm (thus, 1 attoparsec/{microfortnight}
   equals about 1 inch/sec).  This unit is reported to be in use
   (though probably not very seriously) among hackers in the U.K.  See
   {micro-}.

autobogotiphobia: /aw'to-boh-got`*-foh'bee-*/ n. See {bogotify}.

automagically: /aw-toh-maj'i-klee/ or /aw-toh-maj'i-k*l-ee/ adv.
   Automatically, but in a way that, for some reason (typically
   because it is too complicated, or too ugly, or perhaps even too
   trivial), the speaker doesn't feel like explaining to you.  See
   {magic}.  "The C-INTERCAL compiler generates C, then automagically
   invokes `cc(1)' to produce an executable."

avatar: [CMU, Tektronix] n. Syn. {root}, {superuser}.  There
   are quite a few UNIX machines on which the name of the superuser
   account is `avatar' rather than `root'.  This quirk was
   originated by a CMU hacker who disliked the term `superuser',
   and was propagated through an ex-CMU hacker at Tektronix.

awk: 1. n. [UNIX techspeak] An interpreted language for massaging
   text data developed by Alfred Aho, Peter Weinberger, and Brian
   Kernighan (the name is from their initials).  It is characterized
   by C-like syntax, a declaration-free approach to variable typing
   and declarations, associative arrays, and field-oriented text
   processing.  See also {Perl}.  2. n.  Editing term for an
   expression awkward to manipulate through normal {regexp}
   facilities (for example, one containing a {newline}).  3. vt. To
   process data using `awk(1)'.

= B =

back door: n. A hole in the security of a system deliberately left
   in place by designers or maintainers.  The motivation for this is
   not always sinister; some operating systems, for example, come out
   of the box with privileged accounts intended for use by field
   service technicians or the vendor's maintenance programmers.

   Historically, back doors have often lurked in systems longer than
   anyone expected or planned, and a few have become widely known.
   The infamous {RTM} worm of late 1988, for example, used a back door
   in the {BSD} UNIX `sendmail(8)' utility.

   Ken Thompson's 1983 Turing Award lecture to the ACM revealed the
   existence of a back door in early UNIX versions that may have
   qualified as the most fiendishly clever security hack of all time.
   The C compiler contained code that would recognize when the
   `login' command was being recompiled and insert some code
   recognizing a password chosen by Thompson, giving him entry to the
   system whether or not an account had been created for him.

   Normally such a back door could be removed by removing it from the
   source code for the compiler and recompiling the compiler.  But to
   recompile the compiler, you have to *use* the compiler --- so
   Thompson also arranged that the compiler would *recognize when
   it was compiling a version of itself*, and insert into the
   recompiled compiler the code to insert into the recompiled `login'
   the code to allow Thompson entry --- and, of course, the code to
   recognize itself and do the whole thing again the next time around!
   And having done this once, he was then able to recompile the
   compiler from the original sources, leaving his back door in place
   and active but with no trace in the sources.

   The talk that revealed this truly moby hack was published as
   "Reflections on Trusting Trust", `Communications of the
   ACM 27', 8 (August 1984), pp. 761--763.

   Syn. {trap door}; may also be called a `wormhole'.  See also
   {iron box}, {cracker}, {worm}, {logic bomb}.

backbone cabal: n. A group of large-site administrators who pushed
   through the {Great Renaming} and reined in the chaos of {USENET}
   during most of the 1980s.  The cabal {mailing list} disbanded in
   late 1988 after a bitter internal catfight, but the net hardly
noticed.

backbone site: n. A key USENET and email site; one that processes
   a large amount of third-party traffic, especially if it is the home
   site of any of the regional coordinators for the USENET maps.
   Notable backbone sites as of early 1991 include uunet and the
   mail machines at Rutgers University, UC Berkeley, DEC's Western
   Research Laboratories, Ohio State University, and the University of
   Texas.  Compare {rib site}, {leaf site}.

backgammon:: See {bignum}, {moby}, and {pseudoprime}.

background: n.,adj.,vt.  To do a task `in background' is to do
   it whenever {foreground} matters are not claiming your undivided
   attention, and `to background' something means to relegate it to
   a lower priority.  "For now, we'll just print a list of nodes and
   links; I'm working on the graph-printing problem in background."
   Note that this implies ongoing activity but at a reduced level or
   in spare time, in contrast to mainstream `back burner' (which
   connotes benign neglect until some future resumption of activity).
   Some people prefer to use the term for processing that they have
   queued up for their unconscious minds (a tack that one can often
   fruitfully take upon encountering an obstacle in creative work).
   Compare {amp off}, {slopsucker}.

   Technically, a task running in background is detached from the
   terminal where it was started (and often running at a lower
   priority); oppose {foreground}.  Nowadays this term is primarily
   associated with {{UNIX}}, but it appears to have been first used
   in this sense on OS/360.

backspace and overstrike: interj. Whoa!  Back up.  Used to suggest
   that someone just said or did something wrong.  Common among
   APL programmers.

backward combatability: /bak'w*rd k*m-bat'*-bil'*-tee/ [from
   `backward compatibility'] n. A property of hardware or software
   revisions in which previous protocols, formats, and layouts are
   discarded in favor of `new and improved' protocols, formats, and
   layouts.  Occurs usually when making the transition between major
   releases.  When the change is so drastic that the old formats are
   not retained in the new version, it is said to be `backward
   combatable'.  See {flag day}.

BAD: /B-A-D/ [IBM: acronym, `Broken As Designed'] adj.  Said
   of a program that is {bogus} because of bad design and misfeatures
   rather than because of bugginess.  See {working as designed}.

Bad Thing: [from the 1930 Sellar & Yeatman parody `1066 And
   All That'] n. Something that can't possibly result in improvement
   of the subject.  This term is always capitalized, as in "Replacing
   all of the 9600-baud modems with bicycle couriers would be a Bad
   Thing".  Oppose {Good Thing}.  British correspondents confirm
   that {Bad Thing} and {Good Thing} (and prob. therefore {Right
   Thing} and {Wrong Thing}) come from the book referenced in the
   etymology, which discusses rulers who were Good Kings but Bad
   Things.  This has apparently created a mainstream idiom on the
   British side of the pond.

bag on the side: n. An extension to an established hack that is
   supposed to add some functionality to the original.  Usually
   derogatory, implying that the original was being overextended and
   should have been thrown away, and the new product is ugly,
   inelegant, or bloated.  Also v. phrase, `to hang a bag on the side
   [of]'.  "C++?  That's just a bag on the side of C ...." "They
   want me to hang a bag on the side of the accounting system."

bagbiter: /bag'bi:t-*r/ n. 1. Something, such as a program or a
   computer, that fails to work, or works in a remarkably clumsy
   manner.  "This text editor won't let me make a file with a line
   longer than 80 characters!  What a bagbiter!"  2. A person who has
   caused you some trouble, inadvertently or otherwise, typically by
   failing to program the computer properly.  Synonyms: {loser},
   {cretin}, {chomper}.  3. adj. `bagbiting' Having the
   quality of a bagbiter.  "This bagbiting system won't let me
   compute the factorial of a negative number."  Compare {losing},
   {cretinous}, {bletcherous}, `barfucious' (under
   {barfulous}) and `chomping' (under {chomp}).  4. `bite
   the bag' vi. To fail in some manner.  "The computer keeps crashing
   every 5 minutes."  "Yes, the disk controller is really biting the
   bag."  The original loading of these terms was almost undoubtedly
   obscene, possibly referring to the scrotum, but in their current
   usage they have become almost completely sanitized.

   A program called Lexiphage on the old MIT AI PDP-10 would draw on
   a selected victim's bitmapped terminal the words "THE BAG" in
   ornate letters, and then a pair of jaws biting pieces of it off.
   This is the first and to date only known example of a program
   *intended* to be a bagbiter.

bamf: /bamf/ 1. [from old X-Men comics] interj. Notional sound made
   by a person or object teleporting in or out of the hearer's
   vicinity.  Often used in {virtual reality} (esp. {MUD})
   electronic {fora} when a character wishes to make a dramatic entrance
   or exit.  2. The sound of magical transformation, used in virtual
   reality {fora} like sense 1.  3. [from `Don Washington's
   Survival Guide'] n. Acronym for `Bad-Ass Mother Fucker', used to
   refer to one of the handful of nastiest monsters on an LPMUD or
   other similar MUD.

banana label: n. The labels often used on the sides of {macrotape}
   reels, so called because they are shaped roughly like blunt-ended
   bananas.  This term, like macrotapes themselves, is still current
   but visibly headed for obsolescence.

banana problem: n. [from the story of the little girl who said "I
   know how to spell `banana', but I don't know when to stop"].  Not
   knowing where or when to bring a production to a close (compare
   {fencepost error}).  One may say `there is a banana problem' of an
   algorithm with poorly defined or incorrect termination conditions,
   or in discussing the evolution of a design that may be succumbing
   to featuritis (see also {creeping elegance}, {creeping
   featuritis}).  See item 176 under {HAKMEM}, which describes a
   banana problem in a {Dissociated Press} implementation.

bandwidth: n. 1. Used by hackers in a generalization of its
   technical meaning as the volume of information per unit time that a
   computer, person, or transmission medium can handle.  "Those are
   amazing graphics, but I missed some of the detail --- not enough
   bandwidth, I guess."  Compare {low-bandwidth}.  2. Attention
   span.  3. On {USENET}, a measure of network capacity that is
   often wasted by people complaining about how items posted by others
   are a waste of bandwidth.

bang: 1. n. Common spoken name for `!' (ASCII 0100001),
   especially when used in pronouncing a {bang path} in spoken
   hackish.  In {elder days} this was considered a CMUish usage,
   with MIT and Stanford hackers preferring {excl} or {shriek};
   but the spread of UNIX has carried `bang' with it (esp. via the
   term {bang path}) and it is now certainly the most common spoken
   name for `!'.  Note that it is used exclusively for
   non-emphatic written `!'; one would not say "Congratulations
   bang" (except possibly for humorous purposes), but if one wanted
   to specify the exact characters `foo!' one would speak "Eff oh oh
   bang".  See {shriek}, {{ASCII}}.  2. interj. An exclamation
   signifying roughly "I have achieved enlightenment!", or "The
   dynamite has cleared out my brain!"  Often used to acknowledge
   that one has perpetrated a {thinko} immediately after one has
   been called on it.

bang on: vt. To stress-test a piece of hardware or software: "I
   banged on the new version of the simulator all day yesterday and it
   didn't crash once.  I guess it is ready to release."  The term
   {pound on} is synonymous.

bang path: n. An old-style UUCP electronic-mail address specifying
   hops to get from some assumed-reachable location to the addressee,
   so called because each {hop} is signified by a {bang} sign.
   Thus, for example, the path ...!bigsite!foovax!barbox!me
   directs people to route their mail to machine bigsite (presumably
   a well-known location accessible to everybody) and from there
   through the machine foovax to the account of user me on
   barbox.

   In the bad old days of not so long ago, before autorouting mailers
   became commonplace, people often published compound bang addresses
   using the { } convention (see {glob}) to give paths from
   *several* big machines, in the hopes that one's correspondent
   might be able to get mail to one of them reliably (example:
   ...!{seismo, ut-sally, ihnp4}!rice!beta!gamma!me).  Bang paths
   of 8 to 10 hops were not uncommon in 1981.  Late-night dial-up
   UUCP links would cause week-long transmission times.  Bang paths
   were often selected by both transmission time and reliability, as
   messages would often get lost.  See {{Internet address}},
   {network, the}, and {sitename}.

banner: n. 1. The title page added to printouts by most print
   spoolers (see {spool}).  Typically includes user or account ID
   information in very large character-graphics capitals.  Also called
   a `burst page', because it indicates where to burst (tear apart)
   fanfold paper to separate one user's printout from the next.  2. A
   similar printout generated (typically on multiple pages of fan-fold
   paper) from user-specified text, e.g., by a program such as UNIX's
   `banner({1,6})'.  3. On interactive software, a first screen
   containing a logo and/or author credits and/or a copyright notice.

bar: /bar/ n. 1. The second metasyntactic variable, after {foo}
   and before {baz}.  "Suppose we have two functions: FOO and BAR.
   FOO calls BAR...."  2. Often appended to {foo} to produce
   {foobar}.

bare metal: n. 1. New computer hardware, unadorned with such
   snares and delusions as an {operating system}, an {HLL}, or
   even assembler.  Commonly used in the phrase `programming on the
   bare metal', which refers to the arduous work of {bit bashing}
   needed to create these basic tools for a new machine.  Real
   bare-metal programming involves things like building boot proms and
   BIOS chips, implementing basic monitors used to test device
   drivers, and writing the assemblers that will be used to write the
   compiler back ends that will give the new machine a real
   development environment.  2. `Programming on the bare metal' is
   also used to describe a style of {hand-hacking} that relies on
   bit-level peculiarities of a particular hardware design, esp.
   tricks for speed and space optimization that rely on crocks such as
   overlapping instructions (or, as in the famous case described in
   appendix A, interleaving of opcodes on a magnetic drum to minimize
   fetch delays due to the device's rotational latency).  This sort of
   thing has become less common as the relative costs of programming
   time and machine resources have changed, but is still found in
   heavily constrained environments such as industrial embedded systems.
   See {real programmer}.

   In the world of personal computing, bare metal programming (especially
   in sense 1 but sometimes also in sense 2) is often considered a
   {Good Thing}, or at least a necessary thing (because these
   machines have often been sufficiently slow and poorly designed
   to make it necessary; see {ill-behaved}).  There, the term
   usually refers to bypassing the BIOS or OS interface and writing
   the application to directly access device registers and machine
   addresses.  "To get 19.2 kilobaud on the serial port, you need to
   get down to the bare metal."  People who can do this sort of thing
   are held in high regard.

barf: /barf/ [from mainstream slang meaning `vomit']
   1. interj.  Term of disgust.  This is the closest hackish
   equivalent of the Val\-speak "gag me with a spoon". (Like, euwww!)
   See {bletch}.  2. vi. To say "Barf!" or emit some similar
   expression of disgust.  "I showed him my latest hack and he
   barfed" means only that he complained about it, not that he
   literally vomited.  3. vi. To fail to work because of unacceptable
   input.  May mean to give an error message.  Examples: "The
   division operation barfs if you try to divide by 0."  (That is,
   the division operation checks for an attempt to divide by zero, and
   if one is encountered it causes the operation to fail in some
   unspecified, but generally obvious, manner.) "The text editor
   barfs if you try to read in a new file before writing out the old
   one."  See {choke}, {gag}.  In Commonwealth hackish,
   `barf' is generally replaced by `puke' or `vom'.  {barf}
   is sometimes also used as a metasyntactic variable, like {foo} or
   {bar}.

barfulation: /bar`fyoo-lay'sh*n/ interj. Variation of {barf}
   used around the Stanford area.  An exclamation, expressing disgust.
   On seeing some particularly bad code one might exclaim,
   "Barfulation!  Who wrote this, Quux?"

barfulous: /bar'fyoo-l*s/ adj. (alt. `barfucious',
   /bar-fyoo-sh*s/) Said of something that would make anyone barf,
   if only for esthetic reasons.

baroque: adj. Feature-encrusted; complex; gaudy; verging on
   excessive.  Said of hardware or (esp.) software designs, this has
   many of the connotations of {elephantine} or {monstrosity} but is
   less extreme and not pejorative in itself.  "Metafont even has 
   features to introduce random variations to its letterform output.
   Now *that* is baroque!"  See also {rococo}.

BartleMUD: /bar'tl-muhd/ n. Any of the MUDs derived from the
   original MUD game by Richard Bartle (see {MUD}).  BartleMUDs are
   noted for their (usually slightly offbeat) humor, dry but friendly
   syntax, and lack of adjectives in object descriptions, so a player
   is likely to come across `brand172', for instance (see {brand
   brand brand}).  Some MUDders intensely dislike Bartle and this
   term, and prefer to speak of `MUD-1'.

BASIC: n. A programming language, originally designed for
   Dartmouth's experimental timesharing system in the
   early 1960s, which has since become the leading cause of
   brain-damage in proto-hackers.  This is another case (like
   {Pascal}) of the bad things that happen when a language
   deliberately designed as an educational toy gets taken too
   seriously.  A novice can write short BASIC programs (on the order of
   10--20 lines) very easily; writing anything longer is (a) very
   painful, and (b) encourages bad habits that will bite him/her later
   if he/she tries to hack in a real language.  This wouldn't be so
   bad if historical accidents hadn't made BASIC so common on low-end
   micros.  As it is, it ruins thousands of potential wizards a year.

batch: adj. 1. Non-interactive.  Hackers use this somewhat more
   loosely than the traditional technical definitions justify; in
   particular, switches on a normally interactive program that prepare
   it to receive non-interactive command input are often referred to
   as `batch mode' switches.  A `batch file' is a series of
   instructions written to be handed to an interactive program running
   in batch mode.  2. Performance of dreary tasks all at one sitting.
   "I finally sat down in batch mode and wrote out checks for all
   those bills; I guess they'll turn the electricity back on next
   week..." 3. Accumulation of a number of small tasks that can be
   lumped together for greater efficiency.  "I'm batching up those
   letters to send sometime" "I'm batching up bottles to take to the
   recycling center."

bathtub curve: n. Common term for the curve (resembling an
   end-to-end section of one of those claw-footed antique bathtubs)
   that describes the expected failure rate of electronics with time:
   initially high, dropping to near 0 for most of the system's
   lifetime, then rising again as it `tires out'.  See also {burn-in
   period}, {infant mortality}.

baud: /bawd/ [simplified from its technical meaning] n. Bits per
   second.  Hence kilobaud or Kbaud, thousands of bits per second.
   The technical meaning is `level transitions per second'; this
   coincides with bps only for two-level modulation with no framing or
   stop bits.  Most hackers are aware of these nuances but blithely
   ignore them.

baud barf: /bawd barf/ n. The garbage one gets on the monitor
   when using a modem connection with some protocol setting (esp.
   line speed) incorrect, or when someone picks up a voice extension
   on the same line, or when really bad line noise disrupts the
   connection.  Baud barf is not completely {random}, by the way;
   hackers with a lot of serial-line experience can usually tell
   whether the device at the other end is expecting a higher or lower
   speed than the terminal is set to.  *Really* experienced ones
   can identify particular speeds.

baz: /baz/ [Stanford: corruption of {bar}] n. 1. The third
   metasyntactic variable, after {foo} and {bar} and before
   {quux} (or, occasionally, `qux'; or local idiosyncracies like
   `rag', `zowie', etc.).  "Suppose we have three functions: FOO,
   BAR, and BAZ.  FOO calls BAR, which calls BAZ...."
   2. interj. A term of mild annoyance.  In this usage the term is
   often drawn out for 2 or 3 seconds, producing an effect not unlike
   the bleating of a sheep; /baaaaaaz/.  3. Occasionally appended to
   {foo} to produce `foobaz'.

bboard: /bee'bord/ [contraction of `bulletin board'] n.
   1. Any electronic bulletin board; esp. used of {BBS} systems
   running on personal micros, less frequently of a USENET
   {newsgroup} (in fact, use of the term for a newsgroup generally
   marks one either as a {newbie} fresh in from the BBS world or as
   a real old-timer predating USENET).  2. At CMU and other colleges
   with similar facilities, refers to campus-wide electronic bulletin
   boards.  3. The term `physical bboard' is sometimes used to
   refer to a old-fashioned, non-electronic cork memo board.  At CMU,
   it refers to a particular one outside the CS Lounge.

   In either of senses 1 or 2, the term is usually prefixed by the
   name of the intended board (`the Moonlight Casino bboard' or
   `market bboard'); however, if the context is clear, the better-read
   bboards may be referred to by name alone, as in (at CMU) "Don't
   post for-sale ads on general".

BBS: /B-B-S/ [acronym, `Bulletin Board System'] n. An electronic
   bulletin board system; that is, a message database where people can
   log in and leave broadcast messages for others grouped (typically)
   into {topic group}s.  Thousands of local BBS systems are in
   operation throughout the U.S., typically run by amateurs for fun
   out of their homes on MS-DOS boxes with a single modem line each.
   Fans of USENET and Internet or the big commercial timesharing
   bboards such as CompuServe and GEnie tend to consider local BBSes
   the low-rent district of the hacker culture, but they serve a
   valuable function by knitting together lots of hackers and users in
   the personal-micro world who would otherwise be unable to exchange
   code at all.

beam: [from Star Trek Classic's "Beam me up, Scotty!"] vt. To
   transfer {softcopy} of a file electronically; most often in
   combining forms such as `beam me a copy' or `beam that over to
   his site'.  Compare {blast}, {snarf}, {BLT}.

beanie key: [Mac users] n. See {command key}.

beep: n.,v. Syn. {feep}.  This term seems to be preferred among micro
   hobbyists.

beige toaster: n. A Macintosh. See {toaster}; compare
   {Macintrash}, {maggotbox}.

bells and whistles: [by analogy with the toyboxes on theater
   organs] n. Features added to a program or system to make it more
   {flavorful} from a hacker's point of view, without necessarily
   adding to its utility for its primary function.  Distinguished from
   {chrome}, which is intended to attract users.  "Now that we've
   got the basic program working, let's go back and add some bells and
   whistles."  No one seems to know what distinguishes a bell from a
   whistle.

bells, whistles, and gongs: n. A standard elaborated form of
   {bells and whistles}; typically said with a pronounced and ironic
   accent on the `gongs'.

benchmark: [techspeak] n. An inaccurate measure of computer
   performance.  "In the computer industry, there are three kinds of
   lies: lies, damn lies, and benchmarks."  Well-known ones include
   Whetstone, Dhrystone, Rhealstone (see {h}), the Gabriel LISP
   benchmarks (see {gabriel}), the SPECmark suite, and LINPACK.  See
   also {machoflops}, {MIPS}.

Berkeley Quality Software: adj. (often abbreviated `BQS') Term used
   in a pejorative sense to refer to software that was apparently
   created by rather spaced-out hackers late at night to solve some
   unique problem.  It usually has nonexistent, incomplete, or
   incorrect documentation, has been tested on at least two examples,
   and core dumps when anyone else attempts to use it.  This term was
   frequently applied to early versions of the `dbx(1)' debugger.
   See also {Berzerkeley}.

berklix: /berk'liks/ n.,adj. [contraction of `Berkeley UNIX'] See
   {BSD}.  Not used at Berkeley itself.  May be more common among
   {suit}s attempting to sound like cognoscenti than among hackers,
   who usually just say `BSD'.

berserking: vi. A {MUD} term meaning to gain points *only*
   by killing other players and mobiles (non-player characters).
   Hence, a Berserker-Wizard is a player character that has achieved
   enough points to become a wizard, but only by killing other
   characters.  Berserking is sometimes frowned upon because of its
   inherently antisocial nature, but some MUDs have a `berserker
   mode' in which a player becomes *permanently* berserk, can
   never flee from a fight, cannot use magic, gets no score for
   treasure, but does get double kill points.  "Berserker
   wizards can seriously damage your elf!"

Berzerkeley: /b*r-zer'klee/ [from `berserk', via the name of a
   now-deceased record label] n. Humorous distortion of `Berkeley'
   used esp. to refer to the practices or products of the
   {BSD} UNIX hackers.  See {software bloat}, {Missed'em-five},
   {Berkeley Quality Software}.

   Mainstream use of this term in reference to the cultural and
   political peculiarities of UC Berkeley as a whole has been reported
   from as far back as the 1960s.

beta: /bay't*/, /be't*/ or (Commonwealth) /bee't*/ n. 1. In
   the {Real World}, software often goes through two stages of
   testing: Alpha (in-house) and Beta (out-house?).  Software is said
   to be `in beta'.  2. Anything that is new and experimental is in
   beta. "His girlfriend is in beta" means that he is still testing
   for compatibility and reserving judgment.  3. Beta software is
   notoriously buggy, so `in beta' connotes flakiness.

   Historical note: More formally, to beta-test is to test a
   pre-release (potentially unreliable) version of a piece of software
   by making it available to selected customers and users.  This term
   derives from early 1960s terminology for product cycle checkpoints,
   first used at IBM but later standard throughout the industry.
   `Alpha Test' was the unit, module, or component test phase; `Beta
   Test' was initial system test.  These themselves came from earlier
   A- and B-tests for hardware.  The A-test was a feasibility and
   manufacturability evaluation done before any commitment to design
   and development.  The B-test was a demonstration that the
   engineering model functioned as specified.  The C-test
   (corresponding to today's beta) was the B-test performed on early
   samples of the production design.

BFI: /B-F-I/ n. See {brute force and ignorance}.  Also
   encountered in the variant `BFMI', `brute force and
   *massive* ignorance'.

bible: n. 1. One of a small number of fundamental source books
   such as {Knuth} and {K&R}.  2. The most detailed and
   authoritative reference for a particular language, operating
   system, or other complex software system.

BiCapitalization: n. The act said to have been performed on
   trademarks (such as NeXT, {NeWS}, VisiCalc, FrameMaker,
   TK!solver, EasyWriter) that have been raised above the ruck of
   common coinage by nonstandard capitalization.  Too many
   {marketroid} types think this sort of thing is really cute, even
   the 2,317th time they do it.  Compare {studlycaps}.

BIFF: /bif/ [USENET] n. The most famous {pseudo}, and the
   prototypical {newbie}.  Articles from BIFF are characterized by
   all uppercase letters sprinkled liberally with bangs, typos,
   `cute' misspellings (EVRY BUDY LUVS GOOD OLD BIFF CUZ HE"S A K00L
   DOOD AN HE RITES REEL AWESUM THINGZ IN CAPITULL LETTRS LIKE
   THIS!!!), use (and often misuse) of fragments of {talk mode}
   abbreviations, a long {sig block} (sometimes even a {doubled
   sig}), and unbounded na"ivet'e.  BIFF posts articles using his elder
   brother's VIC-20.  BIFF's location is a mystery, as his articles
   appear to come from a variety of sites.  However, {BITNET} seems to
   be the most frequent origin.  The theory that BIFF is a denizen of
   BITNET is supported by BIFF's (unfortunately invalid) electronic
   mail address: BIFF@BIT.NET.

biff: /bif/ vt. To notify someone of incoming mail.  From the
   BSD utility `biff(1)', which was in turn named after the
   implementor's dog (it barked whenever the mailman came).  No
   relation to {BIFF}.

Big Gray Wall: n. What faces a {VMS} user searching for
   documentation.  A full VMS kit comes on a pallet, the documentation
   taking up around 15 feet of shelf space before the addition of layered
   products such as compilers, databases, multivendor networking,
   and programming tools.  Recent (since VMS version 5) DEC
   documentation comes with gray binders; under VMS version 4 the
   binders were orange (`big orange wall'), and under version 3
   they were blue.  See {VMS}.

big iron: n. Large, expensive, ultra-fast computers.  Used generally
   of {number-crunching} supercomputers such as Crays, but can include
   more conventional big commercial IBMish mainframes.  Term of
   approval; compare {heavy metal}, oppose {dinosaur}.

Big Red Switch: [IBM] n. The power switch on a computer, esp. the
   `Emergency Pull' switch on an IBM {mainframe} or the power switch
   on an IBM PC where it really is large and red.  "This !@%$%
   {bitty box} is hung again; time to hit the Big Red Switch."
   Sources at IBM report that, in tune with the company's passion for
   {TLA}s, this is often acronymized as `BRS' (this has also
   become established on FidoNet and in the PC {clone} world).  It
   is alleged that the emergency pull switch on an IBM 360/91 actually
   fired a non-conducting bolt into the main power feed; the BRSes on
   more recent machines physically drop a block into place so that
   they can't be pushed back in.  People get fired for pulling them,
   especially inappropriately (see also {molly-guard}).  Compare
   {power cycle}, {three-finger salute}, {120 reset}.

Big Room, the: n. The extremely large room with the blue ceiling
   and intensely bright light (during the day) or black ceiling with
   lots of tiny night-lights (during the night) found outside all
   computer installations.  "He can't come to the phone right now,
   he's somewhere out in the Big Room."

big win: n. Serendipity.  "Yes, those two physicists discovered
   high-temperature superconductivity in a batch of ceramic that had
   been prepared incorrectly according to their experimental schedule.
   Small mistake; big win!" See {win big}.

big-endian: [From Swift's `Gulliver's Travels' via the famous
   paper `On Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace' by Danny Cohen,
   USC/ISI IEN 137, dated April 1, 1980] adj. 1. Describes a computer
   architecture in which, within a given multi-byte numeric
   representation, the most significant byte has the lowest address
   (the word is stored `big-end-first').  Most processors, including
   the IBM 370 family, the {PDP-10}, the Motorola microprocessor
   families, and most of the various RISC designs current in mid-1991,
   are big-endian.  See {little-endian}, {middle-endian}, {NUXI
   problem}.  2. An {{Internet address}} the wrong way round.  Most
   of the world follows the Internet standard and writes email
   addresses starting with the name of the computer and ending up with
   the name of the country.  In the U.K. the Joint Networking Team had
   decided to do it the other way round before the Internet domain
   standard was established; e.g., me@uk.ac.wigan.cs.  Most gateway
   sites have {ad-hockery} in their mailers to handle this, but can
   still be confused.  In particular, the address above could be in the
   U.K. (domain uk) or Czechoslovakia (domain cs).

bignum: /big'nuhm/ [orig. from MIT MacLISP] n. 1. [techspeak] A
   multiple-precision computer representation for very large integers.
   More generally, any very large number.  "Have you ever looked at
   the United States Budget?  There's bignums for you!"
   2. [Stanford] In backgammon, large numbers on the dice are called
   `bignums', especially a roll of double fives or double sixes
   (compare {moby}, sense 4).  See also {El Camino Bignum}.

   Sense 1 may require some explanation.  Most computer languages
   provide a kind of data called `integer', but such computer
   integers are usually very limited in size; usually they must be
   smaller than than 2^{31} (2,147,483,648) or (on a losing
   {bitty box}) 2^{15} (32,768).  If you want to work with
   numbers larger than that, you have to use floating-point numbers,
   which are usually accurate to only six or seven decimal places.
   Computer languages that provide bignums can perform exact
   calculations on very large numbers, such as 1000!  (the factorial
   of 1000, which is 1000 times 999 times 998 times ... times 2
   times 1).  For example, this value for 1000!  was computed by the
   MacLISP system using bignums:

     40238726007709377354370243392300398571937486421071
     46325437999104299385123986290205920442084869694048
     00479988610197196058631666872994808558901323829669
     94459099742450408707375991882362772718873251977950
     59509952761208749754624970436014182780946464962910
     56393887437886487337119181045825783647849977012476
     63288983595573543251318532395846307555740911426241
     74743493475534286465766116677973966688202912073791
     43853719588249808126867838374559731746136085379534
     52422158659320192809087829730843139284440328123155
     86110369768013573042161687476096758713483120254785
     89320767169132448426236131412508780208000261683151
     02734182797770478463586817016436502415369139828126
     48102130927612448963599287051149649754199093422215
     66832572080821333186116811553615836546984046708975
     60290095053761647584772842188967964624494516076535
     34081989013854424879849599533191017233555566021394
     50399736280750137837615307127761926849034352625200
     01588853514733161170210396817592151090778801939317
     81141945452572238655414610628921879602238389714760
     88506276862967146674697562911234082439208160153780
     88989396451826324367161676217916890977991190375403
     12746222899880051954444142820121873617459926429565
     81746628302955570299024324153181617210465832036786
     90611726015878352075151628422554026517048330422614
     39742869330616908979684825901254583271682264580665
     26769958652682272807075781391858178889652208164348
     34482599326604336766017699961283186078838615027946
     59551311565520360939881806121385586003014356945272
     24206344631797460594682573103790084024432438465657
     24501440282188525247093519062092902313649327349756
     55139587205596542287497740114133469627154228458623
     77387538230483865688976461927383814900140767310446
     64025989949022222176590433990188601856652648506179
     97023561938970178600408118897299183110211712298459
     01641921068884387121855646124960798722908519296819
     37238864261483965738229112312502418664935314397013
     74285319266498753372189406942814341185201580141233
     44828015051399694290153483077644569099073152433278
     28826986460278986432113908350621709500259738986355
     42771967428222487575867657523442202075736305694988
     25087968928162753848863396909959826280956121450994
     87170124451646126037902930912088908694202851064018
     21543994571568059418727489980942547421735824010636
     77404595741785160829230135358081840096996372524230
     56085590370062427124341690900415369010593398383577
     79394109700277534720000000000000000000000000000000
     00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
     00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
     00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
     00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
     000000000000000000.

bigot: n. A person who is religiously attached to a particular
   computer, language, operating system, editor, or other tool (see
   {religious issues}).  Usually found with a specifier; thus,
   `cray bigot', {ITS bigot}, `APL bigot', `VMS bigot',
   {Berkeley bigot}.  True bigots can be distinguished from mere
   partisans or zealots by the fact that they refuse to learn
   alternatives even when the march of time and/or technology is
   threatening to obsolete the favored tool.  It is said "You can
   tell a bigot, but you can't tell him much."  Compare
   {weenie}.

bit: [from the mainstream meaning and `Binary digIT'] n.
   1. [techspeak] The unit of information; the amount of information
   obtained by asking a yes-or-no question for which the two outcomes
   are equally probable.  2. [techspeak] A computational quantity that
   can take on one of two values, such as true and false or 0 and 1.
   3. A mental flag: a reminder that something should be done
   eventually.  "I have a bit set for you."  (I haven't seen you for
   a while, and I'm supposed to tell or ask you something.)  4. More
   generally, a (possibly incorrect) mental state of belief.  "I have
   a bit set that says that you were the last guy to hack on EMACS."
   (Meaning "I think you were the last guy to hack on EMACS, and what
   I am about to say is predicated on this, so please stop me if this
   isn't true.")

   "I just need one bit from you" is a polite way of indicating that
   you intend only a short interruption for a question that can
   presumably be answered yes or no.

   A bit is said to be `set' if its value is true or 1, and
   `reset' or `clear' if its value is false or 0.  One
   speaks of setting and clearing bits.  To {toggle} or
   `invert' a bit is to change it, either from 0 to 1 or from
   1 to 0.  See also {flag}, {trit}, {mode bit}.

bit bang: n. Transmission of data on a serial line, when
   accomplished by rapidly tweaking a single output bit at the
   appropriate times.  The technique is a simple
   loop with eight OUT and SHIFT instruction pairs for each byte.
   Input is more interesting.  And full duplex (doing input and output
   at the same time) is one way to separate the real hackers from the
   {wannabee}s.

   Bit bang was used on certain early models of Prime computers,
   presumably when UARTs were too expensive, and on archaic Z80 micros
   with a Zilog PIO but no SIO.  In an interesting instance of the
   {cycle of reincarnation}, this technique is now (1991) coming
   back into use on some RISC architectures because it consumes such
   an infinitesimal part of the processor that it actually makes sense
   not to have a UART.

bit bashing: n. (alt. `bit diddling' or {bit twiddling}) Term
   used to describe any of several kinds of low-level programming
   characterized by manipulation of {bit}, {flag}, {nybble},
   and other smaller-than-character-sized pieces of data; these
   include low-level device control, encryption algorithms, checksum
   and error-correcting codes, hash functions, some flavors of
   graphics programming (see {bitblt}), and assembler/compiler code
   generation.  May connote either tedium or a real technical
   challenge (more usually the former).  "The command decoding for
   the new tape driver looks pretty solid but the bit-bashing for the
   control registers still has bugs."  See also {bit bang},
   {mode bit}.

bit bucket: n. 1. The universal data sink (originally, the
   mythical receptacle used to catch bits when they fall off the end
   of a register during a shift instruction).  Discarded, lost, or
   destroyed data is said to have `gone to the bit bucket'.  On {{UNIX}},
   often used for {/dev/null}.  Sometimes amplified as `the Great
   Bit Bucket in the Sky'.  2. The place where all lost mail and news
   messages eventually go.  The selection is performed according to
   {Finagle's Law}; important mail is much more likely to end up in
   the bit bucket than junk mail, which has an almost 100% probability
   of getting delivered.  Routing to the bit bucket is automatically
   performed by mail-transfer agents, news systems, and the lower
   layers of the network.  3. The ideal location for all unwanted mail
   responses: "Flames about this article to the bit bucket."
   Such a request is guaranteed to overflow one's mailbox with flames.
   4. Excuse for all mail that has not been sent.  "I mailed you
   those figures last week; they must have ended in the bit bucket."
   Compare {black hole}.

   This term is used purely in jest.  It is based on the fanciful
   notion that bits are objects that are not destroyed but only
   misplaced.  This appears to have been a mutation of an earlier term
   `bit box', about which the same legend was current; old-time
   hackers also report that trainees used to be told that when the CPU
   stored bits into memory it was actually pulling them `out of the
   bit box'.  See also {chad box}.

   Another variant of this legend has it that, as a consequence of the
   `parity preservation law', the number of 1 bits that go to the bit
   bucket must equal the number of 0 bits.  Any imbalance results in
   bits filling up the bit bucket.  A qualified computer technician
   can empty a full bit bucket as part of scheduled maintenance.

bit decay: n. See {bit rot}.  People with a physics background
   tend to prefer this one for the analogy with particle decay.  See
   also {computron}, {quantum bogodynamics}.

bit rot: n. Also {bit decay}.  Hypothetical disease the existence
   of which has been deduced from the observation that unused programs
   or features will often stop working after sufficient time has
   passed, even if `nothing has changed'.  The theory explains that
   bits decay as if they were radioactive.  As time passes, the
   contents of a file or the code in a program will become
   increasingly garbled.

   There actually are physical processes that produce such effects
   (alpha particles generated by trace radionuclides in ceramic chip
   packages, for example, can change the contents of a computer memory
   unpredictably, and various kinds of subtle media failures can
   corrupt files in mass storage), but they are quite rare (and
   computers are built with error-detecting circuitry to compensate
   for them).  The notion long favored among hackers that cosmic
   rays are among the causes of such events turns out to be a myth;
   see the {cosmic rays} entry for details.

   The term {software rot} is almost synonymous.  Software rot is
   the effect, bit rot the notional cause.

bit twiddling: n. 1. (pejorative) An exercise in {tuning} in
   which incredible amounts of time and effort go to produce little
   noticeable improvement, often with the result that the code has
   become incomprehensible.  2. Aimless small modification to a
   program, esp. for some pointless goal.  3. Approx. syn. for {bit
   bashing}; esp. used for the act of frobbing the device control
   register of a peripheral in an attempt to get it back to a known
   state.

bit-paired keyboard: n. obs. (alt. `bit-shift keyboard') A
   non-standard keyboard layout that seems to have originated with
   the Teletype ASR-33 and remained common for several years on early
   computer equipment.  The ASR-33 was a mechanical device (see
   {EOU}), so the only way to generate the character codes from
   keystrokes was by some physical linkage.  The design of the ASR-33
   assigned each character key a basic pattern that could be modified
   by flipping bits if the SHIFT or the CTRL key was pressed.  In order
   to avoid making the thing more of a Rube Goldberg kluge than it
   already was, the design had to group characters that shared the
   same basic bit pattern on one key.

   Looking at the ASCII chart, we find:

     high  low bits
     bits  0000 0001 0010 0011 0100 0101 0110 0111 1000 1001
      010        !    "    #    $    %    &    '    (    )
      011   0    1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9

   This is why the characters !"#$%&'() appear where they do on a
   Teletype (thankfully, they didn't use shift-0 for space).  This was
   *not* the weirdest variant of the {QWERTY} layout widely
   seen, by the way; that prize should probably go to one of several
   (differing) arrangements on IBM's even clunkier 026 and 029 card
   punches.

   When electronic terminals became popular, in the early 1970s, there
   was no agreement in the industry over how the keyboards should be
   laid out.  Some vendors opted to emulate the Teletype keyboard,
   while others used the flexibility of electronic circuitry to make
   their product look like an office typewriter.  These alternatives
   became known as `bit-paired' and `typewriter-paired' keyboards.  To
   a hacker, the bit-paired keyboard seemed far more logical --- and
   because most hackers in those days had never learned to touch-type,
   there was little pressure from the pioneering users to adapt
   keyboards to the typewriter standard.

   The doom of the bit-paired keyboard was the large-scale
   introduction of the computer terminal into the normal office
   environment, where out-and-out technophobes were expected to use
   the equipment.  The `typewriter-paired' standard became universal,
   `bit-paired' hardware was quickly junked or relegated to dusty
   corners, and both terms passed into disuse.

bitblt: /bit'blit/ n. [from {BLT}, q.v.] 1. Any of a family
   of closely related algorithms for moving and copying rectangles of
   bits between main and display memory on a bit-mapped device, or
   between two areas of either main or display memory (the requirement
   to do the {Right Thing} in the case of overlapping source and
   destination rectangles is what makes BitBlt tricky).  2. Synonym
   for {blit} or {BLT}.  Both uses are borderline techspeak.

BITNET: /bit'net/ [acronym: Because It's Time NETwork] n.
   Everybody's least favorite piece of the network (see {network,
   the}).  The BITNET hosts are a collection of IBM dinosaurs and
   VAXen (the latter with lobotomized comm hardware) that communicate
   using 80-character {{EBCDIC}} card images (see {eighty-column
   mind}); thus, they tend to mangle the headers and text of
   third-party traffic from the rest of the ASCII/RFC-822 world with
   annoying regularity.  BITNET is also notorious as the apparent home
   of {BIFF}.

bits: n.pl. 1. Information.  Examples: "I need some bits about file
   formats."  ("I need to know about file formats.")  Compare {core
   dump}, sense 4.  2. Machine-readable representation of a document,
   specifically as contrasted with paper:  "I have only a photocopy
   of the Jargon File; does anyone know where I can get the bits?".
   See {softcopy}, {source of all good bits} See also {bit}.

bitty box: /bit'ee boks/ n. 1. A computer sufficiently small,
   primitive, or incapable as to cause a hacker acute claustrophobia
   at the thought of developing software for it.  Especially used of
   small, obsolescent, single-tasking-only personal machines such as
   the Atari 800, Osborne, Sinclair, VIC-20, TRS-80, or IBM PC.
   2. [Pejorative]  More generally, the opposite of `real computer'
   (see {Get a real computer!}).  See also {mess-dos},
   {toaster}, and {toy}.

bixie: /bik'see/ n. Variant {emoticon}s used on BIX (the Byte
   Information eXchange).  The {smiley} bixie is <@_@>, apparently
   intending to represent two cartoon eyes and a mouth.  A few others
   have been reported.

black art: n. A collection of arcane, unpublished, and (by
   implication) mostly ad-hoc techniques developed for a particular
   application or systems area (compare {black magic}).  VLSI design
   and compiler code optimization were (in their beginnings)
   considered classic examples of black art; as theory developed they
   became {deep magic}, and once standard textbooks had been written,
   became merely {heavy wizardry}.  The huge proliferation of formal
   and informal channels for spreading around new computer-related
   technologies during the last twenty years has made both the term
   `black art' and what it describes less common than formerly.  See
   also {voodoo programming}.

black hole: n. When a piece of email or netnews disappears
   mysteriously between its origin and destination sites (that is,
   without returning a {bounce message}) it is commonly said to have
   `fallen into a black hole'.  "I think there's a black hole at
   foovax!" conveys suspicion that site foovax has been dropping
   a lot of stuff on the floor lately (see {drop on the floor}).
   The implied metaphor of email as interstellar travel is interesting
   in itself.  Compare {bit bucket}.

black magic: n. A technique that works, though nobody really
   understands why.  More obscure than {voodoo programming}, which
   may be done by cookbook.  Compare also {black art}, {deep
   magic}, and {magic number} (sense 2).

blast: 1. vt.,n. Synonym for {BLT}, used esp. for large data
   sends over a network or comm line.  Opposite of {snarf}.  Usage:
   uncommon.  The variant `blat' has been reported.  2. vt.
   [HP/Apollo] Synonymous with {nuke} (sense 3).  Sometimes the
   message `Unable to kill all processes.  Blast them (y/n)?' would
   appear in the command window upon logout.

blat: n. 1. Syn. {blast}, sense 1.  2. See {thud}.

bletch: /blech/ [from Yiddish/German `brechen', to vomit, poss.
   via comic-strip exclamation `blech'] interj.  Term of disgust.
   Often used in "Ugh, bletch".  Compare {barf}.

bletcherous: /blech'*-r*s/ adj. Disgusting in design or function;
   esthetically unappealing.  This word is seldom used of people.
   "This keyboard is bletcherous!" (Perhaps the keys don't work very
   well, or are misplaced.)  See {losing}, {cretinous},
   {bagbiter}, {bogus}, and {random}.  The term {bletcherous}
   applies to the esthetics of the thing so described; similarly for
   {cretinous}.  By contrast, something that is `losing' or
   `bagbiting' may be failing to meet objective criteria.  See also
   {bogus} and {random}, which have richer and wider shades of
   meaning than any of the above.

blinkenlights: /blink'*n-li:tz/ n. Front-panel diagnostic lights
   on a computer, esp. a {dinosaur}.  Derives from the last word of
   the famous
   blackletter-Gothic
   sign in mangled pseudo-German that once graced about half the
   computer rooms in the English-speaking world.  One version ran in
   its entirety as follows:

                   ACHTUNG!  ALLES LOOKENSPEEPERS!
        Das computermachine ist nicht fuer gefingerpoken und mittengrabben.
        Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und poppencorken
        mit spitzensparken.  Ist nicht fuer gewerken bei das dumpkopfen.
        Das rubbernecken sichtseeren keepen das cotten-pickenen hans in das
        pockets muss; relaxen und watchen das blinkenlichten.


   This silliness dates back at least as far as 1959 at Stanford
   University and had already gone international by the early 1960s,
   when it was reported at London University's ATLAS computing site.
   There are several variants of it in circulation, some of which
   actually do end with the word `blinkenlights'.

   In an amusing example of turnabout-is-fair-play, German hackers
   have developed their own versions of the blinkenlights poster in
   fractured English, one of which is reproduced here:

                               ATTENTION
        This room is fullfilled mit special electronische equippment.
        Fingergrabbing and pressing the cnoeppkes from the computers is
        allowed for die experts only!  So all the "lefthanders" stay away
        and do not disturben the brainstorming von here working
        intelligencies.  Otherwise you will be out thrown and kicked
        anderswhere!  Also: please keep still and only watchen astaunished
        the blinkenlights.

   See also {geef}.

blit: /blit/ vt. 1. To copy a large array of bits from one part
   of a computer's memory to another part, particularly when the
   memory is being used to determine what is shown on a display
   screen.  "The storage allocator picks through the table and copies
   the good parts up into high memory, and then blits it all back
   down again."  See {bitblt}, {BLT}, {dd}, {cat},
   {blast}, {snarf}.  More generally, to perform some operation
   (such as toggling) on a large array of bits while moving them.
   2. All-capitalized as `BLIT': an early experimental bit-mapped
   terminal designed by Rob Pike at Bell Labs, later commercialized as
   the AT&T 5620.  (The folk etymology from `Bell Labs Intelligent
   Terminal' is incorrect.)

blitter: /blit'r/ n. A special-purpose chip or hardware system
   built to perform {blit} operations, esp. used for fast
   implementation of bit-mapped graphics.  The Commodore Amiga and a
   few other micros have these, but in 1991 the trend is away from
   them (however, see {cycle of reincarnation}).  Syn. {raster
   blaster}.

blivet: /bliv'*t/ [allegedly from a World War II military term
   meaning "ten pounds of manure in a five-pound bag"] n. 1. An
   intractable problem.  2. A crucial piece of hardware that can't be
   fixed or replaced if it breaks.  3. A tool that has been hacked
   over by so many incompetent programmers that it has become an
   unmaintainable tissue of hacks.  4. An out-of-control but
   unkillable development effort.  5. An embarrassing bug that pops up
   during a customer demo.

   This term has other meanings in other technical cultures; among
   experimental physicists and hardware engineers of various kinds it
   seems to mean any random object of unknown purpose (similar to
   hackish use of {frob}).  It has also been used to describe an
   amusing trick-the-eye drawing resembling a three-pronged fork that
   appears to depict a three-dimensional object until one realizes that
   the parts fit together in an impossible way.

block: [from process scheduling terminology in OS theory] 1. vi.
   To delay or sit idle while waiting for something.  "We're blocking
   until everyone gets here."  Compare {busy-wait}.  2. `block
   on' vt. To block, waiting for (something).  "Lunch is blocked on
   Phil's arrival."

block transfer computations: n. From the television series
   "Dr. Who", in which it referred to computations so fiendishly
   subtle and complex that they could not be performed by machines.
   Used to refer to any task that should be expressible as an
   algorithm in theory, but isn't.

blow an EPROM: /bloh *n ee'prom/ v. (alt. `blast an EPROM',
   `burn an EPROM') To program a read-only memory, e.g. for use
   with an embedded system.  This term arises because the programming
   process for the Programmable Read-Only Memories (PROMs) that
   preceded present-day Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memories
   (EPROMs) involved intentionally blowing tiny electrical fuses on
   the chip.  Thus, one was said to `blow' (or `blast') a PROM, and
   the terminology carried over even though the write process on
   EPROMs is nondestructive.

blow away: vt. To remove (files and directories) from permanent
   storage, generally by accident.  "He reformatted the wrong
   partition and blew away last night's netnews."  Oppose {nuke}.

blow out: vi. Of software, to fail spectacularly; almost as serious
   as {crash and burn}.  See {blow past}, {blow up}.

blow past: vt. To {blow out} despite a safeguard.  "The server blew
   past the 5K reserve buffer."

blow up: vi. 1. [scientific computation] To become unstable.  Suggests
   that the computation is diverging so rapidly that it will soon
   overflow or at least go {nonlinear}.  2.  Syn. {blow out}.

BLT: /B-L-T/, /bl*t/ or (rarely) /belt/ n.,vt. Synonym for
   {blit}.  This is the original form of {blit} and the ancestor
   of {bitblt}.  It referred to any large bit-field copy or move
   operation (one resource-intensive memory-shuffling operation done
   on pre-paged versions of ITS, WAITS, and TOPS-10 was sardonically
   referred to as `The Big BLT').  The jargon usage has outlasted the
   {PDP-10} BLock Transfer instruction from which {BLT} derives;
   nowadays, the assembler mnemonic {BLT} almost always means
   `Branch if Less Than zero'.

Blue Book: n. 1. Informal name for one of the three standard
   references on the page-layout and graphics-control language
   PostScript (`PostScript Language Tutorial and Cookbook', Adobe
   Systems, Addison-Wesley 1985, QA76.73.P67P68, ISBN 0-201-10179-3);
   the other two official guides are known as the {Green Book} and
   {Red Book}.  2. Informal name for one of the three standard
   references on Smalltalk: `Smalltalk-80: The Language and its
   Implementation', David Robson, Addison-Wesley 1983, QA76.8.S635G64,
   ISBN 0-201-11371-63 (this is also associated with green and red
   books).  3. Any of the 1988 standards issued by the CCITT's
   ninth plenary assembly.  Until now, they have changed color each review
   cycle (1984 was {Red Book}, 1992 would be {Green Book}); however,
   it is rumored that this convention is going to be dropped before 1992.
   These include, among other things, the X.400 email spec and
   the Group 1 through 4 fax standards.  See also {{book titles}}.

Blue Glue: [IBM] n. IBM's SNA (Systems Network Architecture), an
   incredibly {losing} and {bletcherous} communications protocol
   widely favored at commercial shops that don't know any better.  The
   official IBM definition is "that which binds blue boxes
   together."  See {fear and loathing}.  It may not be irrelevant
   that {Blue Glue} is the trade name of a 3M product that is
   commonly used to hold down the carpet squares to the removable
   panel floors common in {dinosaur pens}.  A correspondent at
   U. Minn. reports that the CS department there has about 80 bottles
   of the stuff hanging about, so they often refer to any messy work
   to be done as `using the blue glue'.

blue goo: n. Term for `police' {nanobot}s intended to prevent
   {gray goo}, denature hazardous waste, destroy pollution, put
   ozone back into the stratosphere, prevent halitosis, and promote
   truth, justice, and the American way, etc.  See
   {{nanotechnology}}.

BNF: /B-N-F/ n. 1. [techspeak] Acronym for `Backus-Naur Form', a
   metasyntactic notation used to specify the syntax of programming
   languages, command sets, and the like.  Widely used for language
   descriptions but seldom documented anywhere, so that it must
   usually be learned by osmosis from other hackers.  Consider this
   BNF for a U.S. postal address:

      <postal-address> ::= <name-part> <street-address> <zip-part>

      <personal-part> ::= <name> | <initial> "."

      <name-part> ::= <personal-part> <last-name> [<jr-part>] <EOL>
                    | <personal-part> <name-part>

      <street-address> ::= [<apt>] <house-num> <street-name> <EOL>

      <zip-part> ::= <town-name> "," <state-code> <ZIP-code> <EOL>

   This translates into English as: "A postal-address consists of a
   name-part, followed by a street-address part, followed by a
   zip-code part.  A personal-part consists of either a first name or
   an initial followed by a dot.  A name-part consists of either: a
   personal-part followed by a last name followed by an optional
   `jr-part' (Jr., Sr., or dynastic number) and end-of-line, or a
   personal part followed by a name part (this rule illustrates the
   use of recursion in BNFs, covering the case of people who use
   multiple first and middle names and/or initials).  A street address
   consists of an optional apartment specifier, followed by a street
   number, followed by a street name.  A zip-part consists of a
   town-name, followed by a comma, followed by a state code, followed
   by a ZIP-code followed by an end-of-line."  Note that many things
   (such as the format of a personal-part, apartment specifier, or
   ZIP-code) are left unspecified.  These are presumed to be obvious
   from context or detailed somewhere nearby.  See also {parse}.
   2. The term is also used loosely for any number of variants and
   extensions, possibly containing some or all of the {regexp}
   wildcards such as `*' or `+'.  In fact the example above
   isn't the pure form invented for the Algol-60 report; it uses
   `[]', which was introduced a few years later in IBM's PL/I
   definition but is now universally recognized.  3. In
   {{science-fiction fandom}}, BNF means `Big-Name Fan'
   (someone famous or notorious).  Years ago a fan started handing out
   black-on-green BNF buttons at SF conventions; this confused the
   hacker contingent terribly.

boa: [IBM] n. Any one of the fat cables that lurk under the floor
   in a {dinosaur pen}.  Possibly so called because they display a
   ferocious life of their own when you try to lay them straight and
   flat after they have been coiled for some time.  It is rumored
   within IBM that channel cables for the 370 are limited to 200 feet
   because beyond that length the boas get dangerous --- and it is
   worth noting that one of the major cable makers uses the trademark
   `Anaconda'.

board: n. 1. In-context synonym for {bboard}; sometimes used
   even for USENET newsgroups.  2. An electronic circuit board
   (compare {card}).

boat anchor: n. 1. Like {doorstop} but more severe; implies that
   the offending hardware is irreversibly dead or useless.  "That was
   a working motherboard once.  One lightning strike later, instant
   boat anchor!"  2. A person who just takes up space.

bogo-sort: /boh`goh-sort'/ n. (var. `stupid-sort') The
   archetypical perversely awful algorithm (as opposed to {bubble
   sort}, which is merely the generic *bad* algorithm).
   Bogo-sort is equivalent to repeatedly throwing a deck of cards in
   the air, picking them up at random, and then testing whether they
   are in order.  It serves as a sort of canonical example of
   awfulness.  Looking at a program and seeing a dumb algorithm, one
   might say "Oh, I see, this program uses bogo-sort."  Compare
   {bogus}, {brute force}.

bogometer: /boh-gom'-*t-er/ n. See {bogosity}.  Compare the
   `wankometer' described in the {wank} entry; see also
   {bogus}.

bogon: /boh'gon/ [by analogy with proton/electron/neutron, but
   doubtless reinforced after 1980 by the similarity to Douglas
   Adams's `Vogons'; see the Bibliography] n. 1. The elementary particle of
   bogosity (see {quantum bogodynamics}).  For instance, "the
   Ethernet is emitting bogons again" means that it is broken or
   acting in an erratic or bogus fashion.  2. A query packet sent from
   a TCP/IP domain resolver to a root server, having the reply bit set
   instead of the query bit.  3. Any bogus or incorrectly formed
   packet sent on a network.  4. By synecdoche, used to refer to any
   bogus thing, as in "I'd like to go to lunch with you but I've got
   to go to the weekly staff bogon".  5. A person who is bogus or who
   says bogus things.  This was historically the original usage, but
   has been overtaken by its derivative senses 1--4.  See
   also {bogosity}, {bogus}; compare {psyton}.

bogon filter: /boh'gon fil'tr/ n. Any device, software or hardware,
   that limits or suppresses the flow and/or emission of bogons.
   "Engineering hacked a bogon filter between the Cray and
   the VAXen, and now we're getting fewer dropped packets."  See
   also {bogosity}, {bogus}.

bogon flux: /boh'gon fluhks/ n. A measure of a supposed field of
   {bogosity} emitted by a speaker, measured by a {bogometer};
   as a speaker starts to wander into increasing bogosity a listener
   might say "Warning, warning, bogon flux is rising".  See
   {quantum bogodynamics}.

bogosity: /boh-go's*-tee/ n. 1. The degree to which something is
   {bogus}.  At CMU, bogosity is measured with a {bogometer}; in
   a seminar, when a speaker says something bogus, a listener might
   raise his hand and say "My bogometer just triggered".  More
   extremely, "You just pinned my bogometer"  means you just said
   or did something so outrageously bogus that it is off the scale,
   pinning the bogometer needle at the highest possible reading (one
   might also say "You just redlined my bogometer").  The
   agreed-upon unit of bogosity is the microLenat /mi:k`roh-len'*t/
   (uL).
   The consensus is that this is the largest unit practical
   for everyday use.  2. The potential field generated by a {bogon
   flux}; see {quantum bogodynamics}.  See also {bogon flux},
   {bogon filter}, {bogus}.

   Historical note: The microLenat was invented as a attack against
   noted computer scientist Doug Lenat by a {tenured graduate
   student}.  Doug had failed the student on an important exam for
   giving only "AI is bogus" as his answer to the questions.  The
   slur is generally considered unmerited, but it has become a running
   gag nevertheless.  Some of Doug's friends argue that *of
   course* a microLenat is bogus, since it is only one millionth of a
   Lenat.  Others have suggested that the unit should be redesignated
   after the grad student, as the microReid.

bogotify: /boh-go't*-fi:/ vt. To make or become bogus.  A
   program that has been changed so many times as to become completely
   disorganized has become bogotified.  If you tighten a nut too hard
   and strip the threads on the bolt, the bolt has become bogotified
   and you had better not use it any more.  This coinage led to the
   notional `autobogotiphobia' defined as `the fear of becoming
   bogotified'; but is not clear that the latter has ever been
   `live' jargon rather than a self-conscious joke in jargon about
   jargon.  See also {bogosity}, {bogus}.

bogue out: /bohg owt/ vi. To become bogus, suddenly and
   unexpectedly.  "His talk was relatively sane until somebody asked
   him a trick question; then he bogued out and did nothing but
   {flame} afterwards."  See also {bogosity}, {bogus}.

bogus: adj. 1. Non-functional.  "Your patches are bogus."
   2. Useless.  "OPCON is a bogus program."  3. False.  "Your
   arguments are bogus."  4. Incorrect.  "That algorithm is bogus."
   5. Unbelievable.  "You claim to have solved the halting problem
   for Turing Machines?  That's totally bogus."  6. Silly.  "Stop
   writing those bogus sagas."

   Astrology is bogus.  So is a bolt that is obviously about to break.
   So is someone who makes blatantly false claims to have solved a
   scientific problem.  (This word seems to have some, but not all, of
   the connotations of {random} --- mostly the negative ones.)

   It is claimed that `bogus' was originally used in the hackish sense
   at Princeton in the late 1960s.  It was spread to CMU and Yale by
   Michael Shamos, a migratory Princeton alumnus.  A glossary of bogus
   words was compiled at Yale when the word was first popularized (see
   {autobogotiphobia} under {bogotify}). The word spread into
   hackerdom from CMU and MIT.  By the early 1980s it was also
   current in something like the hackish sense in West Coast teen
   slang, and it had gone mainstream by 1985.  A correspondent from
   Cambridge reports, by contrast, that these uses of `bogus' grate on
   British nerves; in Britain the word means, rather specifically,
   `counterfeit', as in "a bogus 10-pound note".

Bohr bug: /bohr buhg/ [from quantum physics] n. A repeatable
   {bug}; one that manifests reliably under a possibly unknown but
   well-defined set of conditions.  Antonym of {heisenbug}; see also
   {mandelbug}.

boink: /boynk/ [USENET: ascribed there to the TV series
   "Cheers" and "Moonlighting"] 1. To have sex with;
   compare {bounce}, sense 3. (This is mainstream slang.) In
   Commonwealth hackish the variant `bonk' is more common.  2. After
   the original Peter Korn `Boinkon' {USENET} parties, used for
   almost any net social gathering, e.g., Miniboink, a small boink
   held by Nancy Gillett in 1988; Minniboink, a Boinkcon in Minnesota
   in 1989; Humpdayboinks, Wednesday get-togethers held in the San
   Francisco Bay Area.  Compare {@-party}.  3. Var of `bonk';
   see {bonk/oif}.

bomb: 1. v. General synonym for {crash} (sense 1) except that it
   is not used as a noun; esp. used of software or OS failures.
   "Don't run Empire with less than 32K stack, it'll bomb."
   2. n.,v. Atari ST and Macintosh equivalents of a UNIX `panic' or
   Amiga {guru} (sense 2), where icons of little black-powder bombs
   or mushroom clouds are displayed, indicating that the system has died.
   On the Mac, this may be accompanied by a decimal (or occasionally
   hexadecimal) number indicating what went wrong, similar to the
   Amiga GURU MEDITATION number (see {guru}).  {{MS-DOS}} machines
   tend to get {locked up} in this situation.

bondage-and-discipline language: A language (such as Pascal, Ada,
   APL, or Prolog) that, though ostensibly general-purpose, is designed
   so as to enforce an author's theory of `right programming' even
   though said theory is demonstrably inadequate for systems hacking
   or even vanilla general-purpose programming.  Often abbreviated
   `B&D'; thus, one may speak of things "having the B&D nature".
   See {{Pascal}}; oppose {languages of choice}.

bonk/oif: /bonk/, /oyf/ interj. In the {MUD} community, it has
   become traditional to express pique or censure by `bonking' the
   offending person.  There is a convention that one should
   acknowledge a bonk by saying `oif!' and a myth to the effect that
   failing to do so upsets the cosmic bonk/oif balance, causing much
   trouble in the universe.  Some MUDs have implemented special
   commands for bonking and oifing.  See also {talk mode},
   {posing}.

book titles:: There is a tradition in hackerdom of informally
   tagging important textbooks and standards documents with the
   dominant color of their covers or with some other conspicuous
   feature of the cover.  Many of these are described in this lexicon
   under their own entries. See {Aluminum Book}, {Blue Book},
   {Cinderella Book}, {Devil Book}, {Dragon Book}, {Green
   Book}, {Orange Book}, {Pink-Shirt Book}, {Purple Book},
   {Red Book}, {Silver Book}, {White Book}, {Wizard Book},
   {Yellow Book}, and {bible}.

boot: [techspeak; from `by one's bootstraps'] v.,n. To load and
   initialize the operating system on a machine.  This usage is no
   longer jargon (having passed into techspeak) but has given rise to
   some derivatives that are still jargon.

   The derivative `reboot' implies that the machine hasn't been
   down for long, or that the boot is a {bounce} intended to clear
   some state of {wedgitude}.  This is sometimes used of human
   thought processes, as in the following exchange: "You've lost
   me." "OK, reboot.  Here's the theory...."

   This term is also found in the variants `cold boot' (from
   power-off condition) and `warm boot' (with the CPU and all
   devices already powered up, as after a hardware reset or software
   crash).

   Another variant: `soft boot', reinitialization of only part of a
   system, under control of other software still running: "If
   you're running the {mess-dos} emulator, control-alt-insert will
   cause a soft-boot of the emulator, while leaving the rest of the
   system running."

   Opposed to this there is `hard boot', which connotes hostility
   towards or frustration with the machine being booted:  "I'll have
   to hard-boot this losing Sun." "I recommend booting it hard."

   Historical note: this term derives from `bootstrap loader', a short
   program that was read in from cards or paper tape, or toggled in
   from the front panel switches.  This program was always very short
   (great efforts were expended on making it short in order to
   minimize the labor and chance of error involved in toggling it in),
   but was just smart enough to read in a slightly more complex
   program (usually from a card or paper tape reader), to which it
   handed control; this program in turn was smart enough to read the
   application or operating system from a magnetic tape drive or disk
   drive.  Thus, in successive steps, the computer `pulled itself up
   by its bootstraps' to a useful operating state.  Nowadays the
   bootstrap is usually found in ROM or EPROM, and reads the first
   stage in from a fixed location on the disk, called the `boot
   block'.  When this program gains control, it is powerful enough to
   load the actual OS and hand control over to it.

bottom-up implementation: n. Hackish opposite of the techspeak term
   `top-down design'.  It is now received wisdom in most
   programming cultures that it is best to design from higher levels
   of abstraction down to lower, specifying sequences of action in
   increasing detail until you get to actual code.  Hackers often find
   (especially in exploratory designs that cannot be closely
   specified in advance) that it works best to *build* things in
   the opposite order, by writing and testing a clean set of primitive
   operations and then knitting them together.

bounce: v. 1. [perhaps from the image of a thrown ball bouncing
   off a wall] An electronic mail message that is undeliverable and
   returns an error notification to the sender is said to `bounce'.
   See also {bounce message}.  2. [Stanford] To play volleyball.
   At the now-demolished {D. C. Power Lab} building used by the
   Stanford AI Lab in the 1970s, there was a volleyball court on the
   front lawn.  From 5 P.M. to 7 P.M. was the scheduled
   maintenance time for the computer, so every afternoon at 5 the
   computer would become unavailable, and over the intercom a voice
   would cry, "Now hear this: bounce, bounce!" followed by Brian
   McCune loudly bouncing a volleyball on the floor outside the
   offices of known volleyballers.  3. To engage in sexual
   intercourse; prob. from the expression `bouncing the mattress',
   but influenced by Piglet's psychosexually loaded "Bounce on me
   too, Tigger!" from the "Winnie-the-Pooh" books.  Compare
   {boink}.  4. To casually reboot a system in order to clear up a
   transient problem.  Reported primarily among {VMS} users.
   5. [IBM] To {power cycle} a peripheral in order to reset it.

bounce message: [UNIX] n. Notification message returned to sender by
   a site unable to relay {email} to the intended {{Internet address}}
   recipient or the next link in a {bang path} (see {bounce}).
   Reasons might include a nonexistent or misspelled username or a
   {down} relay site.  Bounce messages can themselves fail, with
   occasionally ugly results; see {sorcerer's apprentice mode}.
   The term `bounce mail' is also common.

box: n. 1. A computer; esp. in the construction `foo box'
   where foo is some functional qualifier, like `graphics', or
   the name of an OS (thus, `UNIX box', `MS-DOS box', etc.)  "We
   preprocess the data on UNIX boxes before handing it up to the
   mainframe."  2. [within IBM] Without qualification but within an
   SNA-using site, this refers specifically to an IBM front-end
   processor or FEP /F-E-P/.  An FEP is a small computer necessary
   to enable an IBM {mainframe} to communicate beyond the limits of
   the {dinosaur pen}.  Typically used in expressions like the cry
   that goes up when an SNA network goes down: "Looks like the
   {box} has fallen over." (See {fall over}.) See also
   {IBM}, {fear and loathing}, {fepped out}, {Blue
   Glue}.

boxed comments: n. Comments (explanatory notes attached to program
   instructions) that occupy several lines by themselves; so called
   because in assembler and C code they are often surrounded by a box
   in a style something like this:

     /*************************************************
      *
      * This is a boxed comment in C style
      *
      *************************************************/

   Common variants of this style omit the asterisks in column 2 or add
   a matching row of asterisks closing the right side of the box.  The
   sparest variant omits all but the comment delimiters themselves;
   the `box' is implied.  Oppose {winged comments}.

boxen: /bok'sn/ [by analogy with {VAXen}] pl.n. Fanciful
   plural of {box} often encountered in the phrase `UNIX boxen',
   used to describe commodity {{UNIX}} hardware.  The connotation is
   that any two UNIX boxen are interchangeable.

boxology: /bok-sol'*-jee/ n. Syn. {ASCII art}.  This term
   implies a more restricted domain, that of box-and-arrow drawings.
   "His report has a lot of boxology in it."  Compare
   {macrology}.

bozotic: /boh-zoh'tik/ or /boh-zo'tik/ [from the name of a TV
   clown even more losing than Ronald McDonald] adj. Resembling or
   having the quality of a bozo; that is, clownish, ludicrously wrong,
   unintentionally humorous.  Compare {wonky}, {demented}.  Note
   that the noun `bozo' occurs in slang, but the mainstream
   adjectival form would be `bozo-like' or (in New England)
   `bozoish'.

BQS: /B-Q-S/ adj. Syn. {Berkeley Quality Software}.

brain dump: n. The act of telling someone everything one knows
   about a particular topic or project.  Typically used when someone
   is going to let a new party maintain a piece of code.  Conceptually
   analogous to an operating system {core dump} in that it saves a
   lot of useful {state} before an exit.  "You'll have to
   give me a brain dump on FOOBAR before you start your new job at
   HackerCorp."  See {core dump} (sense 4).  At Sun, this is also
   known as `TOI' (transfer of information).

brain-damaged: 1. [generalization of `Honeywell Brain Damage'
   (HBD), a theoretical disease invented to explain certain utter
   cretinisms in Honeywell {{Multics}}] adj. Obviously wrong;
   {cretinous}; {demented}.  There is an implication that the
   person responsible must have suffered brain damage, because he
   should have known better.  Calling something brain-damaged is
   really bad; it also implies it is unusable, and that its failure to
   work is due to poor design rather than some accident.  "Only six
   monocase characters per file name?  Now *that's*
   brain-damaged!"  2. [esp. in the Mac world] May refer to free
   demonstration software that has been deliberately crippled in some
   way so as not to compete with the commercial product it is
   intended to sell.  Syn.  {crippleware}.

brain-dead: adj. Brain-damaged in the extreme.  It tends to imply
   terminal design failure rather than malfunction or simple
   stupidity.  "This comm program doesn't know how to send a break
   --- how brain-dead!"

braino: /bray'no/ n. Syn. for {thinko}.

branch to Fishkill: [IBM: from the location of one of the
   corporation's facilities] n. Any unexpected jump in a program that
   produces catastrophic or just plain weird results.  See {jump
   off into never-never land}, {hyperspace}.

brand brand brand: n. Humorous catch-phrase from {BartleMUD}s, in
   which players were described carrying a list of objects, the most
   common of which would usually be a brand.  Often used as a joke in
   {talk mode} as in "Fred the wizard is here, carrying brand ruby
   brand brand brand kettle broadsword flamethrower".  A brand is a
   torch, of course; one burns up a lot of those exploring dungeons.
   Prob. influenced by the famous Monty Python "Spam" skit.

break: 1. vt. To cause to be broken (in any sense).  "Your latest
   patch to the editor broke the paragraph commands."  2. v.  (of a
   program) To stop temporarily, so that it may debugged.  The place
   where it stops is a `breakpoint'.  3. [techspeak] vi. To send an
   RS-232 break (125 msec of line high) over a serial comm line.
   4. [UNIX] vi. To strike whatever key currently causes the tty
   driver to send SIGINT to the current process.  Normally, break
   (sense 3) or delete does this.  5. `break break' may be said to
   interrupt a conversation (this is an example of verb doubling).

breath-of-life packet: [XEROX PARC] n. An Ethernet packet that
   contained bootstrap (see {boot}) code, periodically sent out
   from a working computer to infuse the `breath of life' into any
   computer on the network that had happened to crash.  The machines
   had hardware or firmware that would wait for such a packet after a
   catastrophic error.

breedle: n. See {feep}.

bring X to its knees: v. To present a machine, operating system,
   piece of software, or algorithm with a load so extreme or
   {pathological} that it grinds to a halt.  "To bring a MicroVAX
   to its knees, try twenty users running {vi} --- or four running
   {EMACS}."  Compare {hog}.

brittle: adj. Said of software that is functional but easily broken
   by changes in operating environment or configuration, or by any
   minor tweak to the software itself.  Also, any system that
   responds inappropriately and disastrously to expected external
   stimuli; e.g., a file system that is usually totally scrambled by a
   power failure is said to be brittle.  This term is often used to
   describe the results of a research effort that were never intended
   to be robust, but it can be applied to commercially developed
   software, which displays the quality far more often than it ought
   to.  Oppose {robust}.

broadcast storm: n. An incorrect packet broadcast on a network that
   causes most hosts to respond all at once, typically with wrong
   answers that start the process over again.  See {network
   meltdown}.

broken: adj. 1. Not working properly (of programs).  2. Behaving
   strangely; especially (when used of people) exhibiting extreme
   depression.

broken arrow: [IBM] n. The error code displayed on line 25 of a
   3270 terminal (or a PC emulating a 3270) for various kinds of
   protocol violations and "unexpected" error conditions (including
   connection to a {down} computer).  On a PC, simulated with
   `->/_', with the two center characters overstruck. In true
   {luser} fashion, the original documentation of these codes
   (visible on every 3270 terminal, and necessary for debugging
   network problems) was confined to an IBM customer engineering
   manual.

   Note: to appreciate this term fully, it helps to know that `broken
   arrow' is also military jargon for an accident involving nuclear
   weapons.... 

broket: /broh'k*t/ or /broh'ket`/ [by analogy with `bracket': a
   `broken bracket'] n. Either of the characters `<' and `>',
   when used as paired enclosing delimiters.  This word
   originated as a contraction of the phrase `broken bracket', that
   is, a bracket that is bent in the middle.  (At MIT, and apparently
   in the {Real World} as well, these are usually called {angle
   brackets}.)

Brooks's Law: prov. "Adding manpower to a late software project
   makes it later" --- a result of the fact that the advantage from
   splitting work among N programmers is O(N) (that is,
   proportional to N), but the complexity and communications
   cost associated with coordinating and then merging their work
   is O(N^2) (that is, proportional to the square of N).
   The quote is from Fred Brooks, a manager of IBM's OS/360 project
   and author of `The Mythical Man-Month' (Addison-Wesley, 1975,
   ISBN 0-201-00650-2), an excellent early book on software
   engineering.  The myth in question has been most tersely expressed
   as "Programmer time is fungible" and Brooks established
   conclusively that it is not.  Hackers have never forgotten his
   advice; too often, {management} does.  See also
   {creationism}, {second-system effect}.

BRS: /B-R-S/ n. Syn. {Big Red Switch}.  This abbreviation is
   fairly common on-line.

brute force: adj. Describes a primitive programming style, one in
   which the programmer relies on the computer's processing power
   instead of using his or her own intelligence to simplify the problem,
   often ignoring problems of scale and applying na"ive methods suited
   to small problems directly to large ones.

   The {canonical} example of a brute-force algorithm is associated
   with the `traveling salesman problem' (TSP), a classical NP-hard
   problem: Suppose a person is in, say, Boston, and wishes to drive
   to N other cities.  In what order should he or she visit
   them in order to minimize the distance travelled?  The brute-force
   method is to simply generate all possible routes and compare the
   distances; while guaranteed to work and simple to implement, this
   algorithm is clearly very stupid in that it considers even
   obviously absurd routes (like going from Boston to Houston via San
   Francisco and New York, in that order).  For very small N it
   works well, but it rapidly becomes absurdly inefficient when
   N increases (for N = 15, there are already
   1,307,674,368,000 possible routes to consider, and for
   N = 1000 --- well, see {bignum}).  See
   also {NP-}.

   A more simple-minded example of brute-force programming is finding
   the smallest number in a large list by first using an existing
   program to sort the list in ascending order, and then picking the
   first number off the front.

   Whether brute-force programming should be considered stupid or not
   depends on the context; if the problem isn't too big, the extra CPU
   time spent on a brute-force solution may cost less than the
   programmer time it would take to develop a more `intelligent'
   algorithm.  Alternatively, a more intelligent algorithm may imply
   more long-term complexity cost and bug-chasing than are justified
   by the speed improvement.

   Ken Thompson, co-inventor of UNIX, is reported to have uttered the
   epigram "When in doubt, use brute force".  He probably intended
   this as a {ha ha only serious}, but the original UNIX kernel's
   preference for simple, robust, and portable algorithms over
   {brittle} `smart' ones does seem to have been a significant
   factor in the success of that OS.  Like so many other tradeoffs in
   software design, the choice between brute force and complex,
   finely-tuned cleverness is often a difficult one that requires both
   engineering savvy and delicate esthetic judgment.

brute force and ignorance: n. A popular design technique at many
   software houses --- {brute force} coding unrelieved by any
   knowledge of how problems have been previously solved in elegant
   ways.  Dogmatic adherence to design methodologies tends to
   encourage it.  Characteristic of early {larval stage}
   programming; unfortunately, many never outgrow it.  Often
   abbreviated BFI: "Gak, they used a bubble sort!  That's strictly
   from BFI."  Compare {bogosity}.

BSD: /B-S-D/ n. [acronym for `Berkeley System Distribution'] a
   family of {{UNIX}} versions for the DEC {VAX} and PDP-11
   developed by Bill Joy and others at {Berzerkeley} starting around
   1980, incorporating paged virtual memory, TCP/IP networking
   enhancements, and many other features.  The BSD versions (4.1, 4.2,
   and 4.3) and the commercial versions derived from them (SunOS, ULTRIX,
   and Mt. Xinu) held the technical lead in the UNIX world until
   AT&T's successful standardization efforts after about 1986, and are
   still widely popular.  See {{UNIX}}, {USG UNIX}.

bubble sort: n. Techspeak for a particular sorting technique in
   which pairs of adjacent values in the list to be sorted are
   compared and interchanged if they are out of order; thus, list
   entries `bubble upward' in the list until they bump into one with a
   lower sort value.  Because it is not very good relative to other
   methods and is the one typically stumbled on by {na"ive} and
   untutored programmers, hackers consider it the {canonical}
   example of a na"ive algorithm.  The canonical example of a really
   *bad* algorithm is {bogo-sort}.  A bubble sort might be used
   out of ignorance, but any use of bogo-sort could issue only from
   brain damage or willful perversity.

bucky bits: /buh'kee bits/ n. 1. obs. The bits produced by the
   CONTROL and META shift keys on a SAIL keyboard, resulting in a
   9-bit keyboard character set.  The MIT AI TV (Knight) keyboards
   extended this with TOP and separate left and right CONTROL and META
   keys, resulting in a 12-bit character set; later, LISP Machines
   added such keys as SUPER, HYPER, and GREEK (see {space-cadet
   keyboard}).  2. By extension, bits associated with `extra' shift
   keys on any keyboard, e.g., the ALT on an IBM PC or command and
   option keys on a Macintosh.

   It is rumored that `bucky bits' were named for Buckminster Fuller
   during a period when he was consulting at Stanford.  Actually,
   `Bucky' was Niklaus Wirth's nickname when *he* was at
   Stanford; he first suggested the idea of an EDIT key to set the
   8th bit of an otherwise 7-bit ASCII character.  This was used in a
   number of editors written at Stanford or in its environs (TV-EDIT
   and NLS being the best-known).  The term spread to MIT and CMU
   early and is now in general use.  See {double bucky},
   {quadruple bucky}.

buffer overflow: n. What happens when you try to stuff more data
   into a buffer (holding area) than it can handle.  This may be due
   to a mismatch in the processing rates of the producing and
   consuming processes (see {overrun}), or because the buffer is
   simply too small to hold all the data that must accumulate before a
   piece of it can be processed. For example, in a text-processing
   tool that {crunch}es a line at a time, a short line buffer can
   result in {lossage} as input from a long line overflows the
   buffer and trashes data beyond it.  Good defensive programming
   would check for overflow on each character and stop accepting data
   when the buffer is full up.  The term is used of and by humans in a
   metaphorical sense. "What time did I agree to meet you?  My buffer
   must have overflowed."  Or "If I answer that phone my buffer is
   going to overflow."  See also {spam}, {overrun screw}.

bug: n. An unwanted and unintended property of a program or hardware,
   esp. one that causes it to malfunction.  Antonym of {feature}.
   Examples: "There's a bug in the editor: it writes things out
   backwards."  "The system crashed because of a hardware bug."
   "Fred is a winner, but he has a few bugs"  (i.e., Fred is a good
   guy, but he has a few personality problems).

   Historical note: Some have said this term came from telephone
   company usage, in which "bugs in a telephone cable" were blamed
   for noisy lines, but this appears to be an incorrect folk
   etymology.  Admiral Grace Hopper (an early computing pioneer better
   known for inventing {COBOL}) liked to tell a story in which a
   technician solved a persistent {glitch} in the Harvard Mark II
   machine by pulling an actual insect out from between the
   contacts of one of its relays, and she subsequently promulgated
   {bug} in its hackish sense as a joke about the incident (though,
   as she was careful to admit, she was not there when it happened).
   For many years the logbook associated with the incident and the
   actual bug in question (a moth) sat in a display case at the Naval
   Surface Warfare Center.  The entire story, with a picture of the
   logbook and the moth taped into it, is recorded in the `Annals of
   the History of Computing', Vol. 3, No. 3 (July 1981), pp. 285--286.

   The text of the log entry (from September 9, 1945), reads "1545
   Relay #70 Panel F (moth) in relay.  First actual case of bug being
   found".  This wording seems to establish that the term was already in use
   at the time in its current specific sense.  Indeed, the use of
   `bug' to mean an industrial defect was already established in
   Thomas Edison's time, and `bug' in the sense of an disruptive event
   goes back to Shakespeare!  In the first edition of Samuel Johnson's
   dictionary one meaning of `bug' is "A frightful object; a walking
   spectre"; this is traced to `bugbear', a Welsh term for a variety
   of mythological monster which (to complete the circle) has recently
   been reintroduced into the popular lexicon through fantasy
   role-playing games.

   In any case, in jargon the word almost never refers to insects.
   Here is a plausible conversation that never actually happened:

   "There is a bug in this ant farm!"

   "What do you mean?  I don't see any ants in it."

   "That's the bug."

   [There has been a widespread myth that the original bug was moved
   to the Smithsonian, and an earlier version of this entry so
   asserted.  A correspondent who thought to check discovered that the
   bug was not there.  While investigating this, your editor
   discovered that the NSWC still had the bug, but had unsuccessfully
   tried to get the Smithsonian to accept it --- and that the present
   curator of the History of American Technology Museum didn't
   know this and agreed that it would make a worthwhile exhibit.
   Thus, the process of investigating the original-computer-bug bug
   may have fixed it in an entirely unexpected way, by making the myth
   true!  --- ESR]

bug-compatible: adj. Said of a design or revision that has been
   badly compromised by a requirement to be compatible with
   {fossil}s or {misfeature}s in other programs or (esp.)
   previous releases of itself. "MS-DOS 2.0 used \ as a path
   separator to be bug-compatible with some cretin's choice of / as an
   option character in 1.0."

bug-for-bug compatible: n. Same as {bug-compatible}, with the
   additional implication that much tedious effort went into ensuring
   that each (known) bug was replicated.

buglix: /buhg'liks/ n. Pejorative term referring to DEC's ULTRIX
   operating system in its earlier *severely* buggy versions.
   Still used to describe ULTRIX, but without venom.  Compare
   {HP-SUX}.

bulletproof: adj. Used of an algorithm or implementation considered
   extremely {robust}; lossage-resistant; capable of correctly
   recovering from any imaginable exception condition.  This is a rare
   and valued quality.  Syn. {armor-plated}.

bum: 1. vt. To make highly efficient, either in time or space,
   often at the expense of clarity.  "I managed to bum three more
   instructions out of that code."  "I spent half the night bumming
   the interrupt code."  2. To squeeze out excess; to remove
   something in order to improve whatever it was removed from (without
   changing function; this distinguishes the process from a
   {featurectomy}).  3. n. A small change to an algorithm, program,
   or hardware device to make it more efficient.  "This hardware bum
   makes the jump instruction faster."  Usage: now uncommon, largely
   superseded by v. {tune} (and n. {tweak}, {hack}), though
   none of these exactly capture sense 2.  All these uses are rare in
   Commonwealth hackish, because in the parent dialects of English
   `bum' is a rude synonym for `buttocks'.

bump: vt. Synonym for increment.  Has the same meaning as
   C's ++ operator.  Used esp. of counter variables, pointers, and index
   dummies in `for', `while', and `do-while' loops.

burble: [from Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky"] v. Like {flame},
   but connotes that the source is truly clueless and ineffectual
   (mere flamers can be competent).  A term of deep contempt.
   "There's some guy on the phone burbling about how he got a DISK
   FULL error and it's all our comm software's fault."

buried treasure: n. A surprising piece of code found in some
   program.  While usually not wrong, it tends to vary from {crufty}
   to {bletcherous}, and has lain undiscovered only because it was
   functionally correct, however horrible it is.  Used sarcastically,
   because what is found is anything *but* treasure.  Buried
   treasure almost always needs to be dug up and removed.  "I just
   found that the scheduler sorts its queue using {bubble sort}!
   Buried treasure!"

burn-in period: n. 1. A factory test designed to catch systems
   with {marginal} components before they get out the door; the
   theory is that burn-in will protect customers by outwaiting the
   steepest part of the {bathtub curve} (see {infant
   mortality}).  2. A period of indeterminate length in which a person
   using a computer is so intensely involved in his project that he
   forgets basic needs such as food, drink, sleep, etc.  Warning:
   Excessive burn-in can lead to burn-out.  See {hack mode},
   {larval stage}.

burst page: n. Syn. {banner}, sense 1.

busy-wait: vi. Used of human behavior, conveys that the subject is
   busy waiting for someone or something, intends to move instantly as
   soon as it shows up, and thus cannot do anything else at the
   moment.  "Can't talk now, I'm busy-waiting till Bill gets off the
   phone."

   Technically, `busy-wait' means to wait on an event by
   {spin}ning through a tight or timed-delay loop that polls for
   the event on each pass, as opposed to setting up an interrupt
   handler and continuing execution on another part of the task.  This
   is a wasteful technique, best avoided on time-sharing systems where
   a busy-waiting program may {hog} the processor.

buzz: vi. 1. Of a program, to run with no indication of progress
   and perhaps without guarantee of ever finishing; esp. said of
   programs thought to be executing tight loops of code.  A program
   that is buzzing appears to be {catatonic}, but you never get out
   of catatonia, while a buzzing loop may eventually end of its own
   accord.  "The program buzzes for about 10 seconds trying to sort
   all the names into order."  See {spin}; see also {grovel}.
   2. [ETA Systems] To test a wire or printed circuit trace for
   continuity by applying an AC rather than DC signal.  Some wire
   faults will pass DC tests but fail a buzz test.  3. To process an
   array or list in sequence, doing the same thing to each element.
   "This loop buzzes through the tz array looking for a terminator
   type."

BWQ: /B-W-Q/ [IBM: acronym, `Buzz Word Quotient'] The
   percentage of buzzwords in a speech or documents.  Usually roughly
   proportional to {bogosity}.  See {TLA}.

by hand: adv. Said of an operation (especially a repetitive,
   trivial, and/or tedious one) that ought to be performed
   automatically by the computer, but which a hacker instead has to
   step tediously through.  "My mailer doesn't have a command to
   include the text of the message I'm replying to, so I have to do it
   by hand."  This does not necessarily mean the speaker has to
   retype a copy of the message; it might refer to, say, dropping into
   a {subshell} from the mailer, making a copy of one's mailbox file,
   reading that into an editor, locating the top and bottom of the
   message in question, deleting the rest of the file, inserting `>'
   characters on each line, writing the file, leaving the editor,
   returning to the mailer, reading the file in, and later remembering
   to delete the file.  Compare {eyeball search}.

byte:: /bi:t/ [techspeak] n. A unit of memory or data equal to
   the amount used to represent one character; on modern architectures
   this is usually 8 bits, but may be 9 on 36-bit machines.  Some
   older architectures used `byte' for quantities of 6 or 7 bits, and
   the PDP-10 supported `bytes' that were actually bitfields of
   1 to 36 bits!  These usages are now obsolete, and even 9-bit bytes
   have become rare in the general trend toward power-of-2 word sizes.

   Historical note: The term originated in 1956 during the early
   design phase for the IBM Stretch computer; originally it was
   described as 1 to 6 bits (typical I/O equipment of the period
   used 6-bit chunks of information).  The move to an 8-bit byte
   happened in late 1956, and this size was later adopted and
   promulgated as a standard by the System/360.  The term `byte' was
   coined by mutating the word `bite' so it would not be accidentally
   misspelled as {bit}.  See also {nybble}.

bytesexual: /bi:t`sek'shu-*l/ adj. Said of hardware, denotes
   willingness to compute or pass data in either {big-endian} or
   {little-endian} format (depending, presumably, on a {mode bit}
   somewhere).  See also {NUXI problem}.

= C =

C: n. 1. The third letter of the English alphabet.  2. ASCII
   1000011.  3. The name of a programming language designed by
   Dennis Ritchie during the early 1970s and immediately used to
   reimplement {{UNIX}}.  So called because many features derived
   from an earlier compiler named `B' in commemoration of
   *its* parent, BCPL; before Bjarne Stroustrup settled the
   question by designing C++, there was a humorous debate over whether
   C's successor should be named `D' or `P'.  C became immensely
   popular outside Bell Labs after about 1980 and is now the dominant
   language in systems and microcomputer applications programming.
   See also {languages of choice}, {indent style}.

   C is often described, with a mixture of fondness and disdain
   varying according to the speaker, as "a language that combines
   all the elegance and power of assembly language with all the
   readability and maintainability of assembly language".

calculator: [Cambridge] n. Syn. for {bitty box}.

can: vt. To abort a job on a time-sharing system.  Used esp. when the
   person doing the deed is an operator, as in "canned from the
   {{console}}".  Frequently used in an imperative sense, as in "Can
   that print job, the LPT just popped a sprocket!"  Synonymous with
   {gun}.  It is said that the ASCII character with mnemonic CAN
   (0011000) was used as a kill-job character on some early OSes.

canonical: [historically, `according to religious law'] adj. The
   usual or standard state or manner of something.  This word has a
   somewhat more technical meaning in mathematics.  Two formulas such
   as 9 + x and x + 9 are said to be equivalent because
   they mean the same thing, but the second one is in `canonical
   form' because it is written in the usual way, with the highest
   power of x first.  Usually there are fixed rules you can use
   to decide whether something is in canonical form.  The jargon
   meaning, a relaxation of the technical meaning, acquired its
   present loading in computer-science culture largely through its
   prominence in Alonzo Church's work in computation theory and
   mathematical logic (see {Knights of the Lambda Calculus}).
   Compare {vanilla}.

   This word has an interesting history.  Non-technical academics do
   not use the adjective `canonical' in any of the senses defined
   above with any regularity; they do however use the nouns `canon' and
   `canonicity' (not *canonicalness or *canonicality). The `canon' of
   a given author is the complete body of authentic works by that
   author (this usage is familiar to Sherlock Holmes fans as well as
   to literary scholars).  `*The* canon' is the body of works in
   a given field (e.g., works of literature, or of art, or of music)
   deemed worthwhile for students to study and for scholars to
   investigate.

   These non-techspeak academic usages derive ultimately from the
   historical meaning, specifically the classification of the books of
   the Bible into two groups by Christian theologians.  The
   `canonical' books were the ones widely accepted as Holy
   Scripture and held to be of primary authority.  The
   `deuterocanonical' books (literally `secondarily canonical';
   also known as the `Apochrypha') were held to be of lesser
   authority --- indeed they have been held in such low esteem that to
   this day they are omitted from most Protestant bibles.

   Hackers invest this term with a playfulness that makes an ironic
   contrast with its historical meaning.  A true story: One Bob
   Sjoberg, new at the MIT AI Lab, expressed some annoyance at the use
   of jargon.  Over his loud objections, GLS and RMS made a point of
   using it as much as possible in his presence, and eventually it
   began to sink in.  Finally, in one conversation, he used the word
   `canonical' in jargon-like fashion without thinking.  Steele:
   "Aha!  We've finally got you talking jargon too!"  Stallman:
   "What did he say?"  Steele: "Bob just used `canonical' in the
   canonical way."

   Of course, canonicality depends on context, but it is implicitly
   defined as the way *hackers* normally expect things to be.
   Thus, a hacker may claim with a straight face that `according to
   religious law' is *not* the canonical meaning of `canonical'.

card: n. 1. An electronic printed-circuit board (see also {tall
   card}, {short card}.  2. obs. Syn. {{punched card}}.

card walloper: n. An EDP programmer who grinds out batch programs
   that do stupid things like print people's paychecks.  Compare
   {code grinder}.  See also {{punched card}}, {eighty-column
   mind}.

careware: /keir'weir/ n. {Shareware} for which either the
   author suggests that some payment be made to a nominated charity
   or a levy directed to charity is included on top of the
   distribution charge.  Syn. {charityware}; compare
   {crippleware}, sense 2.

cargo cult programming: n. A style of (incompetent) programming
   dominated by ritual inclusion of code or program structures that
   serve no real purpose.  A cargo cult programmer will usually
   explain the extra code as a way of working around some bug
   encountered in the past, but usually neither the bug nor the reason
   the code apparently avoided the bug was ever fully understood
   (compare {shotgun debugging}, {voodoo programming}).

   The term `cargo cult' is a reference to aboriginal religions that
   grew up in the South Pacific after World War II.  The practices of
   these cults center on building elaborate mockups of airplanes and
   military style landing strips in the hope of bringing the return of
   the god-like airplanes that brought such marvelous cargo during the
   war.  Hackish usage probably derives from Richard Feynman's
   characterization of certain practices as "cargo cult science" in
   his book `Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman' (W. W. Norton
   & Co, New York 1985, ISBN 0-393-01921-7).

case and paste: [from `cut and paste'] n. 1. The addition of a new
   {feature} to an existing system by selecting the code from an
   existing feature and pasting it in with minor changes.  Common in
   telephony circles because most operations in a telephone switch are
   selected using `case' statements.  Leads to {software bloat}.

   In some circles of EMACS users this is called `programming by
   Meta-W', because Meta-W is the EMACS command for copying a block of
   text to a kill buffer in preparation to pasting it in elsewhere.
   The term is condescending, implying that the programmer is acting
   mindlessly rather than thinking carefully about what is required to
   integrate the code for two similar cases.

casters-up mode: [IBM] n. Yet another synonym for `broken' or
   `down'.

casting the runes: n. What a {guru} does when you ask him or her
   to run a particular program and type at it because it never works
   for anyone else; esp. used when nobody can ever see what the guru
   is doing different from what J. Random Luser does.  Compare
   {incantation}, {runes}, {examining the entrails}; also see
   the AI koan about Tom Knight in appendix A.

cat: [from `catenate' via {{UNIX}} `cat(1)'] vt.
   1. [techspeak] To spew an entire file to the screen or some other
   output sink without pause.  2. By extension, to dump large amounts
   of data at an unprepared target or with no intention of browsing it
   carefully.  Usage: considered silly.  Rare outside UNIX sites.  See
   also {dd}, {BLT}.

   Among UNIX fans, `cat(1)' is considered an excellent example
   of user-interface design, because it outputs the file contents
   without such verbosity as spacing or headers between the files, and
   because it does not require the files to consist of lines of text,
   but works with any sort of data.

   Among UNIX-haters, `cat(1)' is considered the {canonical}
   example of *bad* user-interface design.  This because it is more
   often used to {blast} a file to standard output than to
   concatenate two files.  The name `cat' for the former
   operation is just as unintuitive as, say, LISP's {cdr}.

   Of such oppositions are {holy wars} made....

catatonic: adj. Describes a condition of suspended animation in
   which something is so {wedged} or {hung} that it makes no
   response.  If you are typing on a terminal and suddenly the
   computer doesn't even echo the letters back to the screen as you
   type, let alone do what you're asking it to do, then the computer
   is suffering from catatonia (possibly because it has crashed).
   "There I was in the middle of a winning game of {nethack} and it
   went catatonic on me!  Aaargh!" Compare {buzz}.

cdr: /ku'dr/ or /kuh'dr/ [from LISP] vt. To skip past the
   first item from a list of things (generalized from the LISP
   operation on binary tree structures, which returns a list
   consisting of all but the first element of its argument).  In the
   form `cdr down', to trace down a list of elements:  "Shall we
   cdr down the agenda?"  Usage: silly.  See also {loop through}.

   Historical note: The instruction format of the IBM 7090 that hosted
   the original LISP implementation featured two 15-bit fields called
   the `address' and `decrement' parts.  The term `cdr' was originally
   `Contents of Decrement part of Register'.  Similarly, `car' stood
   for `Contents of Address part of Register'.

   The cdr and car operations have since become bases for
   formation of compound metaphors in non-LISP contexts.  GLS recalls,
   for example, a programming project in which strings were
   represented as linked lists; the get-character and skip-character
   operations were of course called CHAR and CHDR.

chad: /chad/ n. 1. The perforated edge strips on printer paper, after
   they have been separated from the printed portion.  Also called
   {selvage} and {perf}.  2. obs. The confetti-like paper bits punched
   out of cards or paper tape; this was also called `chaff', `computer
   confetti', and `keypunch droppings'.

   Historical note: One correspondent believes `chad' (sense 2)
   derives from the Chadless keypunch (named for its inventor), which
   cut little u-shaped tabs in the card to make a hole when the tab
   folded back, rather than punching out a circle/rectangle; it was
   clear that if the Chadless keypunch didn't make them, then the
   stuff that other keypunches made had to be `chad'.

chad box: n. {Iron Age} card punches contained boxes inside them,
   about the size of a lunchbox (or in some models a large
   wastebasket), that held the {chad} (sense 2).  You had to open
   the covers of the card punch periodically and empty the chad box.
   The {bit bucket} was notionally the equivalent device in the CPU
   enclosure, which was typically across the room in another great
   gray-and-blue box.

chain: [orig. from BASIC's `CHAIN' statement] vi. To hand off
   execution to a child or successor without going through the
   {OS} command interpreter that invoked it.  The state of the
   parent program is lost and there is no returning to it.  Though
   this facility used to be common on memory-limited micros and is
   still widely supported for backward compatibility, the jargon usage
   is semi-obsolescent; in particular, most UNIX programmers will
   think of this as an {exec}.  Oppose the more modern {subshell}.

char: /keir/ or /char/; rarely, /kar/ n. Shorthand for
   `character'.  Esp. used by C programmers, as `char' is
   C's typename for character data.

charityware: /char'it-ee-weir`/ n. Syn. {careware}.

chase pointers: 1. vi. To go through multiple levels of
   indirection, as in traversing a linked list or graph structure.
   Used esp. by programmers in C, where explicit pointers are a very
   common data type.  This is techspeak, but it remains jargon when
   used of human networks.  "I'm chasing pointers.  Bob said you
   could tell me who to talk to about...." See {dangling
   pointer} and {snap}.  2. [Cambridge] `pointer chase' or
   `pointer hunt': The process of going through a dump
   (interactively or on a large piece of paper printed with hex
   {runes}) following dynamic data-structures.  Used only in a
   debugging context.

chemist: [Cambridge] n. Someone who wastes computer time on
   {number-crunching} when you'd far rather the machine were doing
   something more productive, such as working out anagrams of your
   name or printing Snoopy calendars or running {life} patterns.
   May or may not refer to someone who actually studies chemistry.

Chernobyl chicken: n. See {laser chicken}.

Chernobyl packet: /cher-noh'b*l pak'*t/ n. A network packet that
   induces {network meltdown} (the result of a {broadcast storm}),
   in memory of the 1987 nuclear accident at Chernobyl in the Ukraine.
   The typical case of this is an IP Ethernet datagram that passes
   through a gateway with both source and destination Ether and IP
   address set as the respective broadcast addresses for the
   subnetworks being gated between.  Compare {Christmas tree
   packet}.

chicken head: [Commodore] n. The Commodore Business Machines logo,
   which strongly resembles a poultry part.  Rendered in ASCII as
   `C='.  With the arguable exception of the Amiga (see {amoeba}),
   Commodore's machines are notoriously crocky little {bitty box}es
   (see also {PETSCII}).  Thus, this usage may owe something to
   Philip K.  Dick's novel `Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'
   (the basis for the movie `Blade Runner'), in which a
   `chickenhead' is a mutant with below-average intelligence.

chiclet keyboard: n. A keyboard with small rectangular or
   lozenge-shaped rubber or plastic keys that look like pieces of
   chewing gum.  (Chiclets is the brand name of a variety of chewing
   gum that does in fact resemble the keys of chiclet keyboards.)
   Used esp. to describe the original IBM PCjr keyboard.  Vendors
   unanimously liked these because they were cheap, and a lot of early
   portable and laptop products got launched using them.  Customers
   rejected the idea with almost equal unanimity, and chiclets are not
   often seen on anything larger than a digital watch any more.

chine nual: /sheen'yu-*l/ [MIT] n.,obs. The Lisp Machine Manual, so
   called because the title was wrapped around the cover so only those
   letters showed on the front.

Chinese Army technique: n. Syn. {Mongolian Hordes technique}.

choke: v. To reject input, often ungracefully.  "Nuls make System
   V's `lpr(1)' choke."  "I tried building an {EMACS} binary to
   use {X}, but `cpp(1)' choked on all those `#define's."
   See {barf}, {gag}, {vi}.

chomp: vi. To {lose}; specifically, to chew on something of
   which more was bitten off than one can.  Probably related to
   gnashing of teeth.  See {bagbiter}.  A hand gesture commonly
   accompanies this.  To perform it, hold the four fingers
   together and place the thumb against their tips.  Now open and
   close your hand rapidly to suggest a biting action (much like what
   Pac-Man does in the classic video game, though this pantomime seems
   to predate that).  The gesture alone means `chomp chomp' (see
   Verb Doubling in the "Jargon Construction" section of the
   Prependices).  The hand may be pointed at the object of complaint,
   and for real emphasis you can use both hands at once.  Doing this
   to a person is equivalent to saying "You chomper!"  If you point
   the gesture at yourself, it is a humble but humorous admission of
   some failure.  You might do this if someone told you that a program
   you had written had failed in some surprising way and you felt dumb
   for not having anticipated it.

chomper: n. Someone or something that is chomping; a loser.  See
   {loser}, {bagbiter}, {chomp}.

Christmas tree: n. A kind of RS-232 line tester or breakout box
   featuring rows of blinking red and green LEDs suggestive of
   Christmas lights.

Christmas tree packet: n. A packet with every single option set for
   whatever protocol is in use.  See {kamikaze packet}, {Chernobyl
   packet}.  (The term doubtless derives from a fanciful image of each
   little option bit being represented by a different-colored light
   bulb, all turned on.)

chrome: [from automotive slang via wargaming] n. Showy features
   added to attract users but contributing little or nothing to
   the power of a system.  "The 3D icons in Motif are just chrome,
   but they certainly are *pretty* chrome!"  Distinguished from
   {bells and whistles} by the fact that the latter are usually
   added to gratify developers' own desires for featurefulness. 
   Often used as a term of contempt.

chug: vi. To run slowly; to {grind} or {grovel}.  "The disk is
   chugging like crazy."

Church of the SubGenius: n. A mutant offshoot of
   {Discordianism} launched in 1981 as a spoof of fundamentalist
   Christianity by the `Reverend' Ivan Stang, a brilliant satirist
   with a gift for promotion.  Popular among hackers as a rich source
   of bizarre imagery and references such as "Bob" the divine
   drilling-equipment salesman, the Benevolent Space Xists, and the
   Stark Fist of Removal.  Much SubGenius theory is concerned with the
   acquisition of the mystical substance or quality of
   `slack'.

Cinderella Book: [CMU] n. `Introduction to Automata Theory,
   Languages, and Computation', by John Hopcroft and Jeffrey Ullman,
   (Addison-Wesley, 1979).  So called because the cover depicts a girl
   (putatively Cinderella) sitting in front of a Rube Goldberg device
   and holding a rope coming out of it.  The back cover depicts the
   girl with the device in shambles after she has pulled on the rope.
   See also {{book titles}}.

CI$: // n. Hackerism for `CIS', CompuServe Information Service.
   The dollar sign refers to CompuServe's rather steep line charges.  Often
   used in {sig block}s just before a CompuServe address.  Syn.
   {Compu$erve}.

Classic C: /klas'ik C/ [a play on `Coke Classic'] n. The
   C programming language as defined in the first edition of {K&R},
   with some small additions.  It is also known as `K&R C'.  The name
   came into use while C was being standardized by the ANSI X3J11
   committee.  Also `C Classic'.  This is sometimes applied
   elsewhere: thus, `X Classic', where X = Star Trek (referring to the
   original TV series) or X = PC (referring to IBM's ISA-bus machines
   as opposed to the PS/2 series).  This construction is especially
   used of product series in which the newer versions are considered
   serious losers relative to the older ones.

clean: 1. adj. Used of hardware or software designs, implies
   `elegance in the small', that is, a design or implementation that
   may not hold any surprises but does things in a way that is
   reasonably intuitive and relatively easy to comprehend from the
   outside.  The antonym is `grungy' or {crufty}.  2. v. To remove
   unneeded or undesired files in a effort to reduce clutter:  "I'm
   cleaning up my account." "I cleaned up the garbage and now have
   100 Meg free on that partition."

CLM: /C-L-M/ [Sun: `Career Limiting Move'] 1. n. An action
   endangering one's future prospects of getting plum projects and
   raises, and possibly one's job:  "His Halloween costume was a
   parody of his manager.  He won the prize for `best CLM'."
   2. adj.  Denotes extreme severity of a bug, discovered by a
   customer and obviously missed earlier because of poor testing:
   "That's a CLM bug!"

clobber: vt. To overwrite, usually unintentionally: "I walked off
   the end of the array and clobbered the stack."  Compare {mung},
   {scribble}, {trash}, and {smash the stack}.

clocks: n. Processor logic cycles, so called because each
   generally corresponds to one clock pulse in the processor's timing.
   The relative execution times of instructions on a machine are
   usually discussed in clocks rather than absolute fractions of a
   second; one good reason for this is that clock speeds for various
   models of the machine may increase as technology improves, and it
   is usually the relative times one is interested in when discussing
   the instruction set.  Compare {cycle}.

clone: n. 1. An exact duplicate: "Our product is a clone of
   their product."  Implies a legal reimplementation from
   documentation or by reverse-engineering.  Also connotes lower
   price.  2. A shoddy, spurious copy: "Their product is a
   clone of our product."  3. A blatant ripoff, most likely violating
   copyright, patent, or trade secret protections: "Your
   product is a clone of my product."  This use implies legal
   action is pending.  4. A `PC clone'; a PC-BUS/ISA or
   EISA-compatible 80x86-based microcomputer (this use is sometimes
   spelled `klone' or `PClone').  These invariably have much
   more bang for the buck than the IBM archetypes they resemble.
   5. In the construction `UNIX clone': An OS designed to deliver
   a UNIX-lookalike environment without UNIX license fees, or with
   additional `mission-critical' features such as support for
   real-time programming.  6. v. To make an exact copy of something.
   "Let me clone that" might mean "I want to borrow that paper so I
   can make a photocopy" or "Let me get a copy of that file before
   you {mung} it".

clover key: [Mac users] n. See {command key}.

clustergeeking: /kluh'st*r-gee`king/ [CMU] n.  Spending more time
   at a computer cluster doing CS homework than most people spend
   breathing.

COBOL: /koh'bol/ [COmmon Business-Oriented Language] n.
   (Synonymous with {evil}.)  A weak, verbose, and flabby language
   used by {card walloper}s to do boring mindless things on
   {dinosaur} mainframes.  Hackers believe all COBOL programmers
   are {suit}s or {code grinder}s, and no self-respecting hacker
   will ever admit to having learned the language.  Its very name is
   seldom uttered without ritual expressions of disgust or horror.
   See also {fear and loathing}, {software rot}.

COBOL fingers: /koh'bol fing'grz/ n. Reported from Sweden, a
   (hypothetical) disease one might get from coding in COBOL.  The
   language requires code verbose beyond all reason; thus it is
   alleged that programming too much in COBOL causes one's fingers to
   wear down to stubs by the endless typing.  "I refuse to type in
   all that source code again; it would give me COBOL fingers!"

code grinder: n. 1. A {suit}-wearing minion of the sort hired in
   legion strength by banks and insurance companies to implement
   payroll packages in RPG and other such unspeakable horrors.  In his
   native habitat, the code grinder often removes the suit jacket to
   reveal an underplumage consisting of button-down shirt (starch
   optional) and a tie.  In times of dire stress, the sleeves (if
   long) may be rolled up and the tie loosened about half an inch.  It
   seldom helps.  The {code grinder}'s milieu is about as far from
   hackerdom as you can get and still touch a computer; the term
   connotes pity.  See {Real World}, {suit}.  2. Used of or to a
   hacker, a really serious slur on the person's creative ability;
   connotes a design style characterized by primitive technique,
   rule-boundedness, {brute force}, and utter lack of imagination.
   Compare {card walloper}; contrast {hacker}, {real
   programmer}.

code police: [by analogy with George Orwell's `thought police'] n.
   A mythical team of Gestapo-like storm troopers that might burst
   into one's office and arrest one for violating programming style
   rules.  May be used either seriously, to underline a claim that a
   particular style violation is dangerous, or ironically, to suggest
   that the practice under discussion is condemned mainly by
   anal-retentive {weenie}s.  "Dike out that goto or the code
   police will get you!"  The ironic usage is perhaps more common.

codewalker: n. A program component that traverses other programs for
   a living.  Compilers have codewalkers in their front ends; so do
   cross-reference generators and some database front ends.  Other
   utility programs that try to do too much with source code may turn
   into codewalkers.  As in "This new `vgrind' feature would require a
   codewalker to implement."

coefficient of X: n. Hackish speech makes rather heavy use of
   pseudo-mathematical metaphors.  Four particularly important ones
   involve the terms `coefficient', `factor', `index', and
   `quotient'.  They are often loosely applied to things you
   cannot really be quantitative about, but there are subtle
   distinctions among them that convey information about the way the
   speaker mentally models whatever he or she is describing.

   `Foo factor' and `foo quotient' tend to describe something for
   which the issue is one of presence or absence.  The canonical
   example is {fudge factor}.  It's not important how much you're
   fudging; the term simply acknowledges that some fudging is needed.
   You might talk of liking a movie for its silliness factor.
   Quotient tends to imply that the property is a ratio of two opposing
   factors: "I would have won except for my luck quotient."  This
   could also be "I would have won except for the luck factor", but
   using *quotient* emphasizes that it was bad luck overpowering
   good luck (or someone else's good luck overpowering your own).

   `Foo index' and `coefficient of foo' both tend to imply
   that foo is, if not strictly measurable, at least something that
   can be larger or smaller.  Thus, you might refer to a paper or
   person as having a `high bogosity index', whereas you would be less
   likely to speak of a `high bogosity factor'.  `Foo index' suggests
   that foo is a condensation of many quantities, as in the mundane
   cost-of-living index; `coefficient of foo' suggests that foo is a
   fundamental quantity, as in a coefficient of friction.  The choice
   between these terms is often one of personal preference; e.g., some
   people might feel that bogosity is a fundamental attribute and thus
   say `coefficient of bogosity', whereas others might feel it is a
   combination of factors and thus say `bogosity index'.

cokebottle: /kohk'bot-l/ n. Any very unusual character,
   particularly one you can't type because it it isn't on your
   keyboard.  MIT people used to complain about the
   `control-meta-cokebottle' commands at SAIL, and SAIL people
   complained right back about the `altmode-altmode-cokebottle'
   commands at MIT.  After the demise of the {space-cadet
   keyboard}, `cokebottle' faded away as serious usage, but was
   often invoked humorously to describe an (unspecified) weird or
   non-intuitive keystroke command.  It may be due for a second
   inning, however.  The OSF/Motif window manager, `mwm(1)', has
   a reserved keystroke for switching to the default set of
   keybindings and behavior.  This keystroke is (believe it or not)
   `control-meta-bang' (see {bang}).  Since the exclamation point
   looks a lot like an upside down Coke bottle, Motif hackers have
   begun referring to this keystroke as `cokebottle'.  See also
   {quadruple bucky}.

cold boot: n. See {boot}.

COME FROM: n. A semi-mythical language construct dual to the `go
   to'; `COME FROM' <label> would cause the referenced label to act as a
   sort of trapdoor, so that if the program ever reached it control
   would quietly and {automagically} be transferred to the statement
   following the `COME FROM'.  `COME FROM' was first proposed in a
   {Datamation} article of December 1973 (reprinted in the April 1984
   issue of `Communications of the ACM') that parodied the
   then-raging `structured programming' {holy wars} (see
   {considered harmful}).  Mythically, some variants are the
   `assigned COME FROM' and the `computed COME FROM'
   (parodying some nasty control constructs in FORTRAN and some
   extended BASICs).  Of course, multi-tasking (or non-determinism)
   could be implemented by having more than one `COME FROM' statement
   coming from the same label.

   In some ways the FORTRAN `DO' looks like a `COME FROM'
   statement.  After the terminating statement number/`CONTINUE'
   is reached, control continues at the statement following the DO.
   Some generous FORTRANs would allow arbitrary statements (other than
   `CONTINUE') for the statement, leading to examples like:

           DO 10 I=1,LIMIT
     C imagine many lines of code here, leaving the
     C original DO statement lost in the spaghetti...
           WRITE(6,10) I,FROB(I)
      10   FORMAT(1X,I5,G10.4)

   in which the trapdoor is just after the statement labeled 10.
   (This is particularly surprising because the label doesn't appear
   to have anything to do with the flow of control at all!)

   While sufficiently astonishing to the unsuspecting reader, this
   form of `COME FROM' statement isn't completely general.  After all,
   control will eventually pass to the following statement.  The
   implementation of the general form was left to Univac FORTRAN,
   ca. 1975.  The statement `AT 100' would perform a `COME
   FROM 100'.  It was intended strictly as a debugging aid, with dire
   consequences promised to anyone so deranged as to use it in
   production code.  More horrible things had already been perpetrated
   in production languages, however; doubters need only contemplate
   the `ALTER' verb in {COBOL}.

   `COME FROM' was supported under its own name for the first
   time 15 years later, in C-INTERCAL (see {INTERCAL},
   {retrocomputing}); knowledgeable observers are still reeling
   from the shock.

comm mode: /kom mohd/ [ITS: from the feature supporting on-line
   chat; the term may spelled with one or two m's] Syn. for {talk
   mode}.

command key: [Mac users] n. The Macintosh key with the cloverleaf
   graphic on its keytop; sometimes referred to as `flower',
   `pretzel', `clover', `propeller', `beanie' (an apparent
   reference to the major feature of a propeller beanie), or
   {splat}.  The Mac's equivalent of an {ALT} key.  The
   proliferation of terms for this creature may illustrate one subtle
   peril of iconic interfaces.

comment out: vt. To surround a section of code with comment
   delimiters or to prefix every line in the section with a comment
   marker; this prevents it from being compiled or interpreted.  Often
   done when the code is redundant or obsolete, but you want to leave
   it in the source to make the intent of the active code clearer;
   also when the code in that section is broken and you want to bypass
   it in order to debug some other part of the code.  Compare
   {condition out}, usually the preferred technique in languages
   (such as {C}) that make it possible.

Commonwealth Hackish:: n. Hacker jargon as spoken outside
   the U.S., esp. in the British Commonwealth.  It is reported that
   Commonwealth speakers are more likely to pronounce truncations like
   `char' and `soc', etc., as spelled (/char/, /sok/), as
   opposed to American /keir/ and /sohsh/.  Dots in {newsgroup}
   names tend to be pronounced more often (so soc.wibble is /sok dot
   wib'l/ rather than /sohsh wib'l/).  The prefix {meta} may be
   pronounced /mee't*/; similarly, Greek letter beta is often
   /bee't*/, zeta is often /zee't*/, and so forth.  Preferred
   metasyntactic variables include `eek', `ook',
   `frodo', and `bilbo'; `wibble', `wobble', and
   in emergencies `wubble'; `banana', `wombat',
   `frog', {fish}, and so on and on (see {foo}, sense 4).

   Alternatives to verb doubling include suffixes `-o-rama',
   `frenzy' (as in feeding frenzy), and `city' (examples: "barf
   city!" "hack-o-rama!" "core dump frenzy!").  Finally, note
   that the American terms `parens', `brackets', and `braces' for (),
   [], and {} are uncommon; Commonwealth hackish prefers
   `brackets', `square brackets', and `curly brackets'.  Also, the
   use of `pling' for {bang} is common outside the United States.

   See also {attoparsec}, {calculator}, {chemist}, {console
   jockey}, {fish}, {go-faster stripes}, {grunge}, {hakspek},
   {heavy metal}, {leaky heap}, {lord high fixer}, {noddy},
   {psychedelicware}, {plingnet}, {raster blaster}, {seggie},
   {terminal junkie}, {tick-list features}, {weeble},
   {weasel}, {YABA}, and notes or definitions under {Bad Thing},
   {barf}, {bogus}, {bum}, {chase pointers}, {cosmic rays},
   {crippleware}, {crunch}, {dodgy}, {gonk}, {hamster},
   {hardwarily}, {mess-dos}, {nybble}, {proglet}, {root},
   {SEX}, {tweak}, and {xyzzy}.

compact: adj. Of a design, describes the valuable property that it
   can all be apprehended at once in one's head.  This generally means
   the thing created from the design can be used with greater facility
   and fewer errors than an equivalent tool that is not compact.
   Compactness does not imply triviality or lack of power; for
   example, C is compact and FORTRAN is not, but C is more powerful
   than FORTRAN.  Designs become non-compact through accreting
   {feature}s and {cruft} that don't merge cleanly into the
   overall design scheme (thus, some fans of {Classic C} maintain
   that ANSI C is no longer compact).

compiler jock: n. See {jock} (sense 2).

compress: [UNIX] vt. When used without a qualifier, generally
   refers to {crunch}ing of a file using a particular
   C implementation of Lempel-Ziv compression by James A. Woods et al. and
   widely circulated via {USENET}.  Use of {crunch} itself in this
   sense is rare among UNIX hackers.

Compu$erve: n. See {CI$}.

computer confetti: n. Syn. {chad}.  Though this term is common,
   this use of the punched-card chad is not a good idea, as the pieces
   are stiff and have sharp corners that could injure the eyes.  GLS
   reports that he once attended a wedding at MIT during which he and
   a few other guests enthusiastically threw chad instead of rice. The
   groom later grumbled that he and his bride had spent most of the
   evening trying to get the stuff out of their hair.

computer geek: n. One who eats (computer) bugs for a living.  One
   who fulfills all the dreariest negative stereotypes about hackers:
   an asocial, malodorous, pasty-faced monomaniac with all the
   personality of a cheese grater.  Cannot be used by outsiders
   without implied insult to all hackers; compare black-on-black usage
   of `nigger'.  A computer geek may be either a fundamentally
   clueless individual or a proto-hacker in {larval stage}.  Also
   called `turbo nerd', `turbo geek'.  See also
   {clustergeeking}, {geek out}, {wannabee}, {terminal
   junkie}.

computron: /kom'pyoo-tron`/ n. 1. A notional unit of computing
   power combining instruction speed and storage capacity, dimensioned
   roughly in instructions-per-second times megabytes-of-main-store
   times megabytes-of-mass-storage.  "That machine can't run GNU
   EMACS, it doesn't have enough computrons!"  This usage is usually
   found in metaphors that treat computing power as a fungible
   commodity good, like a crop yield or diesel horsepower.  See
   {bitty box}, {Get a real computer!}, {toy}, {crank}.
   2. A mythical subatomic particle that bears the unit quantity of
   computation or information, in much the same way that an electron
   bears one unit of electric charge (see also {bogon}).  An
   elaborate pseudo-scientific theory of computrons has been developed
   based on the physical fact that the molecules in a solid object
   move more rapidly as it is heated.  It is argued that an object
   melts because the molecules have lost their information about where
   they are supposed to be (that is, they have emitted computrons).
   This explains why computers get so hot and require air
   conditioning; they use up computrons.  Conversely, it should be
   possible to cool down an object by placing it in the path of a
   computron beam.  It is believed that this may also explain why
   machines that work at the factory fail in the computer room: the
   computrons there have been all used up by the other hardware.
   (This theory probably owes something to the "Warlock" stories
   by Larry Niven, the best known being "What Good is a Glass
   Dagger?", in which magic is fueled by an exhaustible natural
   resource called `mana'.)

condition out: vt. To prevent a section of code from being compiled
   by surrounding it with a conditional-compilation directive whose
   condition is always false.  The {canonical} examples are `#if
   0' (or `#ifdef notdef', though some find this {bletcherous})
   and `#endif' in C.  Compare {comment out}.

condom: n. 1. The protective plastic bag that accompanies 3.5-inch
   microfloppy diskettes.  Rarely, also used of (paper) disk envelopes.
   Unlike the write protect tab, the condom (when left on) not only
   impedes the practice of {SEX} but has also been shown to have a high
   failure rate as drive mechanisms attempt to access the disk --- and
   can even fatally frustrate insertion.  2. The protective cladding
   on a {light pipe}.

connector conspiracy: [probably came into prominence with the
   appearance of the KL-10 (one model of the {PDP-10}), none of
   whose connectors matched anything else] n. The tendency of
   manufacturers (or, by extension, programmers or purveyors of
   anything) to come up with new products that don't fit together
   with the old stuff, thereby making you buy either all new stuff or
   expensive interface devices.  The KL-10 Massbus connector was
   actually *patented* by DEC, which reputedly refused to license
   the design and thus effectively locked third parties out of
   competition for the lucrative Massbus peripherals market.  This is
   a source of never-ending frustration for the diehards who maintain
   older PDP-10 or VAX systems.  Their CPUs work fine, but they are
   stuck with dying, obsolescent disk and tape drives with low
   capacity and high power requirements.

   In these latter days of open-systems computing this term has fallen
   somewhat into disuse, to be replaced by the observation that
   "Standards are great!  There are so *many* of them to choose
   from!"  Compare {backward combatability}.

cons: /konz/ or /kons/ [from LISP] 1. vt. To add a new element
   to a specified list, esp. at the top.  "OK, cons picking a
   replacement for the console TTY onto the agenda."  2. `cons up':
   vt. To synthesize from smaller pieces: "to cons up an example".

   In LISP itself, `cons' is the most fundamental operation for
   building structures.  It takes any two objects and returns a
   `dot-pair' or two-branched tree with one object hanging from each
   branch.  Because the result of a cons is an object, it can be used
   to build binary trees of any shape and complexity.  Hackers think
   of it as a sort of universal constructor, and that is where the
   jargon meanings spring from.

considered harmful: adj. Edsger W. Dijkstra's note in the
   March 1968 `Communications of the ACM', "Goto Statement
   Considered Harmful", fired the first salvo in the structured
   programming wars.  Amusingly, the ACM considered the resulting
   acrimony sufficiently harmful that it will (by policy) no longer
   print an article taking so assertive a position against a coding
   practice.  In the ensuing decades, a large number of both serious
   papers and parodies have borne titles of the form "X
   considered Y".  The structured-programming wars eventually blew
   over with the realization that both sides were wrong, but use of
   such titles has remained as a persistent minor in-joke (the
   `considered silly' found at various places in this lexicon is
   related).

console:: n. 1. The operator's station of a {mainframe}.  In
   times past, this was a privileged location that conveyed godlike
   powers to anyone with fingers on its keys.  Under UNIX and other
   modern timesharing OSes, such privileges are guarded by passwords
   instead, and the console is just the {tty} the system was booted
   from.  Some of the mystique remains, however, and it is traditional
   for sysadmins to post urgent messages to all users from the console
   (on UNIX, /dev/console).  2. On microcomputer UNIX boxes, the main
   screen and keyboard (as opposed to character-only terminals talking
   to a serial port).  Typically only the console can do real graphics
   or run {X}.  See also {CTY}.

console jockey: n. See {terminal junkie}.

content-free: [by analogy with techspeak `context-free'] adj.
   Used of a message that adds nothing to the recipient's knowledge.
   Though this adjective is sometimes applied to {flamage}, it more
   usually connotes derision for communication styles that exalt form
   over substance or are centered on concerns irrelevant to the
   subject ostensibly at hand.  Perhaps most used with reference to
   speeches by company presidents and other professional manipulators.
   "Content-free?  Uh...that's anything printed on glossy
   paper."  See also {four-color glossies}.  "He gave a talk on
   the implications of electronic networks for postmodernism and the
   fin-de-siecle aesthetic.  It was content-free."

control-C: vi. 1. "Stop whatever you are doing."  From the
   interrupt character used on many operating systems to abort a
   running program.  Considered silly.  2. interj. Among BSD UNIX
   hackers, the canonical humorous response to "Give me a break!"

control-O: vi. "Stop talking."  From the character used on some
   operating systems to abort output but allow the program to keep on
   running.  Generally means that you are not interested in hearing
   anything more from that person, at least on that topic; a standard
   response to someone who is flaming.  Considered silly.

control-Q: vi. "Resume."  From the ASCII XON character used to
   undo a previous control-S (in fact it is also pronounced
   XON /X-on/).

control-S: vi. "Stop talking for a second."  From the ASCII XOFF
   character (this is also pronounced XOFF /X-of/).  Control-S
   differs from {control-O} in that the person is asked to stop
   talking (perhaps because you are on the phone) but will be allowed
   to continue when you're ready to listen to him --- as opposed to
   control-O, which has more of the meaning of "Shut up."  Considered
   silly.

Conway's Law: prov. The rule that the organization of the software and
   the organization of the software team will be congruent; originally
   stated as "If you have four groups working on a compiler, you'll
   get a 4-pass compiler".

   This was originally promulgated by Melvin Conway, an early
   proto-hacker who wrote an assembler for the Burroughs 220 called
   SAVE.  The name `SAVE' didn't stand for anything; it was just that
   you lost fewer card decks and listings because they all had SAVE
   written on them.

cookbook: [from amateur electronics and radio] n. A book of small
   code segments that the reader can use to do various {magic}
   things in programs.  One current example is the `PostScript
   Language Tutorial and Cookbook' by Adobe Systems, Inc
   (Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-10179-3) which has recipes for things
   like wrapping text around arbitrary curves and making 3D fonts.
   Cookbooks, slavishly followed, can lead one into {voodoo
   programming}, but are useful for hackers trying to {monkey up}
   small programs in unknown languages.  This is analogous to the role
   of phrasebooks in human languages.

cookie: n. A handle, transaction ID, or other token of agreement
   between cooperating programs.  "I give him a packet, he gives me
   back a cookie."  The claim check you get from a dry-cleaning shop
   is a perfect mundane example of a cookie; the only thing it's
   useful for is to relate a later transaction to this one (so you get
   the same clothes back).  Compare {magic cookie}; see also
   {fortune cookie}.

cookie bear: n. Syn. {cookie monster}.

cookie file: n. A collection of {fortune cookie}s in a format
   that facilitates retrieval by a fortune program.  There are several
   different ones in public distribution, and site admins often
   assemble their own from various sources including this lexicon.

cookie monster: [from "Sesame Street"] n. Any of a family of
   early (1970s) hacks reported on {{TOPS-10}}, {{ITS}}, {{Multics}},
   and elsewhere that would lock up either the victim's terminal (on a
   time-sharing machine) or the {{console}} (on a batch
   {mainframe}), repeatedly demanding "I WANT A COOKIE".  The
   required responses ranged in complexity from "COOKIE" through
   "HAVE A COOKIE" and upward.  See also {wabbit}.

copper: n. Conventional electron-carrying network cable with a
   core conductor of copper --- or aluminum!  Opposed to {light
   pipe} or, say, a short-range microwave link.

copy protection: n. A class of clever methods for preventing
   incompetent pirates from stealing software and legitimate customers
   from using it.  Considered silly.

copybroke: /ko'pee-brohk/ adj. [play on `copyright'] Used to
   describe an instance of a copy-protected program that has been
   `broken'; that is, a copy with the copy-protection scheme disabled.
   Syn.  {copywronged}.

copyleft: /kop'ee-left/ [play on `copyright'] n. 1. The
   copyright notice (`General Public License') carried by {GNU}
   {EMACS} and other Free Software Foundation software, granting reuse
   and reproduction rights to all comers (but see also {General
   Public Virus}).  2. By extension, any copyright notice intended to
   achieve similar aims.

copywronged: /ko'pee-rongd/ [play on `copyright'] adj. Syn. for
   {copybroke}.

core: n. Main storage or RAM.  Dates from the days of ferrite-core
   memory; now archaic as techspeak most places outside IBM, but also
   still used in the UNIX community and by old-time hackers or those
   who would sound like them.  Some derived idioms are quite current;
   `in core', for example, means `in memory' (as opposed to `on
   disk'), and both {core dump} and the `core image' or `core
   file' produced by one are terms in favor.  Commonwealth hackish
   prefers {store}.

core dump: n. [common {Iron Age} jargon, preserved by UNIX]
   1. [techspeak] A copy of the contents of {core}, produced when a
   process is aborted by certain kinds of internal error.  2. By
   extension, used for humans passing out, vomiting, or registering
   extreme shock.  "He dumped core.  All over the floor.  What a
   mess."  "He heard about X and dumped core."  3. Occasionally
   used for a human rambling on pointlessly at great length; esp. in
   apology: "Sorry, I dumped core on you".  4. A recapitulation of
   knowledge (compare {bits}, sense 1).  Hence, spewing all one
   knows about a topic, esp. in a lecture or answer to an exam
   question.  "Short, concise answers are better than core dumps"
   (from the instructions to an exam at Columbia; syn.  {brain
   dump}).  See {core}.

core leak: n. Syn. {memory leak}.

Core Wars: n. A game between `assembler' programs in a
   simulated machine, where the objective is to kill your opponent's
   program by overwriting it.  Popularized by A. K. Dewdney's column
   in `Scientific American' magazine, this was actually
   devised by Victor Vyssotsky, Robert Morris, and Dennis Ritchie in
   the early 1960s (their original game was called `Darwin' and ran on
   a PDP-1 at Bell Labs).  See {core}.

corge: /korj/ [originally, the name of a cat] n. Yet another
   meta-syntactic variable, invented by Mike Gallaher and propagated
   by the {GOSMACS} documentation.  See {grault}.

cosmic rays: n. Notionally, the cause of {bit rot}.  However, this is
   a semi-independent usage that may be invoked as a humorous way to
   {handwave} away any minor {randomness} that doesn't seem worth the
   bother of investigating.  "Hey, Eric --- I just got a burst of
   garbage on my {tube}, where did that come from?"  "Cosmic rays, I
   guess."  Compare {sunspots}, {phase of the moon}.  The British seem
   to prefer the usage `cosmic showers'; `alpha particles' is also
   heard, because stray alpha particles passing through a memory chip
   can cause single-bit errors (this becomes increasingly more likely
   as memory sizes and densities increase).

   Factual note: Alpha particles cause bit rot, cosmic rays do not
   (except occasionally in spaceborne computers).  Intel could not
   explain random bit drops in their early chips, and one hypothesis
   was cosmic rays.  So they created the World's Largest Lead Safe,
   using 25 tons of the stuff, and used two identical boards for
   testing.  One was placed in the safe, one outside.  The hypothesis
   was that if cosmic rays were causing the bit drops, they should see
   a statistically significant difference between the error rates on
   the two boards.  They did not observe such a difference.  Further
   investigation demonstrated conclusively that the bit drops were due
   to alpha particle emissions from thorium (and to a much lesser
   degree uranium) in the encapsulation material.  Since it is
   impossible to eliminate these radioactives (they are uniformly
   distributed through the earth's crust, with the statistically
   insignificant exception of uranium lodes) it became obvious that
   you have to design memories to withstand these hits.

cough and die: v. Syn. {barf}.  Connotes that the program is
   throwing its hands up by design rather than because of a bug or
   oversight.  "The parser saw a control-A in its input where it was
   looking for a printable, so it coughed and died."

cowboy: [Sun, from William Gibson's {cyberpunk} SF] n. Synonym
   for {hacker}.  It is reported that at Sun this word is often
   said with reverence.

CP/M:: /C-P-M/ n. [Control Program for Microcomputers] An
   early microcomputer {OS} written by hacker Gary Kildall for
   8080- and Z80-based machines, very popular in the late 1970s but
   virtually wiped out by MS-DOS after the release of the IBM PC
   in 1981.  Legend has it that Kildall's company blew its chance to
   write the OS for the IBM PC because Kildall decided to spend a day
   IBM's reps wanted to meet with him enjoying the perfect flying
   weather in his private plane.  Many of CP/M's features and conventions
   strongly resemble those of early DEC operating systems such as
   {{TOPS-10}}, OS/8, RSTS, and RSX-11.  See {{MS-DOS}},
   {operating system}.

CPU Wars: /C-P-U worz/ n. A 1979 large-format comic by Chas
   Andres chronicling the attempts of the brainwashed androids of IPM
   (Impossible to Program Machines) to conquer and destroy the
   peaceful denizens of HEC (Human Engineered Computers).  This rather
   transparent allegory featured many references to {ADVENT} and
   the immortal line "Eat flaming death, minicomputer mongrels!"
   (uttered, of course, by an IPM stormtrooper).  It is alleged that
   the author subsequently received a letter of appreciation on IBM
   company stationery from the head of IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research
   Laboratories (then, as now, one of the few islands of true
   hackerdom in the IBM archipelago).  The lower loop of the B in the
   IBM logo, it is said, had been carefully whited out.  See {eat
   flaming death}.

cracker: n. One who breaks security on a system.  Coined ca. 1985
   by hackers in defense against journalistic misuse of {hacker}
   (q.v., sense 8).  An earlier attempt to establish `worm' in this
   sense around 1981--82 on USENET was largely a failure.

crank: [from automotive slang] vt. Verb used to describe the
   performance of a machine, especially sustained performance.  "This
   box cranks (or, cranks at) about 6 {megaflops}, with a burst mode
   of twice that on vectorized operations."

crash: 1. n. A sudden, usually drastic failure.  Most often said
   of the {system} (q.v., sense 1), sometimes of magnetic disk
   drives.  "Three {luser}s lost their files in last night's disk
   crash."  A disk crash that involves the read/write heads dropping
   onto the surface of the disks and scraping off the oxide may also
   be referred to as a `head crash', whereas the term `system
   crash' usually, though not always, implies that the operating
   system or other software was at fault.  2. v. To fail suddenly.
   "Has the system just crashed?"  "Something crashed the OS!" See
   {down}.  Also used transitively to indicate the cause of the
   crash (usually a person or a program, or both).  "Those idiots
   playing {SPACEWAR} crashed the system." 3. vi. Sometimes said
   of people hitting the sack after a long {hacking run}; see
   {gronk out}.

crash and burn: vi.,n. A spectacular crash, in the mode of the
   conclusion of the car-chase scene in the movie "Bullitt" and
   many subsequent imitators.  Sun-3 monitors losing the flyback
   transformer and lightning strikes on VAX-11/780 backplanes are
   notable crash and burn generators.  The construction
   `crash-and-burn machine' is reported for a computer used
   exclusively for alpha or {beta} testing, or reproducing bugs
   (i.e., not for development).  The implication is that it wouldn't
   be such a disaster if that machine crashed, since only the testers
   would be inconvenienced.

crawling horror: n. Ancient crufty hardware or software that is
   kept obstinately alive by forces beyond the control of the hackers
   at a site.  Like {dusty deck} or {gonkulator}, but connotes
   that the thing described is not just an irritation but an active
   menace to health and sanity.  "Mostly we code new stuff in C, but
   they pay us to maintain one big FORTRAN II application from
   nineteen-sixty-X that's a real crawling horror...."  Compare
   {WOMBAT}.

cray: /kray/ n. 1. (properly, capitalized) One of the line of
   supercomputers designed by Cray Research.  2. Any supercomputer at
   all.  3. The {canonical} {number-crunching} machine.

   The term is actually the lowercased last name of Seymour Cray, a
   noted computer architect and co-founder of the company.  Numerous
   vivid legends surround him, some true and some admittedly invented
   by Cray Research brass to shape their corporate culture and image.

cray instability: n. A shortcoming of a program or algorithm that
   manifests itself only when a large problem is being run on a powerful
   machine (see {cray}).  Generally more subtle than bugs that can
   be detected in smaller problems running on a workstation or mini.

crayola: /kray-oh'l*/ n. A super-mini or -micro computer that
   provides some reasonable percentage of supercomputer performance
   for an unreasonably low price.  Might also be a {killer micro}.

crayon: n. 1. Someone who works on Cray supercomputers.  More
   specifically, it implies a programmer, probably of the CDC ilk,
   probably male, and almost certainly wearing a tie (irrespective of
   gender).  Systems types who have a UNIX background tend not to be
   described as crayons.  2. A {computron} (sense 2) that
   participates only in {number-crunching}.  3. A unit of
   computational power equal to that of a single Cray-1.  There is a
   standard joke about this that derives from an old Crayola crayon
   promotional gimmick: When you buy 64 crayons you get a free
   sharpener.

creationism: n. The (false) belief that large, innovative designs
   can be completely specified in advance and then painlessly magicked
   out of the void by the normal efforts of a team of normally
   talented programmers.  In fact, experience has shown repeatedly
   that good designs arise only from evolutionary, exploratory
   interaction between one (or at most a small handful of)
   exceptionally able designer(s) and an active user population ---
   and that the first try at a big new idea is always wrong.
   Unfortunately, because these truths don't fit the planning models
   beloved of {management}, they are generally ignored.

creeping elegance: n. Describes a tendency for parts of a design to
   become {elegant} past the point of diminishing return.  This
   often happens at the expense of the less interesting parts of the
   design, the schedule, and other things deemed important in the
   {Real World}.  See also {creeping featurism}, {second-system
   effect}, {tense}.

creeping featurism: /kree'ping fee'chr-izm/ n. 1. Describes a
   systematic tendency to load more {chrome} and {feature}s onto
   systems at the expense of whatever elegance they may have possessed
   when originally designed.  See also {feeping creaturism}.  "You
   know, the main problem with {BSD} UNIX has always been creeping
   featurism."  2. More generally, the tendency for anything
   complicated to become even more complicated because people keep
   saying "Gee, it would be even better if it had this feature
   too".  (See {feature}.)  The result is usually a patchwork
   because it grew one ad-hoc step at a time, rather than being
   planned.  Planning is a lot of work, but it's easy to add just one
   extra little feature to help someone ... and then another ...
   and another....  When creeping featurism gets out of hand, it's
   like a cancer.  Usually this term is used to describe computer
   programs, but it could also be said of the federal government, the
   IRS 1040 form, and new cars.  A similar phenomenon sometimes
   afflicts conscious redesigns; see {second-system effect}.  See
   also {creeping elegance}.

creeping featuritis: /kree'ping fee'-chr-i:`t*s/ n. Variant of
   {creeping featurism}, with its own spoonerization: `feeping
   creaturitis'.  Some people like to reserve this form for the
   disease as it actually manifests in software or hardware, as
   opposed to the lurking general tendency in designers' minds.  (After
   all, -ism means `condition' or `pursuit of', whereas -itis usually
   means `inflammation of'.)

cretin: /kret'n/ or /kree'tn/ n. Congenital {loser}; an obnoxious
   person; someone who can't do anything right.  It has been observed
   that many American hackers tend to favor the British pronunciation
   /kre'tn/ over standard American /kree'tn/; it is thought this may
   be due to the insidious phonetic influence of Monty Python's Flying
   Circus.

cretinous: /kret'n-*s/ or /kreet'n-*s/ adj. Wrong; stupid;
   non-functional; very poorly designed.  Also used pejoratively of
   people.  See {dread high-bit disease} for an example.
   Approximate synonyms: {bletcherous}, `bagbiting' (see
   {bagbiter}), {losing}, {brain-damaged}.

crippleware: n. 1. Software that has some important functionality
   deliberately removed, so as to entice potential users to pay for a
   working version.  2. [Cambridge] {Guiltware} that exhorts you to
   donate to some charity (compare {careware}).  3. Hardware
   deliberately crippled, which can be upgraded to a more expensive
   model by a trivial change (e.g., cutting a jumper).

critical mass: n. In physics, the minimum amount of fissionable
   material required to sustain a chain reaction.  Of a software
   product, describes a condition of the software such that fixing one
   bug introduces one plus {epsilon} bugs.  When software achieves
   critical mass, it can only be discarded and rewritten.

crlf: /ker'l*f/, sometimes /kru'l*f/ or /C-R-L-F/ n. (often
   capitalized as `CRLF') A carriage return (CR) followed by a line
   feed (LF).  More loosely, whatever it takes to get you from the
   end of one line of text to the beginning of the next line.  See
   {newline}, {terpri}.  Under {{UNIX}} influence this usage
   has become less common (UNIX uses a bare line feed as its `CRLF').

crock: [from the obvious mainstream scatologism] n. 1. An awkward
   feature or programming technique that ought to be made cleaner.
   Using small integers to represent error codes without the
   program interpreting them to the user (as in, for example, UNIX
   `make(1)', which returns code 139 for a process that dies due
   to {segfault}).  2. A technique that works acceptably, but which
   is quite prone to failure if disturbed in the least, for example
   depending on the machine opcodes having particular bit patterns so
   that you can use instructions as data words too; a tightly woven,
   almost completely unmodifiable structure.  See {kluge},
   {brittle}.  Also in the adjectives `crockish' and
   `crocky', and the nouns `crockishness' and `crockitude'.

cross-post: [USENET] vi. To post a single article simultaneously to
   several newsgroups.  Distinguished from posting the article
   repeatedly, once to each newsgroup, which causes people to see it
   multiple times (this is very bad form).  Gratuitous cross-posting
   without a Followup-To line directing responses to a single followup
   group is frowned upon, as it tends to cause {followup} articles
   to go to inappropriate newsgroups when people respond to only one
   part of the original posting.

crudware: /kruhd'weir/ n. Pejorative term for the hundreds of
   megabytes of low-quality {freeware} circulated by user's groups
   and BBS systems in the micro-hobbyist world.  "Yet *another*
   set of disk catalog utilities for {{MS-DOS}}?  What crudware!"

cruft: /kruhft/ [back-formation from {crufty}] 1. n. An
   unpleasant substance.  The dust that gathers under your bed is
   cruft; the TMRC Dictionary correctly noted that attacking it with a
   broom only produces more.  2. n. The results of shoddy
   construction.  3. vt. [from `hand cruft', pun on `hand craft'] To
   write assembler code for something normally (and better) done by a
   compiler (see {hand-hacking}).  4. n. Excess; superfluous junk.
   Esp. used of redundant or superseded code.

cruft together: vt. (also `cruft up') To throw together
   something ugly but temporarily workable.  Like vt. {kluge up},
   but more pejorative.  "There isn't any program now to reverse all
   the lines of a file, but I can probably cruft one together in about
   10 minutes."  See {hack together}, {hack up}, {kluge up},
   {crufty}.

cruftsmanship: /kruhfts'm*n-ship / n. [from {cruft}] The
   antithesis of craftsmanship.

crufty: /kruhf'tee/ [origin unknown; poss. from `crusty' or
   `cruddy'] adj. 1. Poorly built, possibly over-complex.  The
   {canonical} example is "This is standard old crufty DEC
   software".  In fact, one fanciful theory of the origin of `crufty'
   holds that was originally a mutation of `crusty' applied to DEC
   software so old that the `s' characters were tall and skinny, looking
   more like `f' characters.  2. Unpleasant, especially to the touch,
   often with encrusted junk.  Like spilled coffee smeared with peanut
   butter and catsup.  3. Generally unpleasant.  4. (sometimes spelled
   `cruftie') n. A small crufty object (see {frob}); often one
   that doesn't fit well into the scheme of things.  "A LISP property
   list is a good place to store crufties (or, collectively,
   {random} cruft)."

crumb: n. Two binary digits; a {quad}.  Larger than a {bit},
   smaller than a {nybble}.  Considered silly.  Syn. {tayste}.

crunch: 1. vi. To process, usually in a time-consuming or
   complicated way.  Connotes an essentially trivial operation that is
   nonetheless painful to perform.  The pain may be due to the
   triviality's being embedded in a loop from 1 to 1,000,000,000.
   "FORTRAN programs do mostly {number-crunching}."  2. vt. To
   reduce the size of a file by a complicated scheme that produces bit
   configurations completely unrelated to the original data, such as
   by a Huffman code.  (The file ends up looking like a paper document
   would if somebody crunched the paper into a wad.)  Since such
   compression usually takes more computations than simpler methods
   such as run-length encoding, the term is doubly appropriate.  (This
   meaning is usually used in the construction `file crunch(ing)' to
   distinguish it from {number-crunching}.)  See {compress}.
   3. n. The character `#'.  Used at XEROX and CMU, among other
   places.  See {{ASCII}}.  4. vt. To squeeze program source into a
   minimum-size representation that will still compile or execute.
   The term came into being specifically for a famous program on the
   BBC micro that crunched BASIC source in order to make it run more
   quickly (it was a wholly interpretive BASIC, so the number of
   characters mattered).  {Obfuscated C Contest} entries are often
   crunched; see the first example under that entry.

cruncha cruncha cruncha: /kruhn'ch* kruhn'ch* kruhn'ch*/ interj.
   An encouragement sometimes muttered to a machine bogged down in a
   serious {grovel}.  Also describes a notional sound made by
   groveling hardware.  See {wugga wugga}, {grind} (sense 3).

cryppie: /krip'ee/ n. A cryptographer.  One who hacks or implements
   cryptographic software or hardware.

CTSS: /C-T-S-S/ n. Compatible Time-Sharing System.  An early
   (1963) experiment in the design of interactive time-sharing
   operating systems, ancestral to {{Multics}}, {{UNIX}}, and
   {{ITS}}.  The name {{ITS}} (Incompatible Time-sharing System)
   was a hack on CTSS, meant both as a joke and to express some basic
   differences in philosophy about the way I/O services should be
   presented to user programs.

CTY: /sit'ee/ or /C-T-Y/ n. [MIT] The terminal physically
   associated with a computer's system {{console}}.  The term is a
   contraction of `Console {tty}', that is, `Console TeleTYpe'.
   This {{ITS}}- and {{TOPS-10}}-associated term has become less
   common, as most UNIX hackers simply refer to the CTY as `the
   console'.

cube: n. 1. [short for `cubicle'] A module in the open-plan
   offices used at many programming shops.  "I've got the manuals in
   my cube."  2. A NeXT machine (which resembles a matte-black cube).

cubing: [parallel with `tubing'] vi. 1. Hacking on an IPSC (Intel
   Personal SuperComputer) hypercube.  "Louella's gone cubing
   *again*!!"  2. Hacking Rubik's Cube or related puzzles,
   either physically or mathematically.  3. An indescribable form of
   self-torture (see sense 1 or #2).

cursor dipped in X: n. There are a couple of metaphors in English
   of the form `pen dipped in X' (perhaps the most common values of X
   are `acid', `bile', and `vitriol').  These map over neatly to this
   hackish usage (the cursor being what moves, leaving letters behind,
   when one is composing on-line).  "Talk about a {nastygram}!  He
   must've had his cursor dipped in acid when he wrote that one!"

cuspy: /kuhs'pee/ [WPI: from the DEC acronym CUSP, for `Commonly
   Used System Program', i.e., a utility program used by many people]
   adj. 1. (of a program) Well-written.  2. Functionally excellent.  A
   program that performs well and interfaces well to users is cuspy.
   See {rude}.  3. [NYU] Said of an attractive woman, especially one
   regarded as available.  Implies a certain curvaceousness.

cut a tape: [poss. fr. mainstream `cut a check' or from the
   recording industry's `cut a record'] vi. To write a software or
   document distribution on magnetic tape for shipment.  Has nothing
   to do with physically cutting the medium!  Though this usage is
   quite widespread, one never speaks of analogously `cutting a disk'
   or anything else in this sense.

cybercrud: /si:'ber-kruhd/ [coined by Ted Nelson] n. Obfuscatory
   tech-talk.  Verbiage with a high {MEGO} factor.  The computer
   equivalent of bureaucratese.

cyberpunk: /si:'ber-puhnk/ [orig. by SF writer Bruce Bethke and/or
   editor Gardner Dozois] n.,adj. A subgenre of SF launched in 1982
   by William Gibson's epoch-making novel `Neuromancer' (though
   its roots go back through Vernor Vinge's `True Names' (see
   the Bibliography) to John Brunner's 1975 novel `The Shockwave
   Rider').  Gibson's near-total ignorance of computers and the
   present-day hacker culture enabled him to speculate about the role
   of computers and hackers in the future in ways hackers have since
   found both irritatingly na"ive and tremendously stimulating.
   Gibson's work was widely imitated, in particular by the short-lived
   but innovative "Max Headroom" TV series.  See {cyberspace},
   {ice}, {go flatline}.

cyberspace: /si:'ber-spays/ n. 1. Notional `information-space'
   loaded with visual cues and navigable with brain-computer
   interfaces called `cyberspace decks'; a characteristic prop of
   {cyberpunk} SF.  At the time of this writing (mid-1991),
   serious efforts to construct {virtual reality} interfaces
   modeled explicitly on Gibsonian cyberspace are already under way,
   using more conventional devices such as glove sensors and binocular
   TV headsets.  Few hackers are prepared to deny outright the
   possibility of a cyberspace someday evolving out of the network
   (see {network, the}).  2. Occasionally, the metaphoric location
   of the mind of a person in {hack mode}.  Some hackers report
   experiencing strong eidetic imagery when in hack mode;
   interestingly, independent reports from multiple sources suggest
   that there are common features to the experience.  In particular,
   the dominant colors of this subjective `cyberspace' are often
   gray and silver, and the imagery often involves constellations of
   marching dots, elaborate shifting patterns of lines and angles, or
   moire patterns.

cycle: 1. n. The basic unit of computation.  What every hacker
   wants more of (noted hacker Bill Gosper describes himself as a
   "cycle junkie"). One can describe an instruction as taking so
   many `clock cycles'.  Often the computer can access its
   memory once on every clock cycle, and so one speaks also of
   `memory cycles'.  These are technical meanings of {cycle}.  The
   jargon meaning comes from the observation that there are only so
   many cycles per second, and when you are sharing a computer the
   cycles get divided up among the users.  The more cycles the
   computer spends working on your program rather than someone else's,
   the faster your program will run.  That's why every hacker wants
   more cycles: so he can spend less time waiting for the computer to
   respond.  2. By extension, a notional unit of *human* thought
   power, emphasizing that lots of things compete for the typical
   hacker's think time.  "I refused to get involved with the Rubik's
   Cube back when it was big.  Knew I'd burn too many cycles on it if
   I let myself."  3. vt. Syn. {bounce}, {120 reset}; from the
   phrase `cycle power'. "Cycle the machine again, that serial port's
   still hung."

cycle crunch: n. A situation where the number of people trying to
   use the computer simultaneously has reached the point where no one
   can get enough cycles because they are spread too thin and the
   system has probably begun to {thrash}.  This is an inevitable
   result of Parkinson's Law applied to timesharing.  Usually the only
   solution is to buy more computer.  Happily, this has rapidly become
   easier in recent years, so much so that the very term `cycle
   crunch' now has a faintly archaic flavor; most hackers now use
   workstations or personal computers as opposed to traditional
   timesharing systems.

cycle drought: n. A scarcity of cycles.  It may be due to a {cycle
   crunch}, but it could also occur because part of the computer is
   temporarily not working, leaving fewer cycles to go around.
   "The {high moby} is {down}, so we're running with only
   half the usual amount of memory.  There will be a cycle drought
   until it's fixed."

cycle of reincarnation: [coined by Ivan Sutherland ca. 1970] n.
   Term used to refer to a well-known effect whereby function in a
   computing system family is migrated out to special-purpose
   peripheral hardware for speed, then the peripheral evolves toward
   more computing power as it does its job, then somebody notices that
   it is inefficient to support two asymmetrical processors in the
   architecture and folds the function back into the main CPU, at
   which point the cycle begins again.  Several iterations of this
   cycle have been observed in graphics-processor design, and at least
   one or two in communications and floating-point processors.  Also
   known as `the Wheel of Life', `the Wheel of Samsara', and other
   variations of the basic Hindu/Buddhist theological idea.

cycle server: n. A powerful machine that exists primarily for
   running large {batch} jobs.  Implies that interactive tasks such as
   editing are done on other machines on the network, such as
   workstations.

= D =

D. C. Power Lab: n. The former site of {{SAIL}}.  Hackers thought
   this was very funny because the obvious connection to electrical
   engineering was nonexistent --- the lab was named for a Donald C.
   Power.  Compare {Marginal Hacks}.

daemon: /day'mn/ or /dee'mn/ [from the mythological meaning,
   later rationalized as the acronym `Disk And Execution MONitor'] n.
   A program that is not invoked explicitly, but lies dormant waiting
   for some condition(s) to occur.  The idea is that the perpetrator
   of the condition need not be aware that a daemon is lurking (though
   often a program will commit an action only because it knows that it
   will implicitly invoke a daemon).  For example, under {{ITS}}
   writing a file on the {LPT} spooler's directory would invoke the
   spooling daemon, which would then print the file.  The advantage is
   that programs wanting (in this example) files printed need not
   compete for access to the {LPT}.  They simply enter their
   implicit requests and let the daemon decide what to do with them.
   Daemons are usually spawned automatically by the system, and may
   either live forever or be regenerated at intervals.  Daemon and
   {demon} are often used interchangeably, but seem to have
   distinct connotations.  The term `daemon' was introduced to
   computing by {CTSS} people (who pronounced it /dee'mon/) and
   used it to refer to what ITS called a {dragon}.  Although the
   meaning and the pronunciation have drifted, we think this glossary
   reflects current (1991) usage.

dangling pointer: n. A reference that doesn't actually lead
   anywhere (in C and some other languages, a pointer that doesn't
   actually point at anything valid).  Usually this is because it
   formerly pointed to something that has moved or disappeared.  Used
   as jargon in a generalization of its techspeak meaning; for
   example, a local phone number for a person who has since moved to the
   other coast is a dangling pointer.

Datamation: /day`t*-may'sh*n/ n. A magazine that many hackers
   assume all {suit}s read.  Used to question an unbelieved quote,
   as in "Did you read that in `Datamation?'" It used to
   publish something hackishly funny every once in a while, like the
   original paper on {COME FROM} in 1973, but it has since become much
   more exclusively {suit}-oriented and boring.

day mode: n. See {phase} (sense 1).  Used of people only.

dd: /dee-dee/ [UNIX: from IBM {JCL}] vt. Equivalent to {cat}
   or {BLT}.  This was originally the name of a UNIX copy command
   with special options suitable for block-oriented devices.  Often
   used in heavy-handed system maintenance, as in "Let's dd the root
   partition onto a tape, then use the boot PROM to load it back on to
   a new disk".  The UNIX `dd(1)' was designed with a weird,
   distinctly non-UNIXy keyword option syntax reminiscent of IBM
   System/360 JCL (which had a similar DD command); though the command
   filled a need, the interface design was clearly a prank.  The
   jargon usage is now very rare outside UNIX sites and now nearly
   obsolete even there, as `dd(1)' has been {deprecated} for a
   long time (though it has no exact replacement).  Replaced by
   {BLT} or simple English `copy'.

DDT: /D-D-T/ n. 1. Generic term for a program that assists in
   debugging other programs by showing individual machine instructions
   in a readable symbolic form and letting the user change them.  In
   this sense the term DDT is now archaic, having been widely
   displaced by `debugger' or names of individual programs like
   `dbx', `adb', `gdb', or `sdb'.  2. [ITS] Under
   MIT's fabled {{ITS}} operating system, DDT (running under the alias
   HACTRN) was also used as the {shell} or top level command
   language used to execute other programs.  3. Any one of several
   specific DDTs (sense 1) supported on early DEC hardware.  The DEC
   PDP-10 Reference Handbook (1969) contained a footnote on the first
   page of the documentation for DDT which illuminates the origin of
   the term:

     Historical footnote: DDT was developed at MIT for the PDP-1
     computer in 1961.  At that time DDT stood for "DEC Debugging Tape".
     Since then, the idea of an on-line debugging program has propagated
     throughout the computer industry.  DDT programs are now available
     for all DEC computers.  Since media other than tape are now
     frequently used, the more descriptive name "Dynamic Debugging
     Technique" has been adopted, retaining the DDT acronym.  Confusion
     between DDT-10 and another well known pesticide,
     dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (C14-H9-Cl5) should be minimal
     since each attacks a different, and apparently mutually exclusive,
     class of bugs.

   Sadly, this quotation was removed from later editions of the
   handbook after the {suit}s took over and DEC became much more
   `businesslike'.

de-rezz: /dee-rez'/ [from `de-resolve' via the movie "Tron"]
   (also `derez') 1. vi. To disappear or dissolve; the image that goes
   with it is of an object breaking up into raster lines and static
   and then dissolving.  Occasionally used of a person who seems to
   have suddenly `fuzzed out' mentally rather than physically.
   Usage: extremely silly, also rare.  This verb was actually invented
   as *fictional* hacker jargon, and adopted in a spirit of irony
   by real hackers years after the fact.  2. vt. On a Macintosh, many
   program structures (including the code itself) are managed in small
   segments of the program file known as `resources'. The standard
   resource compiler is Rez.  The standard resource decompiler is
   DeRez.  Thus, decompiling a resource is `derezzing'.  Usage: very
   common.

dead code: n. Routines that can never be accessed because all calls
   to them have been removed, or code that cannot be reached because
   it is guarded by a control structure that provably must always
   transfer control somewhere else.  The presence of dead code may
   reveal either logical errors due to alterations in the program or
   significant changes in the assumptions and environment of the
   program (see also {software rot}); a good compiler should report
   dead code so a maintainer can think about what it means.  Syn.
   {grunge}.

DEADBEEF: /ded-beef/ n. The hexadecimal word-fill pattern for
   freshly allocated memory (decimal -21524111) under a number of
   IBM environments, including the RS/6000.  As in "Your program is
   DEADBEEF" (meaning gone, aborted, flushed from memory); if you
   start from an odd half-word boundary, of course, you have
   BEEFDEAD.

deadlock: n. 1. [techspeak] A situation wherein two or more
   processes are unable to proceed because each is waiting for one of
   the others to do something.  A common example is a program
   communicating to a server, which may find itself waiting for output
   from the server before sending anything more to it, while the
   server is similarly waiting for more input from the controlling
   program before outputting anything.  (It is reported that this
   particular flavor of deadlock is sometimes called a `starvation
   deadlock', though the term `starvation' is more properly used for
   situations where a program can never run simply because it never
   gets high enough priority.  Another common flavor is
   `constipation', where each process is trying to send stuff to
   the other but all buffers are full because nobody is reading
   anything.)  See {deadly embrace}.  2. Also used of
   deadlock-like interactions between humans, as when two people meet
   in a narrow corridor, and each tries to be polite by moving aside
   to let the other pass, but they end up swaying from side to side
   without making any progress because they always both move the same
   way at the same time.

deadly embrace: n. Same as {deadlock}, though usually used only when
   exactly 2 processes are involved.  This is the more popular term in
   Europe, while {deadlock} predominates in the United States.

Death Star: [from the movie "Star Wars"] 1. The AT&T corporate
   logo, which appears on computers sold by AT&T and bears an uncanny
   resemblance to the `Death Star' in the movie.  This usage is
   particularly common among partisans of {BSD} UNIX, who tend to
   regard the AT&T versions as inferior and AT&T as a bad guy.  Copies
   still circulate of a poster printed by Mt. Xinu showing a starscape
   with a space fighter labeled 4.2 BSD streaking away from a broken
   AT&T logo wreathed in flames.  2. AT&T's internal magazine,
   `Focus', uses `death star' for an incorrectly done AT&T logo
   in which the inner circle in the top left is dark instead of light
   --- a frequent result of dark-on-light logo images.

DEC Wars: n. A 1983 {USENET} posting by Alan Hastings and Steve Tarr
   spoofing the "Star Wars" movies in hackish terms.  Some years
   later, ESR (disappointed by Hastings and Tarr's failure to exploit a
   great premise more thoroughly) posted a 3-times-longer complete
   rewrite called "UNIX WARS"; the two are often confused.

DEChead: /dek'hed/ n. 1. A DEC {field servoid}.  Not flattering.
   2. [from `deadhead'] A Grateful Dead fan working at DEC.

deckle: /dek'l/ [from dec- and {nickle}] n. Two {nickle}s;
   10 bits.  Reported among developers for Mattel's GI 1600 (the
   Intellivision games processor), a chip with 16-bit-wide RAM but
   10-bit-wide ROM.

deep hack mode: n. See {hack mode}.

deep magic: [poss. from C. S. Lewis's "Narnia" books] n. An
   awesomely arcane technique central to a program or system, esp. one
   not generally published and available to hackers at large (compare
   {black art}); one that could only have been composed by a true
   {wizard}.  Compiler optimization techniques and many aspects of
   {OS} design used to be {deep magic}; many techniques in
   cryptography, signal processing, graphics, and AI still are.
   Compare {heavy wizardry}.  Esp. found in comments of the form
   "Deep magic begins here...".  Compare {voodoo programming}.

deep space: n. 1. Describes the notional location of any program
   that has gone {off the trolley}.  Esp. used of programs that
   just sit there silently grinding long after either failure or some
   output is expected.  "Uh oh.  I should have gotten a prompt ten
   seconds ago.  The program's in deep space somewhere." Compare
   {buzz}, {catatonic}, {hyperspace}.  2. The metaphorical
   location of a human so dazed and/or confused or caught up in some
   esoteric form of {bogosity} that he or she no longer responds
   coherently to normal communication.  Compare {page out}.

defenestration: [from the traditional Czechoslovak method of
   assassinating prime ministers, via SF fandom] n. 1. Proper karmic
   retribution for an incorrigible punster.  "Oh, ghod, that was
   *awful*!"  "Quick! Defenestrate him!"  2. The act of
   exiting a window system in order to get better response time from a
   full-screen program.  This comes from the dictionary meaning of
   `defenestrate', which is to throw something out a window.  3. The
   act of discarding something under the assumption that it will
   improve matters.  "I don't have any disk space left."  "Well,
   why don't you defenestrate that 100 megs worth of old core dumps?"
   4. [proposed] The requirement to support a command-line interface.
   "It has to run on a VT100."  "Curses!  I've been
   defenestrated!"

defined as: adj. In the role of, usually in an organization-chart
   sense.  "Pete is currently defined as bug prioritizer."  Compare
   {logical}.

dehose: /dee-hohz/ vt. To clear a {hosed} condition.

delint: /dee-lint/ v. To modify code to remove problems detected
   when {lint}ing.

delta: n. 1. [techspeak] A quantitative change, especially a small
   or incremental one (this use is general in physics and
   engineering).  "I just doubled the speed of my program!"  "What
   was the delta on program size?"  "About 30 percent."  (He
   doubled the speed of his program, but increased its size by only 30
   percent.)  2. [UNIX] A {diff}, especially a {diff} stored
   under the set of version-control tools called SCCS (Source Code
   Control System) or RCS (Revision Control System).  3. n. A small
   quantity, but not as small as {epsilon}.  The jargon usage of
   {delta} and {epsilon} stems from the traditional use of these
   letters in mathematics for very small numerical quantities,
   particularly in `epsilon-delta' proofs in limit theory (as in the
   differential calculus).  The term {delta} is often used, once
   {epsilon} has been mentioned, to mean a quantity that is
   slightly bigger than {epsilon} but still very small.  "The cost
   isn't epsilon, but it's delta" means that the cost isn't totally
   negligible, but it is nevertheless very small.  Common
   constructions include `within delta of ---', `within epsilon of
   ---': that is, close to and even closer to.

demented: adj. Yet another term of disgust used to describe a
   program.  The connotation in this case is that the program works as
   designed, but the design is bad.  Said, for example, of a program
   that generates large numbers of meaningless error messages,
   implying that it is on the brink of imminent collapse.  Compare
   {wonky}, {bozotic}.

demigod: n. A hacker with years of experience, a national reputation,
   and a major role in the development of at least one design, tool,
   or game used by or known to more than half of the hacker community.
   To qualify as a genuine demigod, the person must recognizably
   identify with the hacker community and have helped shape it.  Major
   demigods include Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie (co-inventors of
   {{UNIX}} and {C}) and Richard M. Stallman (inventor of
   {EMACS}).  In their hearts of hearts, most hackers dream of
   someday becoming demigods themselves, and more than one major
   software project has been driven to completion by the author's
   veiled hopes of apotheosis.  See also {net.god}, {true-hacker}.

demo: /de'moh/ [short for `demonstration'] 1. v. To demonstrate a
   product or prototype.  A far more effective way of inducing bugs to
   manifest than any number of {test} runs, especially when
   important people are watching.  2. n. The act of demoing.

demo mode: [Sun] n. 1. The state of being {heads down} in order
   to finish code in time for a {demo}, usually due yesterday.
   2. A mode in which video games sit there by themselves running
   through a portion of the game, also known as `attract mode'.
   Some serious {app}s have a demo mode they use as a screen saver,
   or may go through a demo mode on startup (for example, the
   Microsoft Windows opening screen --- which lets you impress your
   neighbors without actually having to put up with {Microsloth
   Windows}).

demon: n. 1. [MIT] A portion of a program that is not invoked
   explicitly, but that lies dormant waiting for some condition(s) to
   occur.  See {daemon}.  The distinction is that demons are
   usually processes within a program, while daemons are usually
   programs running on an operating system.  Demons are particularly
   common in AI programs.  For example, a knowledge-manipulation
   program might implement inference rules as demons.  Whenever a new
   piece of knowledge was added, various demons would activate (which
   demons depends on the particular piece of data) and would create
   additional pieces of knowledge by applying their respective
   inference rules to the original piece.  These new pieces could in
   turn activate more demons as the inferences filtered down through
   chains of logic.  Meanwhile, the main program could continue with
   whatever its primary task was.  2. [outside MIT] Often used
   equivalently to {daemon} --- especially in the {{UNIX}} world,
   where the latter spelling and pronunciation is considered mildly
   archaic.

depeditate: /dee-ped'*-tayt/ [by (faulty) analogy with
   `decapitate'] vt.  Humorously, to cut off the feet of.  When one is
   using some computer-aided typesetting tools, careless placement of
   text blocks within a page or above a rule can result in chopped-off
   letter descenders.  Such letters are said to have been depeditated.

deprecated: adj. Said of a program or feature that is considered
   obsolescent and in the process of being phased out, usually in
   favor of a specified replacement.  Deprecated features can,
   unfortunately, linger on for many years.

deserves to lose: adj. Said of someone who willfully does the
   {Wrong Thing}; humorously, if one uses a feature known to be
   {marginal}.  What is meant is that one deserves the consequences
   of one's {losing} actions.  "Boy, anyone who tries to use
   {mess-dos} deserves to {lose}!" ({{ITS}} fans used to say this
   of {{UNIX}}; many still do.)  See also {screw}, {chomp},
   {bagbiter}.

desk check: n.,v. To {grovel} over hardcopy of source code,
   mentally simulating the control flow; a method of catching bugs.
   No longer common practice in this age of on-screen editing, fast
   compiles, and sophisticated debuggers --- though some maintain
   stoutly that it ought to be.  Compare {eyeball search},
   {vdiff}, {vgrep}.

Devil Book: n. `The Design and Implementation of the 4.3BSD
   UNIX Operating System', by Samuel J. Leffler, Marshall Kirk
   McKusick, Michael J. Karels, and John S. Quarterman (Addison-Wesley
   Publishers, 1989) --- the standard reference book on the internals
   of {BSD} UNIX.  So called because the cover has a picture
   depicting a little devil (a visual play on {daemon}) in
   sneakers, holding a pitchfork (referring to one of the
   characteristic features of UNIX, the {fork(2)} system call).

devo: /dee'voh/ [orig. in-house jargon at Symbolics] n. A person in a
   development group.  See also {doco} and {mango}.

dickless workstation: n. Extremely pejorative hackerism for
   `diskless workstation', a class of botches including the Sun 3/50
   and other machines designed exclusively to network with an
   expensive central disk server.  These combine all the disadvantages
   of time-sharing with all the disadvantages of distributed personal
   computers.

dictionary flame: [USENET] n. An attempt to sidetrack a debate
   away from issues by insisting on meanings for key terms that
   presuppose a desired conclusion or smuggle in an implicit premise.
   A common tactic of people who prefer argument over definitions to
   disputes about reality.

diddle: 1. vt. To work with or modify in a not particularly
   serious manner.  "I diddled a copy of {ADVENT} so it didn't
   double-space all the time."  "Let's diddle this piece of code and
   see if the problem goes away."  See {tweak} and {twiddle}.
   2. n. The action or result of diddling.  See also {tweak},
   {twiddle}, {frob}.

diff: /dif/ n. 1. A change listing, especially giving differences
   between (and additions to) source code or documents (the term is
   often used in the plural `diffs').  "Send me your diffs for the
   Jargon File!"  Compare {vdiff}.  2. Specifically, such a listing
   produced by the `diff(1)' command, esp. when used as
   specification input to the `patch(1)' utility (which can
   actually perform the modifications; see {patch}).  This is a
   common method of distributing patches and source updates in the
   UNIX/C world.  See also {vdiff}, {mod}.

digit: n. An employee of Digital Equipment Corporation.  See also
   {VAX}, {VMS}, {PDP-10}, {{TOPS-10}}, {DEChead}, {double
   DECkers}, {field circus}.

dike: vt. To remove or disable a portion of something, as a wire
   from a computer or a subroutine from a program.  A standard slogan
   is "When in doubt, dike it out".  (The implication is that it is
   usually more effective to attack software problems by reducing
   complexity than by increasing it.)  The word `dikes' is widely
   used among mechanics and engineers to mean `diagonal cutters',
   esp.  a heavy-duty metal-cutting device, but may also refer to a
   kind of wire-cutters used by electronics techs.  To `dike
   something out' means to use such cutters to remove something.
   Indeed, the TMRC Dictionary defined dike as "to attack with
   dikes".  Among hackers this term has been metaphorically extended
   to informational objects such as sections of code.

ding: n.,vi. 1. Synonym for {feep}.  Usage: rare among hackers,
   but commoner in the {Real World}.  2. `dinged': What happens
   when someone in authority gives you a minor bitching about
   something, esp. something trivial.  "I was dinged for having a
   messy desk."

dink: /dink/ n. Said of a machine that has the {bitty box}
   nature; a machine too small to be worth bothering with --- sometimes
   the system you're currently forced to work on.  First heard from an
   MIT hacker (BADOB) working on a CP/M system with 64K, in reference
   to any 6502 system, then from fans of 32-bit architectures about
   16-bit machines.  "GNUMACS will never work on that dink machine."
   Probably derived from mainstream `dinky', which isn't sufficiently
   pejorative.

dinosaur: n. 1. Any hardware requiring raised flooring and special
   power.  Used especially of old minis and mainframes, in contrast
   with newer microprocessor-based machines.  In a famous quote from
   the 1988 UNIX EXPO, Bill Joy compared the mainframe in the massive
   IBM display with a grazing dinosaur "with a truck outside pumping
   its bodily fluids through it".  IBM was not amused.  Compare
   {big iron}; see also {mainframe}.  2. [IBM] A very conservative
   user; a {zipperhead}.

dinosaur pen: n. A traditional {mainframe} computer room complete with
   raised flooring, special power, its own ultra-heavy-duty air
   conditioning, and a side order of Halon fire extinguishers.  See
   {boa}.

dinosaurs mating: n. Said to occur when yet another {big iron}
   merger or buyout occurs; reflects a perception by hackers that
   these signal another stage in the long, slow dying of the
   {mainframe} industry.  In its glory days of the 1960s, it was
   `IBM and the Seven Dwarves': Burroughs, Control Data, General
   Electric, Honeywell, NCR, RCA, and Univac.  RCA and GE sold out
   early, and it was `IBM and the Bunch' (Burroughs, Univac, NCR,
   Control Data, and Honeywell) for a while.  Honeywell was bought out
   by Bull; Burroughs merged with Univac to form Unisys (in 1984 --- this
   was when the phrase `dinosaurs mating' was coined); and as this is
   written AT&T is attempting to recover from a disastrously bad first
   6 years in the hardware industry by absorbing NCR.  More such
   earth-shaking unions of doomed giants seem inevitable.

dirty power: n. Electrical mains voltage that is unfriendly to
   the delicate innards of computers.  Spikes, {drop-outs}, average
   voltage significantly higher or lower than nominal, or just plain
   noise can all cause problems of varying subtlety and severity.

Discordianism: /dis-kor'di-*n-ism/ n. The veneration of
   {Eris}, a.k.a. Discordia; widely popular among hackers.
   Discordianism was popularized by Robert Anton Wilson's
   `Illuminatus!' trilogy as a sort of self-subverting Dada-Zen
   for Westerners --- it should on no account be taken seriously but
   is far more serious than most jokes.  Consider, for example, the
   Fifth Commandment of the Pentabarf, from `Principia
   Discordia': "A Discordian is Prohibited of Believing What he
   Reads."  Discordianism is usually connected with an elaborate
   conspiracy theory/joke involving millennia-long warfare between the
   anarcho-surrealist partisans of Eris and a malevolent,
   authoritarian secret society called the Illuminati.  See
   appendix B, {Church of the SubGenius}, and {ha ha only
   serious}.

disk farm: n. (also {laundromat}) A large room or rooms filled
   with disk drives (esp. {washing machine}s).

display hack: n. A program with the same approximate purpose as a
   kaleidoscope: to make pretty pictures.  Famous display hacks
   include {munching squares}, {smoking clover}, the BSD UNIX
   `rain(6)' program, `worms(6)' on miscellaneous UNIXes,
   and the {X} `kaleid(1)' program.  Display hacks can also be
   implemented without programming by creating text files containing
   numerous escape sequences for interpretation by a video terminal;
   one notable example displayed, on any VT100, a Christmas tree with
   twinkling lights and a toy train circling its base.  The {hack
   value} of a display hack is proportional to the esthetic value of
   the images times the cleverness of the algorithm divided by the
   size of the code.  Syn. {psychedelicware}.

Dissociated Press: [play on `Associated Press'; perhaps inspired
   by a reference in the 1949 Bugs Bunny cartoon "What's Up,
   Doc?"] n.  An algorithm for transforming any text into potentially
   humorous garbage even more efficiently than by passing it through a
   {marketroid}.  You start by printing any N consecutive
   words (or letters) in the text.  Then at every step you search for
   any random occurrence in the original text of the last N
   words (or letters) already printed and then print the next word or
   letter.  {EMACS} has a handy command for this.  Here is a short
   example of word-based Dissociated Press applied to an earlier
   version of this Jargon File:

     wart: n. A small, crocky {feature} that sticks out of
     an array (C has no checks for this).  This is relatively
     benign and easy to spot if the phrase is bent so as to be
     not worth paying attention to the medium in question.

   Here is a short example of letter-based Dissociated Press applied
   to the same source:

     window sysIWYG: n. A bit was named aften /bee't*/ prefer
     to use the other guy's re, especially in every cast a
     chuckle on neithout getting into useful informash speech
     makes removing a featuring a move or usage actual
     abstractionsidered interj. Indeed spectace logic or problem!

   A hackish idle pastime is to apply letter-based Dissociated Press
   to a random body of text and {vgrep} the output in hopes of finding
   an interesting new word.  (In the preceding example, `window
   sysIWYG' and `informash' show some promise.)  Iterated applications
   of Dissociated Press usually yield better results.  Similar
   techniques called `travesty generators' have been employed with
   considerable satirical effect to the utterances of USENET flamers;
   see {pseudo}.

distribution: n. 1. A software source tree packaged for
   distribution; but see {kit}.  2. A vague term encompassing
   mailing lists and USENET newsgroups (but not {BBS} {fora}); any
   topic-oriented message channel with multiple recipients.  3. An
   information-space domain (usually loosely correlated with
   geography) to which propagation of a USENET message is restricted;
   a much-underutilized feature.

do protocol: [from network protocol programming] vi. To perform an
   interaction with somebody or something that follows a clearly
   defined procedure.  For example, "Let's do protocol with the
   check" at a restaurant means to ask for the check, calculate the
   tip and everybody's share, collect money from everybody, generate
   change as necessary, and pay the bill.  See {protocol}.

doc: /dok/ n. Common spoken and written shorthand for
   `documentation'.  Often used in the plural `docs' and in the
   construction `doc file' (documentation available on-line).

doco: /do'koh/ [orig. in-house jargon at Symbolics] n. A
   documentation writer.  See also {devo} and {mango}.

documentation:: n. The multiple kilograms of macerated, pounded,
   steamed, bleached, and pressed trees that accompany most modern
   software or hardware products (see also {tree-killer}).  Hackers
   seldom read paper documentation and (too) often resist writing it;
   they prefer theirs to be terse and on-line.  A common comment on
   this is "You can't {grep} dead trees".  See {drool-proof
   paper}, {verbiage}.

dodgy: adj. Syn. with {flaky}.  Preferred outside the U.S.

dogcow: /dog'kow/ n. See {Moof}.

dogwash: /dog'wosh/ [From a quip in the `urgency' field of a very
   optional software change request, ca. 1982.  It was something like
   "Urgency: Wash your dog first".] 1. n. A project of minimal
   priority, undertaken as an escape from more serious work.  2. v.
   To engage in such a project.  Many games and much {freeware} get
   written this way.

domainist: /doh-mayn'ist/ adj. 1. Said of an {{Internet
   address}} (as opposed to a {bang path}) because the part to the
   right of the `@' specifies a nested series of `domains';
   for example, eric@snark.thyrsus.com specifies the machine
   called snark in the subdomain called thyrsus within the
   top-level domain called com.  See also {big-endian}, sense 2.
   2. Said of a site, mailer, or routing program which knows how to
   handle domainist addresses.  3. Said of a person (esp. a site
   admin) who prefers domain addressing, supports a domainist mailer,
   or prosyletizes for domainist addressing and disdains {bang
   path}s.  This is now (1991) semi-obsolete, as most sites have
   converted.

Don't do that, then!: [from an old doctor's office joke about a
   patient with a trivial complaint] Stock response to a user
   complaint.  "When I type control-S, the whole system comes to a
   halt for thirty seconds."  "Don't do that, then!" (or "So don't
   do that!").  Compare {RTFM}.

dongle: /dong'gl/ n. 1. A security or {copy-protection} device
   for commercial microcomputer programs consisting of a serialized
   EPROM and some drivers in a D-25 connector shell, which must be
   connected to an I/O port of the computer while the program is run.
   Programs that use a dongle query the port at startup and at
   programmed intervals thereafter, and terminate if it does not
   respond with the dongle's programmed validation code.  Thus, users
   can make as many copies of the program as they want but must pay
   for each dongle.  The idea was clever, but it was initially a failure, as
   users disliked tying up a serial port this way.  Most dongles on
   the market today (1991) will pass data through the port and monitor
   for {magic} codes (and combinations of status lines) with minimal
   if any interference with devices further down the line --- this
   innovation was necessary to allow daisy-chained dongles for
   multiple pieces of software.  The devices are still not widely
   used, as the industry has moved away from copy-protection schemes
   in general.  2. By extension, any physical electronic key or
   transferrable ID required for a program to function.  See
   {dongle-disk}.

dongle-disk: /don'gl disk/ n. See {dongle}; a `dongle-disk'
   is a floppy disk with some coding that allows an application to
   identify it uniquely.  It can therefore be used as a {dongle}.
   Also called a `key disk'.

donuts: n.obs. A collective noun for any set of memory bits.  This is
   extremely archaic and may no longer be live jargon; it dates from the
   days of ferrite-{core} memories in which each bit was implemented by
   a doughnut-shaped magnetic flip-flop.

doorstop: n. Used to describe equipment that is non-functional and
   halfway expected to remain so, especially obsolete equipment kept
   around for political reasons or ostensibly as a backup.  "When we
   get another Wyse-50 in here, that ADM 3 will turn into a doorstop."
   Compare {boat anchor}.

dot file: [UNIX] n. A file which is not visible to normal
   directory-browsing tools (on UNIX, files named with a leading dot
   are, by convention, not normally presented in directory listings).
   Many programs define one or more dot files in which startup or
   configuration information may be optionally recorded; a user can
   customize the program's behavior by creating the appropriate file in
   the current or home directory.  See also {rc file}.

double bucky: adj. Using both the CTRL and META keys.  "The
   command to burn all LEDs is double bucky F."

   This term originated on the Stanford extended-ASCII keyboard, and
   was later taken up by users of the {space-cadet keyboard} at
   MIT.  A typical MIT comment was that the Stanford {bucky bits}
   (control and meta shifting keys) were nice, but there weren't
   enough of them; you could type only 512 different characters on a
   Stanford keyboard.  An obvious way to address this was simply to
   add more shifting keys, and this was eventually done; but a
   keyboard with that many shifting keys is hard on touch-typists, who
   don't like to move their hands away from the home position on the
   keyboard.  It was half-seriously suggested that the extra shifting
   keys be implemented as pedals; typing on such a keyboard would be
   very much like playing a full pipe organ.  This idea is mentioned
   in a parody of a very fine song by Jeffrey Moss called
   "Rubber Duckie", which was published in `The Sesame
   Street Songbook' (Simon and Schuster 1971, ISBN 671-21036-X).
   These lyrics were written on May 27, 1978, in celebration of the
   Stanford keyboard:

     			Double Bucky

     	Double bucky, you're the one!
     	You make my keyboard lots of fun.
     	    Double bucky, an additional bit or two:
     	(Vo-vo-de-o!)
     	Control and meta, side by side,
     	Augmented ASCII, nine bits wide!
     	    Double bucky!  Half a thousand glyphs, plus a few!
     		Oh,
     		I sure wish that I
     		Had a couple of
     		    Bits more!
     		Perhaps a
     		Set of pedals to
     		Make the number of
     		    Bits four:
     		Double double bucky!
     	Double bucky, left and right
     	OR'd together, outta sight!
     	    Double bucky, I'd like a whole word of
     	    Double bucky, I'm happy I heard of
     	    Double bucky, I'd like a whole word of you!

     	--- The Great Quux (with apologies to Jeffrey Moss)

   [This, by the way, is an excellent example of computer {filk} --- ESR]

   See also {meta bit}, {cokebottle}, and {quadruple bucky}.

double DECkers: n. Used to describe married couples in which both
   partners work for Digital Equipment Corporation.

doubled sig: [USENET] n. A {sig block} that has been included
   twice in a {USENET} article or, less commonly, in an electronic
   mail message.  An article or message with a doubled sig can be
   caused by improperly configured software.  More often, however, it
   reveals the author's lack of experience in electronic
   communication.  See {BIFF}, {pseudo}.

down: 1. adj. Not operating.  "The up escalator is down" is
   considered a humorous thing to say, and "The elevator is down"
   always means "The elevator isn't working" and never refers to
   what floor the elevator is on.  With respect to computers, this
   usage has passed into the mainstream; the extension to other kinds
   of machine is still hackish.  2. `go down' vi. To stop
   functioning; usually said of the {system}.  The message from the
   {console} that every hacker hates to hear from the operator is
   "The system will go down in 5 minutes".  3. `take down',
   `bring down' vt. To deactivate purposely, usually for repair work
   or {PM}.  "I'm taking the system down to work on that bug in the
   tape drive."  Occasionally one hears the word `down' by itself
   used as a verb in this vt. sense.  See {crash}; oppose {up}.

download: vt. To transfer data or (esp.) code from a larger `host'
   system (esp. a {mainframe}) over a digital comm link to a smaller
   `client' system, esp. a microcomputer or specialized peripheral.
   Oppose {upload}.

   However, note that ground-to-space communications has its own usage
   rule for this term.  Space-to-earth transmission is always download
   and the reverse upload regardless of the relative size of the
   computers involved.  So far the in-space machines have invariably
   been smaller; thus the upload/download distinction has been
   reversed from its usual sense.

DP: /D-P/ n. 1. Data Processing.  Listed here because,
   according to hackers, use of the term marks one immediately as a
   {suit}.  See {DPer}.  2. Common abbrev for {Dissociated
   Press}.

DPB: /d*-pib'/ [from the PDP-10 instruction set] vt. To plop
   something down in the middle.  Usage: silly.  "DPB
   yourself into that couch there."  The connotation would be that
   the couch is full except for one slot just big enough for you to
   sit in.  DPB means `DePosit Byte', and was the name of a PDP-10
   instruction that inserts some bits into the middle of some other
   bits.  This usage has been kept alive by the Common LISP function
   of the same name.

DPer: /dee-pee-er/ n. Data Processor.  Hackers are absolutely
   amazed that {suit}s use this term self-referentially.
   "*Computers* process data, not people!"  See {DP}.

dragon: n. [MIT] A program similar to a {daemon}, except that it
   is not invoked at all, but is instead used by the system to perform
   various secondary tasks.  A typical example would be an accounting
   program, which keeps track of who is logged in, accumulates
   load-average statistics, etc.  Under ITS, many terminals displayed
   a list of people logged in, where they were, what they were
   running, etc., along with some random picture (such as a unicorn,
   Snoopy, or the Enterprise), which was generated by the `name
   dragon'.  Usage: rare outside MIT --- under UNIX and most other OSes
   this would be called a `background demon' or {daemon}.  The
   best-known UNIX example of a dragon is `cron(1)'.  At SAIL,
   they called this sort of thing a `phantom'.

Dragon Book: n. The classic text `Compilers: Principles,
   Techniques and Tools', by Alfred V. Aho, Ravi Sethi, and Jeffrey D.
   Ullman (Addison-Wesley 1986; ISBN 0-201-10088-6), so called because
   of the cover design featuring a dragon labeled `complexity of
   compiler design' and a knight bearing the lance `LALR parser
   generator' among his other trappings.  This one is more
   specifically known as the `Red Dragon Book' (1986); an earlier
   edition, sans Sethi and titled `Principles Of Compiler Design'
   (Alfred V. Aho and Jeffrey D. Ullman; Addison-Wesley, 1977; ISBN
   0-201-00022-9), was the `Green Dragon Book' (1977).  (Also `New
   Dragon Book', `Old Dragon Book'.)  The horsed knight and the
   Green Dragon were warily eying each other at a distance; now the
   knight is typing (wearing gauntlets!) at a terminal showing a
   video-game representation of the Red Dragon's head while the rest
   of the beast extends back in normal space.  See also {{book
   titles}}.

drain: [IBM] v. Syn. for {flush} (sense 2).  Has a connotation
   of finality about it; one speaks of draining a device before taking
   it offline.

dread high-bit disease: n. A condition endemic to PRIME (a.k.a.
   PR1ME) minicomputers that results in all the characters having
   their high (0x80) bit ON rather than OFF.  This of course makes
   transporting files to other systems much more difficult, not to
   mention talking to true 8-bit devices.  It is reported that
   PRIME adopted the reversed-8-bit convention in order to save
   25 cents per serial line per machine.  This probably qualifies as one
   of the most {cretinous} design tradeoffs ever made.  See {meta
   bit}.   A few other machines (including the Atari 800) have exhibited
   similar brain damage.

DRECNET: /drek'net/ [from Yiddish/German `dreck', meaning
   dirt] n. Deliberate distortion of DECNET, a networking protocol
   used in the {VMS} community.  So called because DEC helped write
   the Ethernet specification and then (either stupidly or as a
   malignant customer-control tactic) violated that spec in the design
   of DRECNET in a way that made it incompatible.  See also
   {connector conspiracy}.

driver: n. 1. The {main loop} of an event-processing program;
   the code that gets commands and dispatches them for execution.
   2. [techspeak] In `device driver', code designed to handle a
   particular peripheral device such as a magnetic disk or tape unit.
   3. In the TeX   general, `driver' also means a program that translates some
   device-independent or other common format to something a real
   device can actually understand.

droid: n. A person (esp. a low-level bureaucrat or
   service-business employee) exhibiting most of the following
   characteristics: (a) na"ive trust in the wisdom of the parent
   organization or `the system'; (b) a propensity to believe
   obvious nonsense emitted by authority figures (or computers!);
   blind faith; (c) a rule-governed mentality, one unwilling or unable
   to look beyond the `letter of the law' in exceptional
   situations; and (d) no interest in fixing that which is broken; an
   "It's not my job, man" attitude.

   Typical droid positions include supermarket checkout assistant and
   bank clerk; the syndrome is also endemic in low-level government
   employees.  The implication is that the rules and official
   procedures constitute software that the droid is executing.  This
   becomes a problem when the software has not been properly debugged.
   The term `droid mentality' is also used to describe the mindset
   behind this behavior. Compare {suit}, {marketroid}; see
   {-oid}.

drool-proof paper: n. Documentation that has been obsessively {dumbed
   down}, to the point where only a {cretin} could bear to read it, is
   said to have succumbed to the `drool-proof paper syndrome' or to
   have been `written on drool-proof paper'.  For example, this is
   an actual quote from Apple's LaserWriter manual: "Do not expose
   your LaserWriter to open fire or flame."

drop on the floor: vt. To react to an error condition by silently
   discarding messages or other valuable data.  "The gateway
   ran out of memory, so it just started dropping packets on the
   floor."  Also frequently used of faulty mail and netnews relay
   sites that lose messages.  See also {black hole}, {bit bucket}.

drop-ins: [prob. by analogy with {drop-outs}] n. Spurious
   characters appearing on a terminal or console as a result of line noise or
   a system malfunction of some sort.  Esp. used when these are
   interspersed with one's own typed input.  Compare {drop-outs}.

drop-outs: n. 1. A variety of `power glitch' (see {glitch});
   momentary 0 voltage on the electrical mains.  2. Missing characters
   in typed input due to software malfunction or system saturation
   (this can happen under UNIX when a bad connection to a modem swamps
   the processor with spurious character interrupts).  3. Mental
   glitches; used as a way of describing those occasions when the mind
   just seems to shut down for a couple of beats.  See {glitch},
   {fried}.

drugged: adj. (also `on drugs') 1. Conspicuously stupid,
   heading toward {brain-damaged}.  Often accompanied by a
   pantomime of toking a joint (but see appendix B).  2. Of hardware,
   very slow relative to normal performance.

drunk mouse syndrome: n. A malady exhibited by the mouse pointing
   device of some computers.  The typical symptom is for the mouse
   cursor on the screen to move in random directions and not in sync
   with the motion of the actual mouse.  Can usually be corrected by
   unplugging the mouse and plugging it back again.  Another
   recommended fix for optical mice is to rotate your mouse pad
   90 degrees.

   At Xerox PARC in the 1970s, most people kept a can of copier
   cleaner (isopropyl alcohol) at their desks.  When the steel ball on
   the mouse had picked up enough {cruft} to be unreliable, the mouse
   was doused in cleaner, which restored it for a while.  However,
   this operation left a fine residue that accelerated the accumulation
   of cruft, so the dousings became more and more frequent.  Finally,
   the mouse was declared `alcoholic' and sent to the clinic to be
   dried out in a CFC ultrasonic bath.

dumbass attack: /duhm'as *-tak'/ [Purdue] n. Notional cause of a
   novice's mistake made by the experienced, especially one made while
   running as root under UNIX, e.g., typing `rm -r *' or
   `mkfs' on a mounted file system.  Compare {adger}.

dumbed down: adj. Simplified, with a strong connotation of
   *over*simplified.  Often, a {marketroid} will insist that the
   interfaces and documentation of software be dumbed down after the
   designer has burned untold gallons of midnight oil making it
   smart.  This creates friction.  See {user-friendly}.

dump: n. 1. An undigested and voluminous mass of information about a
   problem or the state of a system, especially one routed to the
   slowest available output device (compare {core dump}), and most
   especially one consisting of hex or octal {runes} describing the
   byte-by-byte state of memory, mass storage, or some file.  In {elder
   days}, debugging was generally done by `groveling over' a dump
   (see {grovel}); increasing use of high-level languages and
   interactive debuggers has made this uncommon, and the term `dump'
   now has a faintly archaic flavor.  2. A backup.  This usage is
   typical only at large timesharing installations.

dup killer: /d[y]oop kill'r/ [FidoNet] n. Software that is
   supposed to detect and delete duplicates of a message that may
   have reached the FidoNet system via different routes.

dup loop: /d[y]oop loop/ (also `dupe loop') [FidoNet] n. An
   incorrectly configured system or network gateway may propagate
   duplicate messages on one or more {echo}es, with different
   identification information that renders {dup killer}s
   ineffective.  If such a duplicate message eventually reaches a
   system through which it has already passed (with the original
   identification information), all systems passed on the way back to
   that system are said to be involved in a {dup loop}.

dusty deck: n. Old software (especially applications) which one is
   obliged to remain compatible with (or to maintain).  The term
   implies that the software in question is a holdover from card-punch
   days.  Used esp. when referring to old scientific and
   {number-crunching} software, much of which was written in FORTRAN
   and very poorly documented but is believed to be too expensive to
   replace.  See {fossil}.

DWIM: /dwim/ [acronym, `Do What I Mean'] 1. adj. Able to guess, sometimes
   even correctly, the result intended when bogus input was provided.
   2. n.,obs. The BBNLISP/INTERLISP function that attempted to
   accomplish this feat by correcting many of the more common errors.
   See {hairy}.  3. Occasionally, an interjection hurled at a
   balky computer, esp. when one senses one might be tripping over
   legalisms (see {legalese}).

   Warren Teitelman originally wrote DWIM to fix his typos and
   spelling errors, so it was somewhat idiosyncratic to his style, and
   would often make hash of anyone else's typos if they were
   stylistically different.  This led a number of victims of DWIM to
   claim the acronym stood for `Damn Warren's Infernal Machine!'.

   In one notorious incident, Warren added a DWIM feature to the
   command interpreter used at Xerox PARC.  One day another hacker
   there typed `delete *$' to free up some disk space.  (The editor
   there named backup files by appending `$' to the original file
   name, so he was trying to delete any backup files left over from
   old editing sessions.)  It happened that there weren't any editor
   backup files, so DWIM helpfully reported `*$ not found, assuming
   you meant 'delete *'.'  It then started to delete all the files on
   the disk!  The hacker managed to stop it with a {Vulcan nerve
   pinch} after only a half dozen or so files were lost.
   
   The hacker later said he had been sorely tempted to go to Warren's
   office, tie Warren down in his chair in front of his workstation,
   and then type `delete *$' twice.

   DWIM is often suggested in jest as a desired feature for a complex
   program; it is also occasionally described as the single
   instruction the ideal computer would have.  Back when proofs of
   program correctness were in vogue, there were also jokes about
   `DWIMC' (Do What I Mean, Correctly).  A related term, more often
   seen as a verb, is DTRT (Do The Right Thing); see {Right Thing}.

dynner: /din'r/ 32 bits, by analogy with {nybble} and
   {{byte}}.  Usage: rare and extremely silly.  See also {playte},
   {tayste}, {crumb}.

= E =

earthquake: [IBM] n. The ultimate real-world shock test for
   computer hardware.  Hackish sources at IBM deny the rumor that the
   Bay Area quake of 1989 was initiated by the company to test
   quality-assurance procedures at its California plants.

Easter egg: n. 1. A message hidden in the object code of a program
   as a joke, intended to be found by persons disassembling or
   browsing the code.  2. A message, graphic, or sound effect emitted
   by a program (or, on a PC, the BIOS ROM) in response to some
   undocumented set of commands or keystrokes, intended as a joke or
   to display program credits.  One well-known early Easter egg found
   in a couple of OSes caused them to respond to the command
   `make love' with `not war?'.  Many personal computers
   have much more elaborate eggs hidden in ROM, including lists of the
   developers' names, political exhortations, snatches of music, and
   (in one case) graphics images of the entire development team.

Easter egging: [IBM] n. The act of replacing unrelated parts more or
   less at random in hopes that a malfunction will go away.  Hackers
   consider this the normal operating mode of {field circus} techs and
   do not love them for it.  Compare {shotgun debugging}.

eat flaming death: imp. A construction popularized among hackers by
   the infamous {CPU Wars} comic; supposed to derive from a famously
   turgid line in a WWII-era anti-Nazi propaganda comic that ran
   "Eat flaming death, non-Aryan mongrels!" or something of the sort
   (however, it is also reported that the Firesign Theater's
   1975 album "In The Next World, You're On Your Own" included the
   phrase "Eat flaming death, fascist media pigs"; this may have been
   an influence).  Used in humorously overblown expressions of
   hostility. "Eat flaming death, {{EBCDIC}} users!"

EBCDIC:: /eb's*-dik/, /eb'see`dik/, or /eb'k*-dik/ [acronym,
   Extended Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code] n. An alleged
   character set used on IBM {dinosaur}s.  It exists in at least six
   mutually incompatible versions, all featuring such delights as
   non-contiguous letter sequences and the absence of several ASCII
   punctuation characters fairly important for modern computer
   languages (exactly which characters are absent varies according to
   which version of EBCDIC you're looking at).  IBM adapted EBCDIC
   from {{punched card}} code in the early 1960s and promulgated it
   as a customer-control tactic (see {connector conspiracy}),
   spurning the already established ASCII standard.  Today, IBM claims
   to be an open-systems company, but IBM's own description of the
   EBCDIC variants and how to convert between them is still internally
   classified top-secret, burn-before-reading.  Hackers blanch at the
   very *name* of EBCDIC and consider it a manifestation of
   purest {evil}.  See also {fear and loathing}.

echo: [FidoNet] n. A {topic group} on {FidoNet}'s echomail
   system.  Compare {newsgroup}.

eighty-column mind: [IBM] n. The sort said to be possessed by
   persons for whom the transition from {punched card} to tape was
   traumatic (nobody has dared tell them about disks yet).  It is said
   that these people, including (according to an old joke) the founder
   of IBM, will be buried `face down, 9-edge first' (the 9-edge being
   the bottom of the card).  This directive is inscribed on IBM's
   1422 and 1602 card readers and is referenced in a famous bit of
   doggerel called "The Last Bug", the climactic lines of which
   are as follows:

        He died at the console
        Of hunger and thirst.
        Next day he was buried,
        Face down, 9-edge first.

   The eighty-column mind is thought by most hackers to dominate IBM's
   customer base and its thinking.  See {IBM}, {fear and
   loathing}, {card walloper}.

El Camino Bignum: /el' k*-mee'noh big'nuhm/ n. The road
   mundanely called El Camino Real, a road through the San Francisco
   peninsula that originally extended all the way down to Mexico City
   and many portions of which are still intact.  Navigation on the San
   Francisco peninsula is usually done relative to El Camino Real,
   which defines {logical} north and south even though it isn't
   really north-south many places.  El Camino Real runs right past
   Stanford University and so is familiar to hackers.

   The Spanish word `real' (which has two syllables: /ray-ahl'/)
   means `royal'; El Camino Real is `the royal road'.  In the FORTRAN
   language, a `real' quantity is a number typically precise to 7
   significant digits, and a `double precision' quantity is a larger
   floating-point number, precise to perhaps fourteen significant
   digits (other languages have similar `real' types).

   When a hacker from MIT visited Stanford in 1976, he remarked what a
   long road El Camino Real was.  Making a pun on `real', he started
   calling it `El Camino Double Precision' --- but when the hacker
   was told that the road was hundreds of miles long, he renamed it
   `El Camino Bignum', and that name has stuck.  (See {bignum}.)

elder days: n. The heroic age of hackerdom (roughly, pre-1980); the
   era of the {PDP-10}, {TECO}, {{ITS}}, and the ARPANET.  This
   term has been rather consciously adopted from J. R. R. Tolkien's
   fantasy epic `The Lord of the Rings'.  Compare {Iron Age};
   see also {elvish}.

elegant: [from mathematical usage] adj. Combining simplicity, power,
   and a certain ineffable grace of design.  Higher praise than
   `clever', `winning', or even {cuspy}.

elephantine: adj. Used of programs or systems that are both
   conspicuous {hog}s (owing perhaps to poor design founded on
   {brute force and ignorance}) and exceedingly {hairy} in source
   form.  An elephantine program may be functional and even friendly,
   but (as in the old joke about being in bed with an elephant) it's
   tough to have around all the same (and, like a pachyderm, difficult
   to maintain).  In extreme cases, hackers have been known to make
   trumpeting sounds or perform expressive proboscatory mime at the
   mention of the offending program.  Usage: semi-humorous.  Compare
   `has the elephant nature' and the somewhat more pejorative
   {monstrosity}.  See also {second-system effect} and
   {baroque}.

elevator controller: n. Another archetypal dumb embedded-systems
   application, like {toaster} (which superseded it).  During one
   period (1983--84) in the deliberations of ANSI X3J11 (the
   C standardization committee) this was the canonical example of a
   really stupid, memory-limited computation environment.  "You can't
   require `printf(3)' to be part of the default runtime library
   --- what if you're targeting an elevator controller?"  Elevator
   controllers became important rhetorical weapons on both sides of
   several {holy wars}.

ELIZA effect: /*-li:'z* *-fekt'/ [AI community] n. The tendency of 
   humans to attach associations to terms from prior experience.
   For example, there is nothing magic about the symbol `+' that 
   makes it well-suited to indicate addition; it's just that people
   associate it with addition.  Using `+' or `plus' to mean addition
   in a computer language is taking advantage of the ELIZA effect.

   This term comes from the famous ELIZA program, which simulated a
   Rogerian psychoanalyst by rephrasing many of the patient's
   statements as questions and posing them to the patient.  It worked
   by simple pattern recognition and substitution of key words into
   canned phrases.  It was so convincing, however, that there are many
   anecdotes about people becoming very emotionally caught up in
   dealing with ELIZA.  All this was due to people's tendency to
   attach to words meanings which the computer never put there.  The
   ELIZA effect is a {Good Thing} when writing a programming
   language, but it can blind you to serious shortcomings when
   analyzing an Artificial Intelligence system.  Compare
   {ad-hockery}; see also {AI-complete}.

elvish: n. 1. The Tengwar of Feanor, a table of letterforms
   resembling the beautiful Celtic half-uncial hand of the `Book
   of Kells'.  Invented and described by J. R. R. Tolkien
   in `The Lord of The Rings' as an orthography for his fictional
   `elvish' languages, this system (which is both visually and
   phonetically elegant) has long fascinated hackers (who tend to be
   interested by artificial languages in general).  It is traditional
   for graphics printers, plotters, window systems, and the like to
   support a Feanorian typeface as one of their demo items.  See also
   {elder days}.  2. By extension, any odd or unreadable typeface
   produced by a graphics device.  3. The typeface mundanely called
   `B"ocklin', an art-decoish display font.

EMACS: /ee'maks/ [from Editing MACroS] n. The ne plus ultra of
   hacker editors, a program editor with an entire LISP system inside
   it.  It was originally written by Richard Stallman in {TECO}
   under {{ITS}} at the MIT AI lab, but the most widely used versions
   now run under UNIX.  It includes facilities to run compilation
   subprocesses and send and receive mail; many hackers spend up to
   80% of their {tube time} inside it.

   Some versions running under window managers iconify as an
   overflowing kitchen sink, perhaps to suggest the one feature the
   editor does not (yet) include.  Indeed, some hackers find EMACS too
   heavyweight and {baroque} for their taste, and expand the name as
   `Escape Meta Alt Control Shift' to spoof its heavy reliance on
   keystrokes decorated with {bucky bits}.  Other spoof expansions
   include `Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping', `Eventually
   `malloc()'s All Computer Storage', and `EMACS Makes A Computer
   Slow' (see {{recursive acronym}}).  See also {vi}.

email: /ee'mayl/ 1. n. Electronic mail automatically passed
   through computer networks and/or via modems over common-carrier
   lines.  Contrast {snail-mail}, {paper-net}, {voice-net}.  See
   {network address}.  2. vt. To send electronic mail.

   Oddly enough, the word `emailed' is actually listed in the OED; it
   means "embossed (with a raised pattern) or arranged in a net work".
   A use from 1480 is given. The word is derived from French
   `emmailleure', network.

emoticon: /ee-moh'ti-kon/ n. An ASCII glyph used to indicate an
   emotional state in email or news.  Hundreds have been proposed, but
   only a few are in common use.  These include:

     :-)
          `smiley face' (for humor, laughter, friendliness,
          occasionally sarcasm)

     :-(
          `frowney face' (for sadness, anger, or upset)

     ;-)
          `half-smiley' ({ha ha only serious});
          also known as `semi-smiley' or `winkey face'.

     :-/
          `wry face'

   (These may become more comprehensible if you tilt your head
   sideways, to the left.)

   The first 2 listed are by far the most frequently encountered.
   Hyphenless forms of them are common on CompuServe, GEnie, and BIX;
   see also {bixie}.  On {USENET}, `smiley' is often used as a
   generic term synonymous with {emoticon}, as well as specifically
   for the happy-face emoticon.

   It appears that the emoticon was invented by one Scott Fahlman on
   the CMU {bboard} systems around 1980.  He later wrote: "I wish I
   had saved the original post, or at least recorded the date for
   posterity, but I had no idea that I was starting something that
   would soon pollute all the world's communication channels."  [GLS
   confirms that he remembers this original posting].

   Note for the {newbie}: Overuse of the smiley is a mark of
   loserhood!  More than one per paragraph is a fairly sure sign that
   you've gone over the line.

empire: n. Any of a family of military simulations derived from a
   game written by Peter Langston many years ago.  There are five or six
   multi-player variants of varying degrees of sophistication, and one
   single-player version implemented for both UNIX and VMS; the latter is
   even available as MS-DOS freeware.  All are notoriously addictive.

engine: n. 1. A piece of hardware that encapsulates some function
   but can't be used without some kind of {front end}.  Today we
   have, especially, `print engine': the guts of a laser printer.
   2. An analogous piece of software; notionally, one that does a lot
   of noisy crunching, such as a `database engine'.

   The hackish senses of `engine' are actually close to its original,
   pre-Industrial-Revolution sense of a skill, clever device, or
   instrument (the word is cognate to `ingenuity').  This sense had
   not been completely eclipsed by the modern connotation of
   power-transducing machinery in Charles Babbage's time, which
   explains why he named the stored-program computer that
   he designed in 1844 the `Analytical Engine'.

English: 1. n.,obs. The source code for a program, which may be in
   any language, as opposed to the linkable or executable binary
   produced from it by a compiler.  The idea behind the term is that
   to a real hacker, a program written in his favorite programming
   language is at least as readable as English.  Usage: used mostly by
   old-time hackers, though recognizable in context.  2. The official
   name of the database language used by the Pick Operating System,
   actually a sort of crufty interpreted BASIC with delusions of
   grandeur.  The name permits {marketroid}s to say "Yes, and you
   can program our computers in English!" to ignorant {suit}s
   without quite running afoul of the truth-in-advertising laws.

enhancement: n. {Marketroid}-speak for a bug {fix}.  This abuse
   of language is a popular and time-tested way to turn incompetence
   into increased revenue.  A hacker being ironic would instead call
   the fix a {feature} --- or perhaps save some effort by declaring
   the bug itself to be a feature.

ENQ: /enkw/ or /enk/ [from the ASCII mnemonic ENQuire for
   0000101] An on-line convention for querying someone's availability.
   After opening a {talk mode} connection to someone apparently in
   heavy hack mode, one might type `SYN SYN ENQ?' (the SYNs
   representing notional synchronization bytes), and expect a return
   of {ACK} or {NAK} depending on whether or not the person felt
   interruptible.  Compare {ping}, {finger}, and the usage of
   `FOO?' listed under {talk mode}.

EOF: /E-O-F/ [acronym, `End Of File'] n. 1. [techspeak] Refers
   esp. to whatever {out-of-band} value is returned by
   C's sequential character-input functions (and their equivalents in
   other environments) when end of file has been reached.  This value
   is -1 under C libraries postdating V6 UNIX, but was
   originally 0.  2. Used by extension in non-computer contexts when a
   human is doing something that can be modeled as a sequential read
   and can't go further.  "Yeah, I looked for a list of 360 mnemonics
   to post as a joke, but I hit EOF pretty fast; all the library had
   was a {JCL} manual."  See also {EOL}.

EOL: /E-O-L/ [End Of Line] n. Syn. for {newline}, derived
   perhaps from the original CDC6600 Pascal.  Now rare, but widely
   recognized and occasionally used for brevity.  Used in the
   example entry under {BNF}.  See also {EOF}.

EOU: /E-O-U/ n. The mnemonic of a mythical ASCII control
   character (End Of User) that could make an ASR-33 Teletype explode
   on receipt.  This parodied the numerous obscure delimiter and
   control characters left in ASCII from the days when it was
   associated more with wire-service teletypes than computers (e.g.,
   FS, GS, RS, US, EM, SUB, ETX, and esp. EOT).  It is worth
   remembering that ASR-33s were big, noisy mechanical beasts with a
   lot of clattering parts; the notion that one might explode was
   nowhere near as ridiculous as it might seem to someone sitting in
   front of a {tube} or flatscreen today.

epoch: [UNIX: prob. from astronomical timekeeping] n. The time and
   date corresponding to 0 in an operating system's clock and
   timestamp values.  Under most UNIX versions the epoch is 00:00:00
   GMT, January 1, 1970.  System time is measured in seconds or
   {tick}s past the epoch.  Weird problems may ensue when the clock
   wraps around (see {wrap around}), which is not necessarily a
   rare event; on systems counting 10 ticks per second, a signed
   32-bit count of ticks is good only for 6.8 years.  The
   1-tick-per-second clock of UNIX is good only until January 18,
   2038, assuming word lengths don't increase by then.  See also
   {wall time}.

epsilon: [see {delta}] 1. n. A small quantity of anything.  "The
   cost is epsilon."  2. adj. Very small, negligible; less than
   {marginal}.  "We can get this feature for epsilon cost."
   3. `within epsilon of': close enough to be indistinguishable for
   all practical purposes.  This is even closer than being `within
   delta of'.  "That's not what I asked for, but it's within
   epsilon of what I wanted."  Alternatively, it may mean not close
   enough, but very little is required to get it there: "My program
   is within epsilon of working."

epsilon squared: n. A quantity even smaller than {epsilon}, as
   small in comparison to epsilon as epsilon is to something normal;
   completely negligible.  If you buy a supercomputer for a million
   dollars, the cost of the thousand-dollar terminal to go with it is
   {epsilon}, and the cost of the ten-dollar cable to connect them
   is epsilon squared.  Compare {lost in the underflow}, {lost
   in the noise}.

era, the: Syn. {epoch}.  Webster's Unabridged makes these words
   almost synonymous, but `era' usually connotes a span of time rather
   than a point in time.  The {epoch} usage is recommended.

Eric Conspiracy: n. A shadowy group of mustachioed hackers named
   Eric first pinpointed as a sinister conspiracy by an infamous
   talk.bizarre posting ca. 1986; this was doubtless influenced by the
   numerous `Eric' jokes in the Monty Python oeuvre.  There do indeed
   seem to be considerably more mustachioed Erics in hackerdom than
   the frequency of these three traits can account for unless they are
   correlated in some arcane way.  Well-known examples include Eric
   Allman (he of the `Allman style' described under {indent style})
   and Erik Fair (co-author of NNTP); your editor has heard from about
   fourteen others by email, and the organization line `Eric
   Conspiracy Secret Laboratories' now emanates regularly from more
   than one site.

Eris: /e'ris/ n. The Greek goddess of Chaos, Discord, Confusion,
   and Things You Know Not Of; her name was latinized to Discordia and
   she was worshiped by that name in Rome.  Not a very friendly deity
   in the Classical original, she was reinvented as a more benign
   personification of creative anarchy starting in 1959 by the
   adherents of {Discordianism} and has since been a semi-serious
   subject of veneration in several `fringe' cultures, including
   hackerdom.  See {Discordianism}, {Church of the SubGenius}.

erotics: /ee-ro'tiks/ n. [Helsinki University of Technology,
   Finland] n. English-language university slang for electronics.
   Often used by hackers in Helsinki, maybe because good electronics
   excites them and makes them warm.

essentials: n. Things necessary to maintain a productive and secure
   hacking environment.  "A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, a
   20-megahertz 80386 box with 8 meg of core and a 300-megabyte disk
   supporting full UNIX with source and X windows and EMACS and UUCP
   via a 'blazer to a friendly Internet site, and thou."

evil: adj. As used by hackers, implies that some system, program,
   person, or institution is sufficiently maldesigned as to be not
   worth the bother of dealing with.  Unlike the adjectives in the
   {cretinous}/{losing}/{brain-damaged} series, `evil' does not
   imply incompetence or bad design, but rather a set of goals or
   design criteria fatally incompatible with the speaker's.  This is
   more an esthetic and engineering judgment than a moral one in the
   mainstream sense.  "We thought about adding a {Blue Glue}
   interface but decided it was too evil to deal with."  "{TECO}
   is neat, but it can be pretty evil if you're prone to typos."
   Often pronounced with the first syllable lengthened, as /eeee'vil/.

exa-: /ek's*/ [SI] pref. See {{quantifiers}}.

examining the entrails: n. The process of {grovel}ling through a
   core dump or hex image in the attempt to discover the bug that
   brought a program or system down.  Compare {runes},
   {incantation}, {black art}, {desk check}.

EXCH: /eks'ch*/ or /eksch/ vt. To exchange two things, each for the
   other; to swap places.  If you point to two people sitting down and
   say "Exch!", you are asking them to trade places.  EXCH,
   meaning EXCHange, was originally the name of a PDP-10 instruction
   that exchanged the contents of a register and a memory location.
   Many newer hackers tend to be thinking instead of the PostScript
   exchange operator (which is usually written in lowercase).

excl: /eks'kl/ n. Abbreviation for `exclamation point'.  See
   {bang}, {shriek}, {{ASCII}}.

EXE: /eks'ee/ or /eek'see/ or /E-X-E/ n. An executable
   binary file.  Some operating systems (notably MS-DOS, VMS, and
   TWENEX) use the extension .EXE to mark such files.  This usage is
   also occasionally found among UNIX programmers even though UNIX
   executables don't have any required suffix.

exec: /eg-zek'/ vt.,n.  1. [UNIX: from `execute'] Synonym for
   {chain}, derives from the `exec(2)' call.  2. [from
   `executive'] obs. The command interpreter for an {OS} (see
   {shell}); term esp. used around mainframes, and prob. derived from
   UNIVAC's archaic EXEC 2 and EXEC 8 operating systems.  3. At IBM,
   the equivalent of a shell command file (among VM/CMS users).

   The mainstream `exec' as an abbreviation for (human) executive is
   *not* used.  To a hacker, an `exec' is a always a program,
   never a person.

exercise, left as an: [from technical books] Used to complete a
   proof when one doesn't mind a {handwave}, or to avoid one
   entirely.  The complete phrase is: "The proof (or the rest) is left as
   an exercise for the reader."  This comment *has* occasionally
   been attached to unsolved research problems by authors possessed of
   either an evil sense of humor or a vast faith in the capabilities
   of their audiences.

eyeball search: n. To look for something in a mass of code or data
   with one's own native optical sensors, as opposed to using some
   sort of pattern matching software like {grep} or any other
   automated search tool.  Also called a {vgrep}; compare
   {vdiff}, {desk check}.

= F =

fab: /fab/ [from `fabricate'] v. 1. To produce chips from a
   design that may have been created by someone at another company.
   Fabbing chips based on the designs of others is the activity of a
   {silicon foundry}.  To a hacker, `fab' is practically never short
   for `fabulous'.  2. `fab line': the production system
   (lithography, diffusion, etching, etc.) for chips at a chip
   manufacturer.  Different `fab lines' are run with different
   process parameters, die sizes, or technologies, or simply to
   provide more manufacturing volume.

face time: n. Time spent interacting with somebody face-to-face (as
   opposed to via electronic links).  "Oh, yeah, I spent some face
   time with him at the last Usenix."

factor: n. See {coefficient}.

fall over: [IBM] vi. Yet another synonym for {crash} or {lose}.
   `Fall over hard' equates to {crash and burn}.

fall through: v. (n. `fallthrough', var. `fall-through') 1. To
   exit a loop by exhaustion, i.e., by having fulfilled its exit
   condition rather than via a break or exception condition that exits
   from the middle of it.  This usage appears to be *really* old,
   dating from the 1940s and 1950s.  2. To fail a test that would have
   passed control to a subroutine or some other distant portion of code.
   3. In C, `fall-through' occurs when the flow of execution in a
   switch statement reaches a `case' label other than by jumping
   there from the switch header, passing a point where one would
   normally expect to find a `break'.  A trivial example:

     switch (color)
     {
     case GREEN:
        do_green();
        break;
     case PINK:
        do_pink();
        /* FALL THROUGH */
     case RED:
        do_red();
        break;
     default:
        do_blue();
        break;
     }

   The variant spelling `/* FALL THRU */' is also common.

   The effect of this code is to `do_green()' when color is
   `GREEN', `do_red()' when color is `RED',
   `do_blue()' on any other color other than `PINK', and
   (and this is the important part) `do_pink()' *and then*
   `do_red()' when color is `PINK'.  Fall-through is
   {considered harmful} by some, though there are contexts (such as
   the coding of state machines) in which it is natural; it is
   generally considered good practice to include a comment
   highlighting the fall-through where one would normally expect a
   break.

fandango on core: [UNIX/C hackers, from the Mexican dance] n.
   In C, a wild pointer that runs out of bounds, causing a {core
   dump}, or corrupts the `malloc(3)' {arena} in such a way as
   to cause mysterious failures later on, is sometimes said to have
   `done a fandango on core'.  On low-end personal machines without an
   MMU, this can corrupt the OS itself, causing massive lossage.
   Other frenetic dances such as the rhumba, cha-cha, or watusi, may
   be substituted.  See {aliasing bug}, {precedence lossage},
   {smash the stack}, {memory leak}, {overrun screw},
   {core}.

FAQ list: /F-A-Q list/ [USENET] n. A compendium of accumulated
   lore, posted periodically to high-volume newsgroups in an attempt
   to forestall Frequently Asked Questions.  This lexicon itself
   serves as a good example of a collection of one kind of lore,
   although it is far too big for a regular posting.  Examples: "What
   is the proper type of NULL?"  and "What's that funny name for
   the `#' character?" are both Frequently Asked Questions.
   Several extant FAQ lists do (or should) make reference to the
   Jargon File (the on-line version of this lexicon).

FAQL: /fa'kl/ n. Syn. {FAQ list}.

farming: [Adelaide University, Australia] n. What the heads of a
   disk drive are said to do when they plow little furrows in the
   magnetic media.  Associated with a {crash}.  Typically used as
   follows: "Oh no, the machine has just crashed; I hope the hard
   drive hasn't gone {farming} again."

fascist: adj. 1. Said of a computer system with excessive or
   annoying security barriers, usage limits, or access policies.  The
   implication is that said policies are preventing hackers from
   getting interesting work done.  The variant `fascistic' seems
   to have been preferred at MIT, poss. by analogy with
   `touristic' (see {tourist}).  2. In the design of languages
   and other software tools, `the fascist alternative' is the most
   restrictive and structured way of capturing a particular function;
   the implication is that this may be desirable in order to simplify
   the implementation or provide tighter error checking.  Compare
   {bondage-and-discipline language}, but that term is global rather
   than local.

faulty: adj. Non-functional; buggy.  Same denotation as
   {bletcherous}, {losing}, q.v., but the connotation is much
   milder.

fd leak: /ef dee leek/ n. A kind of programming bug analogous to a
   {core leak}, in which a program fails to close file descriptors
   (`fd's) after file operations are completed, and thus eventually
   runs out of them.  See {leak}.

fear and loathing: [from Hunter Thompson] n. A state inspired by the
   prospect of dealing with certain real-world systems and standards
   that are totally {brain-damaged} but ubiquitous --- Intel 8086s,
   or {COBOL}, or {{EBCDIC}}, or any {IBM} machine except the
   Rios (a.k.a.  the RS/6000).  "Ack!  They want PCs to be able to
   talk to the AI machine.  Fear and loathing time!"

feature: n. 1. A good property or behavior (as of a program).
   Whether it was intended or not is immaterial.  2. An intended
   property or behavior (as of a program).  Whether it is good or not
   is immaterial (but if bad, it is also a {misfeature}).  3. A
   surprising property or behavior; in particular, one that is
   purposely inconsistent because it works better that way --- such an
   inconsistency is therefore a {feature} and not a {bug}.  This
   kind of feature is sometimes called a {miswart}; see that entry
   for a classic example.  4. A property or behavior that is
   gratuitous or unnecessary, though perhaps also impressive or cute.
   For example, one feature of Common LISP's `format' function is
   the ability to print numbers in two different Roman-numeral formats
   (see {bells, whistles, and gongs}).  5. A property or behavior
   that was put in to help someone else but that happens to be in your
   way.  6. A bug that has been documented.  To call something a
   feature sometimes means the author of the program did not consider
   the particular case, and that the program responded in a way that was
   unexpected but not strictly incorrect.  A standard joke is that a
   bug can be turned into a {feature} simply by documenting it
   (then theoretically no one can complain about it because it's in
   the manual), or even by simply declaring it to be good.  "That's
   not a bug, that's a feature!" is a common catchphrase.  See also
   {feetch feetch}, {creeping featurism}, {wart}, {green
   lightning}.

   The relationship among bugs, features, misfeatures, warts, and
   miswarts might be clarified by the following hypothetical exchange
   between two hackers on an airliner:

   A: "This seat doesn't recline."

   B: "That's not a bug, that's a feature.  There is an emergency
   exit door built around the window behind you, and the route has to
   be kept clear."

   A: "Oh.  Then it's a misfeature; they should have increased the
   spacing between rows here."

   B: "Yes.  But if they'd increased spacing in only one section it
   would have been a wart --- they would've had to make
   nonstandard-length ceiling panels to fit over the displaced
   seats."

   A: "A miswart, actually.  If they increased spacing throughout
   they'd lose several rows and a chunk out of the profit margin.  So
   unequal spacing would actually be the Right Thing."

   B: "Indeed."

   {Undocumented feature} is a common, allegedly humorous euphemism
   for a {bug}.

feature creature: [poss. fr. slang `creature feature' for a horror
   movie] n. One who loves to add features to designs or programs,
   perhaps at the expense of coherence, concision, or {taste}.  See
   also {feeping creaturism}, {creeping featurism}.

feature shock: [from Alvin Toffler's book title `Future
   Shock'] n.  A user's (or programmer's!) confusion when confronted
   with a package that has too many features and poor introductory
   material.

featurectomy: /fee`ch*r-ek't*-mee/ n. The act of removing a
   feature from a program.  Featurectomies come in two flavors, the
   `righteous' and the `reluctant'.  Righteous featurectomies are
   performed because the remover believes the program would be more
   elegant without the feature, or there is already an equivalent and
   better way to achieve the same end.  (This is not quite the same
   thing as removing a {misfeature}.)  Reluctant featurectomies are
   performed to satisfy some external constraint such as code size or
   execution speed.

feep: /feep/ 1. n. The soft electronic `bell' sound of a
   display terminal (except for a VT-52); a beep (in fact, the
   microcomputer world seems to prefer {beep}).  2. vi. To cause
   the display to make a feep sound.  ASR-33s (the original TTYs) do
   not feep; they have mechanical bells that ring.  Alternate forms:
   {beep}, `bleep', or just about anything suitably
   onomatopoeic.  (Jeff MacNelly, in his comic strip "Shoe", uses
   the word `eep' for sounds made by computer terminals and video
   games; this is perhaps the closest written approximation yet.)  The
   term `breedle' was sometimes heard at SAIL, where the terminal
   bleepers are not particularly soft (they sound more like the
   musical equivalent of a raspberry or Bronx cheer; for a close
   approximation, imagine the sound of a Star Trek communicator's beep
   lasting for 5 seconds).  The `feeper' on a VT-52 has been
   compared to the sound of a '52 Chevy stripping its gears.  See also
   {ding}.

feeper: /fee'pr/ n. The device in a terminal or workstation (usually
   a loudspeaker of some kind) that makes the {feep} sound.

feeping creature: [from {feeping creaturism}] n. An unnecessary
   feature; a bit of {chrome} that, in the speaker's judgment, is
   the camel's nose for a whole horde of new features.

feeping creaturism: /fee'ping kree`ch*r-izm/ n. A deliberate
   spoonerism for {creeping featurism}, meant to imply that the
   system or program in question has become a misshapen creature of
   hacks.  This term isn't really well defined, but it sounds so neat
   that most hackers have said or heard it.  It is probably reinforced
   by an image of terminals prowling about in the dark making their
   customary noises.

feetch feetch: /feech feech/ interj. If someone tells you about
   some new improvement to a program, you might respond: "Feetch,
   feetch!"  The meaning of this depends critically on vocal
   inflection.  With enthusiasm, it means something like "Boy, that's
   great!  What a great hack!"  Grudgingly or with obvious doubt, it
   means "I don't know; it sounds like just one more unnecessary and
   complicated thing".  With a tone of resignation, it means, "Well,
   I'd rather keep it simple, but I suppose it has to be done".

fence: n. 1. A sequence of one or more distinguished
   ({out-of-band}) characters (or other data items), used to
   delimit a piece of data intended to be treated as a unit (the
   computer-science literature calls this a `sentinel').  The NUL
   (ASCII 0000000) character that terminates strings in C is a fence.
   Hex FF is probably the most common fence character after NUL.  See
   {zigamorph}.  2. [among users of optimizing compilers] Any
   technique, usually exploiting knowledge about the compiler, that
   blocks certain optimizations.  Used when explicit mechanisms are
   not available or are overkill.  Typically a hack: "I call a dummy
   procedure there to force a flush of the optimizer's
   register-coloring info" can be expressed by the shorter "That's a
   fence procedure".

fencepost error: n. 1. A problem with the discrete equivalent of a
   boundary condition.  Often exhibited in programs by iterative
   loops.  From the following problem: "If you build a fence 100 feet
   long with posts 10 feet apart, how many posts do you need?"
   Either 9 or 11 is a better answer than the obvious 10.  For
   example, suppose you have a long list or array of items, and want
   to process items m through n; how many items are there?  The
   obvious answer is n - m, but that is off by one; the right
   answer is n - m + 1.  A program that used the `obvious'
   formula would have a fencepost error in it.  See also {zeroth}
   and {off-by-one error}, and note that not all off-by-one errors
   are fencepost errors.  The game of Musical Chairs involves a
   catastrophic off-by-one error where N people try to sit in
   N - 1 chairs, but it's not a fencepost error.  Fencepost
   errors come from counting things rather than the spaces between
   them, or vice versa, or by neglecting to consider whether one
   should count one or both ends of a row.  2. Occasionally, an error
   induced by unexpectedly regular spacing of inputs, which can (for
   instance) screw up your hash table.

fepped out: /fept owt/ adj. The Symbolics 3600 Lisp Machine has a
   Front-End Processor called a `FEP' (compare sense 2 of {box}).
   When the main processor gets {wedged}, the FEP takes control of
   the keyboard and screen.  Such a machine is said to have
   `fepped out'.

FidoNet: n. A worldwide hobbyist network of personal computers
   which exchange mail, discussion groups, and files.  Founded in 1984
   and originally consisting only of IBM PCs and compatibles, FidoNet
   now includes such diverse machines as Apple ][s, Ataris, Amigas,
   and UNIX systems.  Though it is much younger than {USENET},
   FidoNet is already (in early 1991) a significant fraction of
   USENET's size at some 8000 systems.

field circus: [a derogatory pun on `field service'] n. The field
   service organization of any hardware manufacturer, but especially
   DEC.  There is an entire genre of jokes about DEC field circus
   engineers:

     Q: How can you recognize a DEC field circus engineer
        with a flat tire?
     A: He's changing each tire to see which one is flat.

     Q: How can you recognize a DEC field circus engineer
        who is out of gas?
     A: He's changing each tire to see which one is flat.

   There is also the `Field Circus Cheer' (from the {plan file} for
   DEC on MIT-AI):

     Maynard! Maynard!
     Don't mess with us!
     We're mean and we're tough!
     If you get us confused
     We'll screw up your stuff.

   (DEC's service HQ is located in Maynard, Massachusetts.)

field servoid: [play on `android'] /fee'ld ser'voyd/ n.
   Representative of a field service organization (see {field
   circus}).  This has many of the implications of {droid}.

Fight-o-net: [FidoNet] n. Deliberate distortion of {FidoNet},
   often applied after a flurry of {flamage} in a particular
   {echo}, especially the SYSOP echo or Fidonews (see {'Snooze}).

File Attach: [FidoNet] 1. n. A file sent along with a mail message
   from one BBS to another.  2. vt. Sending someone a file by using
   the File Attach option in a BBS mailer.

File Request: [FidoNet] 1. n. The {FidoNet} equivalent of
   {FTP}, in which one BBS system automatically dials another and
   {snarf}s one or more files.  Files are often announced as being
   "available for {FReq}" in the same way that files are announced
   as being "available for/by anonymous FTP" on the Internet.
   2. vt. The act of getting a copy of a file by using the File
   Request option of the BBS mailer.

filk: /filk/ [from SF fandom, where a typo for `folk' was
   adopted as a new word] n.,v. A `filk' is a popular or folk song
   with lyrics revised or completely new lyrics, intended for humorous
   effect when read and/or to be sung late at night at SF conventions.
   There is a flourishing subgenre of these called `computer filks',
   written by hackers and often containing rather sophisticated
   technical humor.  See {double bucky} for an example.

film at 11: [MIT: in parody of TV newscasters] Used in conversation
   to announce ordinary events, with a sarcastic implication that
   these events are earth-shattering.  "{{ITS}} crashes; film at 11."
   "Bug found in scheduler; film at 11."

filter: [orig. {{UNIX}}, now also in {{MS-DOS}}] n. A program that
   processes an input data stream into an output data stream in some
   well-defined way, and does no I/O to anywhere else except possibly
   on error conditions; one designed to be used as a stage in a
   `pipeline' (see {plumbing}).

Finagle's Law: n. The generalized or `folk' version of
   {Murphy's Law}, fully named "Finagle's Law of Dynamic
   Negatives" and usually rendered "Anything that can go wrong,
   will".  One variant favored among hackers is "The perversity of
   the Universe tends towards a maximum" (but see also {Hanlon's
   Razor}).  The label `Finagle's Law' was popularized by SF author
   Larry Niven in several stories depicting a frontier culture of
   asteroid miners; this `Belter' culture professed a religion
   and/or running joke involving the worship of the dread god Finagle
   and his mad prophet Murphy.

fine: [WPI] adj. Good, but not good enough to be {cuspy}.  The word
   `fine' is used elsewhere, of course, but without the implicit
   comparison to the higher level implied by {cuspy}.

finger: [WAITS, via BSD UNIX] 1. n. A program that displays a
   particular user or all users logged on the system or a remote
   system.  Typically shows full name, last login time, idle time,
   terminal line, and terminal location (where applicable).  May also
   display a {plan file} left by the user.  2. vt. To apply finger
   to a username.  3. vt. By extension, to check a human's current
   state by any means.  "Foodp?"  "T!"  "OK, finger Lisa and see
   if she's idle."  4. Any picture (composed of ASCII characters)
   depicting `the finger'.  Originally a humorous component of one's
   plan file to deter the curious fingerer (sense 2), it has entered
   the arsenal of some {flamer}s.

finger-pointing syndrome: n. All-too-frequent result of bugs, esp.
   in new or experimental configurations.  The hardware vendor points
   a finger at the software.  The software vendor points a finger
   at the hardware.  All the poor users get is the finger.

firebottle: n. A large, primitive, power-hungry active electrical
   device, similar in function to a FET but constructed out of glass,
   metal, and vacuum.  Characterized by high cost, low density, low
   reliability, high-temperature operation, and high power
   dissipation.  Sometimes mistakenly called a `tube' in the U.S.
   or a `valve' in England; another hackish term is {glassfet}.

firefighting: n. 1. What sysadmins have to do to correct sudden
   operational problems.  An opposite of hacking.  "Been hacking your
   new newsreader?"  "No, a power glitch hosed the network and I spent
   the whole afternoon fighting fires."  2. The act of throwing lots
   of manpower and late nights at a project, esp. to get it out
   before deadline.  See also {gang bang}, {Mongolian Hordes
   technique}; however, the term `firefighting' connotes that the
   effort is going into chasing bugs rather than adding features.

firewall code: n. The code you put in a system (say, a telephone
   switch) to make sure that the users can't do any damage. Since
   users always want to be able to do everything but never want to
   suffer for any mistakes, the construction of a firewall is a
   question not only of defensive coding but also of interface
   presentation, so that users don't even get curious about those
   corners of a system where they can burn themselves.

firewall machine: n. A dedicated gateway machine with special
   security precautions on it, used to service outside network
   connections and dial-in lines.  The idea is to protect a cluster of
   more loosely administered machines hidden behind it from
   {cracker}s.  The typical firewall is an inexpensive micro-based
   UNIX box kept clean of critical data, with a bunch of modems and
   public network ports on it but just one carefully watched
   connection back to the rest of the cluster.  The special
   precautions may include threat monitoring, callback, and even a
   complete {iron box} keyable to particular incoming IDs or
   activity patterns.  Syn. {flytrap}, {Venus flytrap}.

fireworks mode: n. The mode a machine is sometimes said to be in when
   it is performing a {crash and burn} operation.

firmy: /fer'mee/ Syn. {stiffy} (a 3.5-inch floppy disk).

fish: [Adelaide University, Australia] n. 1. Another metasyntactic
   variable.  See {foo}.  Derived originally from the Monty Python
   skit in the middle of "The Meaning of Life" entitled "Find the
   Fish".  2. A pun for `microfiche'.  A microfiche file cabinet may be
   referred to as a `fish tank'.

FISH queue: [acronym, by analogy with FIFO (First In, First Out)]
   n. `First In, Still Here'.  A joking way of pointing out that
   processing of a particular sequence of events or requests has
   stopped dead.  Also `FISH mode' and `FISHnet'; the latter
   may be applied to any network that is running really slowly or
   exhibiting extreme flakiness.

fix: n.,v. What one does when a problem has been reported too many
   times to be ignored.

flag: n. A variable or quantity that can take on one of two
   values; a bit, particularly one that is used to indicate one of two
   outcomes or is used to control which of two things is to be done.
   "This flag controls whether to clear the screen before printing
   the message."  "The program status word contains several flag
   bits."  Used of humans analogously to {bit}.  See also
   {hidden flag}, {mode bit}.

flag day: n. A software change that is neither forward- nor
   backward-compatible, and which is costly to make and costly to
   reverse.  "Can we install that without causing a flag day for all
   users?"  This term has nothing to do with the use of the word
   {flag} to mean a variable that has two values.  It came into use
   when a massive change was made to the {{Multics}} timesharing
   system to convert from the old ASCII code to the new one; this was
   scheduled for Flag Day (a U.S. holiday), June 14, 1966.  See also
   {backward combatability}.

flaky: adj. (var sp. `flakey') Subject to frequent {lossage}.
   This use is of course related to the common slang use of the word
   to describe a person as eccentric, crazy, or just unreliable.  A
   system that is flaky is working, sort of --- enough that you are
   tempted to try to use it --- but fails frequently enough that the
   odds in favor of finishing what you start are low.  Commonwealth
   hackish prefers {dodgy} or {wonky}.

flamage: /flay'm*j/ n. Flaming verbiage, esp. high-noise,
   low-signal postings to {USENET} or other electronic {fora}.
   Often in the phrase `the usual flamage'.  `Flaming' is the act
   itself; `flamage' the content; a `flame' is a single flaming
   message.  See {flame}.

flame: 1. vi. To post an email message intended to insult and
   provoke.  2. vi. To speak incessantly and/or rabidly on some
   relatively uninteresting subject or with a patently ridiculous
   attitude.  3. vt. Either of senses 1 or 2, directed with
   hostility at a particular person or people.  4. n. An instance of
   flaming.  When a discussion degenerates into useless controversy,
   one might tell the participants "Now you're just flaming" or
   "Stop all that flamage!" to try to get them to cool down (so to
   speak).

   USENETter Marc Ramsey, who was at WPI from 1972 to 1976, adds: "I
   am 99% certain that the use of `flame' originated at WPI.  Those
   who made a nuisance of themselves insisting that they needed to use
   a TTY for `real work' came to be known as `flaming asshole lusers'.
   Other particularly annoying people became `flaming asshole ravers',
   which shortened to `flaming ravers', and ultimately `flamers'.  I
   remember someone picking up on the Human Torch pun, but I don't
   think `flame on/off' was ever much used at WPI."  See also
   {asbestos}.

   The term may have been independently invented at several different
   places; it is also reported that `flaming' was in use to mean
   something like `interminably drawn-out semi-serious discussions'
   (late-night bull sessions) at Carleton College during 1968--1971.

flame bait: n. A posting intended to trigger a {flame war}, or one
   that invites flames in reply.

flame on: vi.,interj.  1. To begin to {flame}.  The punning
   reference to Marvel Comics's Human Torch is no longer widely
   recognized.  2. To continue to flame.  See {rave}, {burble}.

flame war: n. (var. `flamewar') An acrimonious dispute,
   especially when conducted on a public electronic forum such as
   {USENET}.

flamer: n. One who habitually {flame}s.  Said esp. of obnoxious
   {USENET} personalities.

flap: vt. 1. To unload a DECtape (so it goes flap, flap,
   flap...).  Old-time hackers at MIT tell of the days when the
   disk was device 0 and {microtape}s were 1, 2,... and
   attempting to flap device 0 would instead start a motor banging
   inside a cabinet near the disk.  2. By extension, to unload any
   magnetic tape.  See also {macrotape}.  Modern cartridge tapes no
   longer actually flap, but the usage has remained.

flarp: /flarp/ [Rutgers University] n. Yet another metasyntactic
   variable (see {foo}).  Among those who use it, it is associated
   with a legend that any program not containing the word `flarp'
   somewhere will not work.  The legend is discreetly silent on the
   reliability of programs which *do* contain the magic word.

flat: adj. 1. Lacking any complex internal structure.  "That
   {bitty box} has only a flat filesystem, not a hierarchical
   one."  The verb form is {flatten}.  2. Said of a memory
   architecture (like that of the VAX or 680x0) that is one big linear
   address space (typically with each possible value of a processor
   register corresponding to a unique core address), as opposed to a
   `segmented' architecture (like that of the 80x86) in which
   addresses are composed from a base-register/offset pair (segmented
   designs are generally considered {cretinous}).

flat-ASCII: adj. Said of a text file that contains only 7-bit ASCII
   characters and uses only ASCII-standard control characters (that
   is, has no embedded codes specific to a particular text formatter
   or markup language, and no {meta}-characters).  Syn.
   {plain-ASCII}.  Compare {flat-file}.

flat-file: adj. A {flatten}ed representation of some database or
   tree or network structure as a single file from which the
   structure could implicitly be rebuilt, esp. one in {flat-ASCII}
   form.

flatten: vt. To remove structural information, esp. to filter
   something with an implicit tree structure into a simple sequence of
   leaves; also tends to imply mapping to {flat-ASCII}.  "This code
   flattens an expression with parentheses into an equivalent
   {canonical} form."

flavor: n. 1. Variety, type, kind.  "DDT commands come in two
   flavors."  "These lights come in two flavors, big red ones and
   small green ones."  See {vanilla}.  2. The attribute that causes
   something to be {flavorful}.  Usually used in the phrase "yields
   additional flavor".  "This convention yields additional flavor by
   allowing one to print text either right-side-up or upside-down."
   See {vanilla}.  This usage was certainly reinforced by the
   terminology of quantum chromodynamics, in which quarks (the
   constituents of, e.g., protons) come in six flavors (up, down,
   strange, charm, top, bottom) and three colors (red, blue, green)
   --- however, hackish use of `flavor' at MIT predated QCD.  3. The
   term for `class' (in the object-oriented sense) in the LISP Machine
   Flavors system.  Though the Flavors design has been superseded
   (notably by the Common LISP CLOS facility), the term `flavor' is
   still used as a general synonym for `class' by some LISP hackers.

flavorful: adj. Full of {flavor}; esthetically pleasing.  See
   {random} and {losing} for antonyms.  See also the entries for
   {taste} and {elegant}.

flippy: /flip'ee/ n. A single-sided floppy disk altered for
   double-sided use by addition of a second write-notch, so called
   because it must be flipped over for the second side to be
   accessible.  No longer common.

flowchart:: [techspeak] n. An archaic form of visual control-flow
   specification employing arrows and `speech balloons' of various
   shapes.  Hackers never use flowcharts, consider them extremely
   silly, and associate them with {COBOL} programmers, {card
   walloper}s, and other lower forms of life.  This is because (from a
   hacker's point of view) they are no easier to read than code, are
   less precise, and tend to fall out of sync with the code (so that
   they either obfuscate it rather than explaining it or require
   extra maintenance effort that doesn't improve the code).  See also
   {pdl}, sense 3.

flower key: [Mac users] n. See {command key}.

flush: v. 1. To delete something, usually superfluous, or to abort
   an operation.  "All that nonsense has been flushed."  2. [UNIX/C]
   To force buffered I/O to disk, as with an `fflush(3)' call.
   This is *not* an abort or deletion as in sense 1, but a
   demand for early completion!  3. To leave at the end of a day's
   work (as opposed to leaving for a meal).  "I'm going to flush
   now."  "Time to flush."  4. To exclude someone from an activity,
   or to ignore a person.

   `Flush' was standard ITS terminology for aborting an output
   operation; one spoke of the text that would have been printed, but
   was not, as having been flushed.  It is speculated that this term
   arose from a vivid image of flushing unwanted characters by hosing
   down the internal output buffer, washing the characters away before
   they can be printed.  The UNIX/C usage, on the other hand, was
   propagated by the `fflush(3)' call in C's standard I/O library
   (though it is reported to have been in use among BLISS programmers
   at DEC and on Honeywell and IBM machines as far back as 1965).
   UNIX/C hackers find the ITS usage confusing, and vice versa.

Flyspeck 3: n. Standard name for any font that is so tiny as to be
   unreadable (by analogy with such names as `Helvetica 10' for
   10-point Helvetica).  Legal boilerplate is usually printed in
   Flyspeck 3.

flytrap: n. See {firewall machine}.

FOAF: // [USENET] n. Acronym for `Friend Of A Friend'.  The
   source of an unverified, possibly untrue story.  This was not
   originated by hackers (it is used in Jan Brunvand's books on urban
   folklore), but is much better recognized on USENET and elsewhere
   than in mainstream English.

FOD: /fod/ v. [Abbreviation for `Finger of Death', originally a
   spell-name from fantasy gaming] To terminate with extreme prejudice
   and with no regard for other people.  From {MUD}s where the
   wizard command `FOD <player>' results in the immediate and total
   death of <player>, usually as punishment for obnoxious behavior.
   This migrated to other circumstances, such as "I'm going to fod
   the process that is burning all the cycles."  Compare {gun}.

   In aviation, FOD means Foreign Object Damage, e.g., what happens
   when a jet engine sucks up a rock on the runway or a bird in
   flight.  Finger of Death is a distressingly apt description of
   what this does to the engine.

fold case: v. See {smash case}.  This term tends to be used
   more by people who don't mind that their tools smash case.  It also
   connotes that case is ignored but case distinctions in data
   processed by the tool in question aren't destroyed.

followup: n. On USENET, a {posting} generated in response to
   another posting (as opposed to a {reply}, which goes by email
   rather than being broadcast).  Followups include the ID of the
   {parent message} in their headers; smart news-readers can use
   this information to present USENET news in `conversation' sequence
   rather than order-of-arrival.  See {thread}.

foo: /foo/ 1. interj. Term of disgust.  2. Used very generally
   as a sample name for absolutely anything, esp. programs and files
   (esp. scratch files).  3. First on the standard list of
   metasyntactic variables used in syntax examples.  See also
   {bar}, {baz}, {qux}, {quux}, {corge}, {grault},
   {garply}, {waldo}, {fred}, {plugh}, {xyzzy},
   {thud}.

   {foo} is the {canonical} example of a `metasyntactic
   variable' --- a name used in examples and understood to stand for
   whatever thing is under discussion, or any random member of a class
   of things under discussion.  To avoid confusion, hackers never use
   `foo' or other words like it as permanent names for anything.  In
   filenames, a common convention is that any filename beginning
   `foo' is a scratch file that may be deleted at any time.

   The etymology of hackish `foo' is obscure.  When used in
   connection with `bar' it is generally traced to the WWII-era Army
   slang acronym FUBAR (`Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition'), later
   bowdlerized to {foobar}.  (See also {FUBAR}).

   However, the use of the word `foo' itself has more complicated
   antecedents, including a long history in comic strips and cartoons.
   The old "Smokey Stover" comic strips by Bill Holman often
   included the word `FOO', in particular on license plates of cars;
   allegedly, `FOO' and `BAR' also occurred in Walt Kelly's
   "Pogo" strips.  In the 1938 cartoon "Daffy Doc", a very
   early version of Daffy Duck holds up a sign saying "SILENCE IS
   FOO!"; oddly, this seems to refer to some approving or positive
   affirmative use of foo.  It is even possible that hacker usage
   actually springs from `FOO, Lampoons and Parody', the title of
   a comic book first issued in September 1958; the byline read
   `C. Crumb' but this may well have been a sort-of pseudonym for
   noted weird-comix artist Robert Crumb.  The title FOO was featured
   in large letters on the front cover.

   An old-time member reports that in the 1959 `Dictionary of the
   TMRC Language', compiled at {TMRC} there was an entry that went
   something like this:

        FOO: The first syllable of the sacred chant phrase "FOO MANE PADME
        HUM."  Our first obligation is to keep the foo counters turning.

   For more about the legendary foo counters, see {TMRC}.  Almost
   the entire AI staff was involved with TMRC, so it is not clear
   which group introduced the other to the word FOO.

   Very probably, hackish `foo' had no single origin and derives
   through all these channels from Yiddish `feh' and/or English
   `fooey'.

foobar: n. Another common metasyntactic variable; see {foo}.
   Hackers do *not* generally use this to mean {FUBAR} in
   either the slang or jargon sense.

fool: n. As used by hackers, specifically describes a person who
   habitually reasons from obviously or demonstrably incorrect
   premises and cannot be persuaded by evidence to do otherwise; it is
   not generally used in its other senses, i.e., to describe a person
   with a native incapacity to reason correctly, or a clown.  Indeed,
   in hackish experience many fools are capable of reasoning all too
   effectively in executing their errors.  See also {cretin},
   {loser}, {fool file, the}.

fool file, the: [USENET] n. A notional repository of all the most
   dramatically and abysmally stupid utterances ever.  There is a
   subgenre of {sig block}s that consists of the header "From the
   fool file:" followed by some quote the poster wishes to represent
   as an immortal gem of dimwittery; for this to be really effective,
   the quote has to be so obviously wrong as to be laughable.  More
   than one USENETter has achieved an unwanted notoriety by being
   quoted in this way.

Foonly: n. 1. The {PDP-10} successor that was to have been built by
   the Super Foonly project at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence
   Laboratory along with a new operating system.  The intention was to
   leapfrog from the old DEC timesharing system SAIL was running to a
   new generation, bypassing TENEX which at that time was the ARPANET
   standard.  ARPA funding for both the Super Foonly and the new
   operating system was cut in 1974.  Most of the design team went to
   DEC and contributed greatly to the design of the PDP-10 model KL10.
   2. The name of the company formed by Dave Poole, one of the
   principal Super Foonly designers, and one of hackerdom's more
   colorful personalities.  Many people remember the parrot which sat
   on Poole's shoulder and was a regular companion.  3. Any of the
   machines built by Poole's company.  The first was the F-1 (a.k.a.
   Super Foonly), which was the computational engine used to create
   the graphics in the movie "TRON".  The F-1 was the fastest
   PDP-10 ever built, but only one was ever made.  The effort drained
   Foonly of its financial resources, and they turned towards building
   smaller, slower, and much less expensive machines.  Unfortunately,
   these ran not the popular {TOPS-20} but a TENEX varient called
   Foonex; this seriously limited their market.  Also, the machines
   shipped were actually wire-wrapped engineering prototypes requiring
   individual attention from more than usually competent site
   personnel, and thus had significant reliability problems.  Poole's
   legendary temper and unwillingness to suffer fools gladly did not
   help matters.  By the time of the Jupiter project cancellation in
   1983 Foonly's proposal to build another F-1 was eclipsed by the
   {Mars}, and the company never quite recovered.  See the
   {Mars} entry for the continuation and moral of this story.

footprint: n. 1. The floor or desk area taken up by a piece of
   hardware.  2. [IBM] The audit trail (if any) left by a crashed
   program (often in plural, `footprints').  See also
   {toeprint}.

for free: adj. Said of a capability of a programming language or
   hardware equipment that is available by its design without needing
   cleverness to implement: "In APL, we get the matrix operations for
   free."  "And owing to the way revisions are stored in this
   system, you get revision trees for free."  Usually it refers to a
   serendipitous feature of doing things a certain way (compare
   {big win}), but it may refer to an intentional but secondary
   feature.

for the rest of us: [from the Mac slogan "The computer for the
   rest of us"] adj. 1. Used to describe a {spiffy} product whose
   affordability shames other comparable products, or (more often)
   used sarcastically to describe {spiffy} but very overpriced
   products.  2. Describes a program with a limited interface,
   deliberately limited capabilities, non-orthogonality, inability to
   compose primitives, or any other limitation designed to not
   `confuse' a na"ive user.  This places an upper bound on how far that
   user can go before the program begins to get in the way of the task
   instead of helping accomplish it.  Used in reference to Macintosh
   software which doesn't provide obvious capabilities because it is
   thought that the poor lusers might not be able to handle them.
   Becomes `the rest of *them*' when used in third-party
   reference; thus, "Yes, it is an attractive program, but it's
   designed for The Rest Of Them" means a program that superficially
   looks neat but has no depth beyond the surface flash.  See also
   {WIMP environment}, {Macintrash}, {user-friendly}.

fora: pl.n. Plural of {forum}.

foreground: [UNIX] vt. To foreground a task is to bring it to
   the top of one's {stack} for immediate processing, and hackers
   often use it in this sense for non-computer tasks. "If your
   presentation is due next week, I guess I'd better foreground
   writing up the design document."

   Technically, on a time-sharing system, a task executing in
   foreground is one able to accept input from and return output to
   the user; oppose {background}.  Nowadays this term is primarily
   associated with {{UNIX}}, but it appears first to have been used
   in this sense on OS/360.  Normally, there is only one foreground
   task per terminal (or terminal window); having multiple processes
   simultaneously reading the keyboard is a good way to {lose}.

forked: [UNIX; prob. influenced by a mainstream expletive] adj.
   Terminally slow, or dead.  Originated when one system slowed to
   incredibly bad speeds because of a process recursively spawning copies
   of itself (using the UNIX system call `fork(2)') and taking up
   all the process table entries.

Fortrash: /for'trash/ n. Hackerism for the FORTRAN language,
   referring to its primitive design, gross and irregular syntax,
   limited control constructs, and slippery, exception-filled
   semantics.

fortune cookie: [UNIX] n. A random quote, item of trivia, joke, or
   maxim printed to the user's tty at login time or (less commonly) at
   logout time.  Items from this lexicon have often been used as
   fortune cookies.  See {cookie file}.

forum: n. [USENET, GEnie CI$; pl. `fora' or `forums'] Any
   discussion group accessible through a dial-in {BBS}, a
   {mailing list}, or a {newsgroup} (see {network, the}).  A
   forum functions much like a bulletin board; users submit
   {posting}s for all to read and discussion ensues.  Contrast
   real-time chat via {talk mode} or point-to-point personal
   {email}.

fossil: n. 1. In software, a misfeature that becomes understandable
   only in historical context, as a remnant of times past retained so
   as not to break compatibility.  Example: the retention of octal as
   default base for string escapes in {C}, in spite of the better
   match of hexadecimal to ASCII and modern byte-addressable
   architectures.  See {dusty deck}.  2. More restrictively, a
   feature with past but no present utility.  Example: the
   force-all-caps (LCASE) bits in the V7 and {BSD} UNIX tty driver,
   designed for use with monocase terminals.  In a perversion of the
   usual backward-compatibility goal, this functionality has actually
   been expanded and renamed in some later {USG UNIX} releases as
   the IUCLC and OLCUC bits.  3. The FOSSIL (Fido/Opus/Seadog
   Standard Interface Level) driver specification for serial-port
   access to replace the {brain-dead} routines in the IBM PC ROMs.
   Fossils are used by most MS-DOS {BBS} software in lieu of
   programming the {bare metal} of the serial ports, as the ROM
   routines do not support interrupt-driven operation or setting
   speeds above 9600.  Since the FOSSIL specification allows
   additional functionality to be hooked in, drivers that use the
   {hook} but do not provide serial-port access themselves are named
   with a modifier, as in `video fossil'.

four-color glossies: 1. Literature created by {marketroid}s
   that allegedly containing technical specs but which is in fact as
   superficial as possible without being totally {content-free}.
   "Forget the four-color glossies, give me the tech ref manuals."
   Often applied as an indication of superficiality even when the
   material is printed on ordinary paper in black and white.
   Four-color-glossy manuals are *never* useful for finding a
   problem.  2. [rare] Applied by extension to manual pages that don't
   contain enough information to diagnose why the program doesn't
   produce the expected or desired output.

fragile: adj. Syn {brittle}.

fred: n. 1. The personal name most frequently used as a
   metasyntactic variable (see {foo}).  Allegedly popular because
   it's easy for a non-touch-typist to type on a standard QWERTY
   keyboard.  Unlike {J. Random Hacker} or `J. Random Loser',
   this name has no positive or negative loading (but see {Mbogo,
   Dr. Fred}).  2. An acronym for `Flipping Ridiculous Electronic
   Device'; other F-verbs may be substituted for `flipping'.

frednet: /fred'net/ n. Used to refer to some {random} and
   uncommon protocol encountered on a network.  "We're implementing
   bridging in our router to solve the frednet problem."

freeware: n. Free software, often written by enthusiasts and
   distributed by users' groups, or via electronic mail, local
   bulletin boards, {USENET}, or other electronic media.  At one
   time, `freeware' was a trademark of Andrew Fluegelman, the author
   of the well-known MS-DOS comm program PC-TALK III.  It wasn't
   enforced after his mysterious disappearance and presumed death
   in 1984.  See {shareware}.

freeze: v. To lock an evolving software distribution or document
   against changes so it can be released with some hope of stability.
   Carries the strong implication that the item in question will
   `unfreeze' at some future date.  "OK, fix that bug and we'll
   freeze for release."

   There are more specific constructions on this.  A `feature freeze',
   for example, locks out modifications intended to introduce new
   features; a `code freeze' connotes no more changes at all.
   At Sun Microsystems and elsewhere, one may also hear references to
   `code slush' --- that is, an almost-but-not-quite frozen state.

fried: adj. 1. Non-working due to hardware failure; burnt out.
   Especially used of hardware brought down by a `power glitch' (see
   {glitch}), {drop-outs}, a short, or some other electrical
   event.  (Sometimes this literally happens to electronic circuits!
   In particular, resistors can burn out and transformers can melt
   down, emitting noxious smoke.  However, this term is also used
   metaphorically.)  Compare {frotzed}.  2. Of people, exhausted.
   Said particularly of those who continue to work in such a state.
   Often used as an explanation or excuse.  "Yeah, I know that fix
   destroyed the file system, but I was fried when I put it in."
   Esp. common in conjunction with `brain': "My brain is fried
   today, I'm very short on sleep."

friode: /fri:'ohd/ [TMRC] n. A reversible (that is, fused or
   blown) diode.  Compare {fried}.

fritterware: n. An excess of capability that serves no productive
   end.  The canonical example is font-diddling software on the Mac
   (see {macdink}); the term describes anything that eats huge
   amounts of time for quite marginal gains in function but seduces
   people into using it anyway.


frob: /frob/ 1. n. [MIT] The {TMRC} definition was "FROB = a
   protruding arm or trunnion"; by metaphoric extension, a `frob' is
   any random small thing; an object that you can comfortably hold in
   one hand; something you can frob.  See {frobnitz}.  2. vt.
   Abbreviated form of {frobnicate}.  3. [from the {MUD} world]
   A command on some MUDs that changes a player's experience level
   (this can be used to make wizards); also, to request {wizard}
   privileges on the `professional courtesy' grounds that one is a
   wizard elsewhere.

frobnicate: /frob'ni-kayt/ vt. [Poss. derived from {frobnitz}, and
   usually abbreviated to {frob}, but `frobnicate' is recognized
   as the official full form.] To manipulate or adjust, to tweak.
   One frequently frobs bits or other 2-state devices.  Thus:
   "Please frob the light switch" (that is, flip it), but also
   "Stop frobbing that clasp; you'll break it".  One also sees the
   construction `to frob a frob'.  See {tweak} and {twiddle}.
   Usage: frob, twiddle, and tweak sometimes connote
   points along a continuum.  `Frob' connotes aimless manipulation;
   `twiddle' connotes gross manipulation, often a coarse search for
   a proper setting; `tweak' connotes fine-tuning.  If someone is
   turning a knob on an oscilloscope, then if he's carefully adjusting
   it, he is probably tweaking it; if he is just turning it but looking
   at the screen, he is probably twiddling it; but if he's just doing
   it because turning a knob is fun, he's frobbing it.  The variant
   `frobnosticate' has been recently reported.

frobnitz: /frob'nits/, pl. `frobnitzem' /frob'nit-zm/ or
   `frobni' /frob'ni:/ n. An unspecified physical object, a
   widget.  Also refers to electronic black boxes.  This rare form is
   usually abbreviated to `frotz', or more commonly to {frob}.
   Also used are `frobnule' (/frob'n[y]ool/) and `frobule'
   (/frob'yool/).  Starting perhaps in 1979, `frobozz'
   /fruh-boz'/ (plural: `frobbotzim' /fruh-bot'zm/) has also
   become very popular, largely through its exposure as a name via
   {Zork}.  These can also be applied to nonphysical objects, such
   as data structures.

frog: alt. `phrog' 1. interj. Term of disgust (we seem to have
   a lot of them).  2. Used as a name for just about anything.  See
   {foo}.  3. n. Of things, a crock.  4. n. Of people, somewhere
   in between a turkey and a toad.  5. `froggy': adj. Similar to
   `bagbiting' (see {bagbiter}), but milder.  "This froggy
   program is taking forever to run!"

front end: n. 1. An intermediary computer that does set-up and
   filtering for another (usually more powerful but less friendly)
   machine (a `back end').  2. What you're talking to when you
   have a conversation with someone who is making replies without
   paying attention.  "Look at the dancing elephants!"  "Uh-huh."
   "Do you know what I just said?"  "Sorry, you were talking to the
   front end."  See also {fepped out}.  3. Software that provides
   an interface to another program `behind' it, which may not be as
   user-friendly.  Probably from analogy with hardware front-ends (see
   sense 1) that interfaced with mainframes.

frotz: /frots/ 1. n. See {frobnitz}.  2. `mumble frotz': An
   interjection of very mild disgust.

frotzed: /frotst/ adj. {down} because of hardware problems.  Compare
   {fried}.  A machine that is merely frotzed may be fixable
   without replacing parts, but a fried machine is more seriously
   damaged.

frowney: n. (alt. `frowney face')  See {emoticon}.

fry: 1. vi. To fail.  Said especially of smoke-producing hardware
   failures.  More generally, to become non-working.  Usage: never
   said of software, only of hardware and humans.  See {fried},
   {magic smoke}.  2. vt. To cause to fail; to {roach}, {toast},
   or {hose} a piece of hardware.  Never used of software or humans,
   but compare {fried}.

FTP: /F-T-P/, *not* /fit'ip/ 1. [techspeak] n. The File
   Transfer Protocol for transmitting files between systems on the
   Internet.  2. vt. To {beam} a file using the File Transfer
   Protocol.  3. Sometimes used as a generic even for file transfers
   not using {FTP}.  "Lemme get a copy of `Wuthering
   Heights' ftp'd from uunet."

FUBAR: n. The Failed UniBus Address Register in a VAX.  A good
   example of how jargon can occasionally be snuck past the {suit}s;
   see {foobar}.

fuck me harder: excl. Sometimes uttered in response to egregious
   misbehavior, esp. in software, and esp. of misbehaviors which
   seem unfairly persistent (as though designed in by the imp of the
   perverse).  Often theatrically elaborated: "Aiighhh! Fuck me with
   a piledriver and 16 feet of curare-tipped wrought-iron fence
   *and no lubricants*!" The phrase is sometimes heard
   abbreviated `FMH' in polite company.

   [This entry is an extreme example of the hackish habit of coining
   elaborate and evocative terms for lossage. Here we see a quite
   self-conscious parody of mainstream expletives that has become a
   running gag in part of the hacker culture; it illustrates the
   hackish tendency to turn any situation, even one of extreme
   frustration, into an intellectual game (the point being, in this
   case, to creatively produce a long-winded description of the
   most anatomically absurd mental image possible --- the short forms
   implicitly allude to all the ridiculous long forms ever spoken).
   Scatological language is actually relatively uncommon among
   hackers, and there was some controversy over whether this entry
   ought to be included at all.  As it reflects a live usage
   recognizably peculiar to the hacker culture, we feel it is
   in the hackish spirit of truthfulness and opposition to all
   forms of censorship to record it here. --ESR & GLS]

FUD: /fuhd/ n. Defined by Gene Amdahl after he left IBM to found
   his own company: "FUD is the fear, uncertainty, and doubt that IBM
   sales people instill in the minds of potential customers who might
   be considering [Amdahl] products."  The idea, of course, was to
   persuade them to go with safe IBM gear rather than with
   competitors' equipment.  This was traditionally done by promising
   that Good Things would happen to people who stuck with IBM, but
   Dark Shadows loomed over the future of competitors' equipment or
   software.  See {IBM}.

FUD wars: /fuhd worz/ n. [from {FUD}] Political posturing engaged in
   by hardware and software vendors ostensibly committed to
   standardization but actually willing to fragment the market to
   protect their own shares.  The UNIX International vs. OSF conflict
   is but one outstanding example.

fudge: 1. vt. To perform in an incomplete but marginally acceptable
   way, particularly with respect to the writing of a program.  "I
   didn't feel like going through that pain and suffering, so I fudged
   it --- I'll fix it later."  2. n. The resulting code.

fudge factor: n. A value or parameter that is varied in an ad hoc way
   to produce the desired result.  The terms `tolerance' and
   {slop} are also used, though these usually indicate a one-sided
   leeway, such as a buffer that is made larger than necessary
   because one isn't sure exactly how large it needs to be, and it is
   better to waste a little space than to lose completely for not
   having enough.  A fudge factor, on the other hand, can often be
   tweaked in more than one direction.  A good example is the `fuzz'
   typically allowed in floating-point calculations: two numbers being
   compared for equality must be allowed to differ by a small amount;
   if that amount is too small, a computation may never terminate,
   while if it is too large, results will be needlessly inaccurate.
   Fudge factors are frequently adjusted incorrectly by programmers
   who don't fully understand their import.  See also {coefficient
   of X}.

fuel up: vi. To eat or drink hurriedly in order to get back to
   hacking.  "Food-p?"  "Yeah, let's fuel up."  "Time for a
   {great-wall}!"  See also {{oriental food}}.

fuggly: /fuhg'lee/ adj. Emphatic form of {funky}; funky +
   ugly).  Unusually for hacker jargon, this may actually derive from
   black street-jive.  To say it properly, the first syllable should
   be growled rather than spoken.  Usage: humorous.  "Man, the
   {{ASCII}}-to-{{EBCDIC}} code in that printer driver is
   *fuggly*."  See also {wonky}.

funky: adj. Said of something that functions, but in a slightly
   strange, klugey way.  It does the job and would be difficult to
   change, so its obvious non-optimality is left alone.  Often used to
   describe interfaces.  The more bugs something has that nobody has
   bothered to fix because workarounds are easier, the funkier it is.
   {TECO} and UUCP are funky.  The Intel i860's exception handling is
   extraordinarily funky.  Most standards acquire funkiness as they
   age.  "The new mailer is installed, but is still somewhat funky;
   if it bounces your mail for no reason, try resubmitting it."
   "This UART is pretty funky.  The data ready line is active-high in
   interrupt mode and active-low in DMA mode."  See {fuggly}.

funny money: n. 1. Notional `dollar' units of computing time and/or
   storage handed to students at the beginning of a computer course;
   also called `play money' or `purple money' (in implicit
   opposition to real or `green' money).  When your funny money
   ran out, your account froze and you needed to go to a professor to
   get more.  Fortunately, the plunging cost of timesharing cycles has
   made this less common.  The amounts allocated were almost
   invariably too small, even for the non-hackers who wanted to slide
   by with minimum work.  In extreme cases, the practice led to
   small-scale black markets in bootlegged computer accounts.  2. By
   extension, phantom money or quantity tickets of any kind used as a
   resource-allocation hack within a system.  Antonym: `real
   money'.

fuzzball: [TCP/IP hackers] n. A DEC LSI-11 running a particular
   suite of homebrewed software written by Dave Mills and assorted
   co-conspirators, used in the early 1980s for Internet protocol
   testbedding and experimentation.  These were used as NSFnet
   backbone sites in its early 56KB-line days; a few are still active
   on the Internet as of early 1991, doing odd jobs such as network
   time service.

= G =

G: [SI] pref.,suff. See {{quantifiers}}.

gabriel: /gay'bree-*l/ [for Dick Gabriel, SAIL LISP hacker and
   volleyball fanatic] n. An unnecessary (in the opinion of the
   opponent) stalling tactic, e.g., tying one's shoelaces or combing one's hair
   repeatedly, asking the time, etc.  Also used to refer to the
   perpetrator of such tactics.  Also, `pulling a Gabriel',
   `Gabriel mode'.

gag: vi. Equivalent to {choke}, but connotes more disgust. "Hey,
   this is FORTRAN code.  No wonder the C compiler gagged."  See also
   {barf}.

gang bang: n. The use of large numbers of loosely coupled
   programmers in an attempt to wedge a great many features into a
   product in a short time.  Though there have been memorable gang
   bangs (e.g., that over-the-weekend assembler port mentioned in
   Steven Levy's `Hackers'), most are perpetrated by large
   companies trying to meet deadlines and produce enormous buggy
   masses of code entirely lacking in {orthogonal}ity.  When
   market-driven managers make a list of all the features the
   competition has and assign one programmer to implement each, they
   often miss the importance of maintaining a coherent design.  See
   also {firefighting}, {Mongolian Hordes technique},
   {Conway's Law}.

garbage collect: vi. (also `garbage collection', n.) See {GC}.

garply: /gar'plee/ [Stanford] n. Another meta-syntactic variable (see
   {foo}); once popular among SAIL hackers.

gas: [as in `gas chamber'] 1. interj. A term of disgust and
   hatred, implying that gas should be dispensed in generous
   quantities, thereby exterminating the source of irritation.  "Some
   loser just reloaded the system for no reason!  Gas!"  2. interj. A
   suggestion that someone or something ought to be flushed out of
   mercy.  "The system's getting {wedged} every few minutes.
   Gas!"  3. vt.  To {flush} (sense 1).  "You should gas that old
   crufty software."  4. [IBM] n. Dead space in nonsequentially
   organized files that was occupied by data that has been deleted;
   the compression operation that removes it is called `degassing' (by
   analogy, perhaps, with the use of the same term in vacuum
   technology). 5. [IBM] n.  Empty space on a disk that has been
   clandestinely allocated against future need.

gaseous: adj. Deserving of being {gas}sed.  Disseminated by
   Geoff Goodfellow while at SRI; became particularly popular after
   the Moscone-Milk killings in San Francisco, when it was learned
   that the defendant Dan White (a politician who had supported
   Proposition 7) would get the gas chamber under Proposition 7 if
   convicted of first-degree murder (he was eventually convicted of
   manslaughter).

GC: /G-C/ [from LISP terminology; `Garbage Collect']
   1. vt. To clean up and throw away useless things.  "I think I'll
   GC the top of my desk today."  When said of files, this is
   equivalent to {GFR}.  2. vt. To recycle, reclaim, or put to
   another use.  3. n. An instantiation of the garbage collector
   process.

   `Garbage collection' is computer-science jargon for a particular
   class of strategies for dynamically reallocating computer memory.
   One such strategy involves periodically scanning all the data in
   memory and determining what is no longer accessible; useless data
   items are then discarded so that the memory they occupy can be
   recycled and used for another purpose.  Implementations of the LISP
   language usually use garbage collection.

   In jargon, the full phrase is sometimes heard but the {abbrev} is
   more frequently used because it is shorter.  Note that there is an
   ambiguity in usage that has to be resolved by context: "I'm going
   to garbage-collect my desk" usually means to clean out the
   drawers, but it could also mean to throw away or recycle the desk
   itself.

GCOS:: /jee'kohs/ n. A {quick-and-dirty} {clone} of
   System/360 DOS that emerged from GE around 1970; originally called
   GECOS (the General Electric Comprehensive Operating System).  Later
   kluged to support primitive timesharing and transaction processing.
   After the buyout of GE's computer division by Honeywell, the name
   was changed to General Comprehensive Operating System (GCOS).
   Other OS groups at Honeywell began referring to it as `God's Chosen
   Operating System', allegedly in reaction to the GCOS crowd's
   uninformed and snotty attitude about the superiority of their
   product.  All this might be of zero interest, except for two facts:
   (1) The GCOS people won the political war, and this led in the
   orphaning and eventual death of Honeywell {{Multics}}, and
   (2) GECOS/GCOS left one permanent mark on UNIX.  Some early UNIX
   systems at Bell Labs were GCOS machines for print spooling and
   various other services; the field added to `/etc/passwd' to
   carry GCOS ID information was called the `GECOS field' and
   survives today as the `pw_gecos' member used for the user's
   full name and other human-ID information.  GCOS later played a
   major role in keeping Honeywell a dismal also-ran in the mainframe
   market, and was itself ditched for UNIX in the late 1980s when
   Honeywell retired its aging {big iron} designs.

GECOS:: /jee'kohs/ n. See {{GCOS}}.

gedanken: /g*-don'kn/ adj. Ungrounded; impractical; not
   well-thought-out; untried; untested.  `Gedanken' is a German word
   for `thought'.  A thought experiment is one you carry out in your
   head.  In physics, the term `gedanken experiment' is used to
   refer to an experiment that is impractical to carry out, but useful
   to consider because you can reason about it theoretically.  (A
   classic gedanken experiment of relativity theory involves thinking
   about a man in an elevator accelerating through space.)  Gedanken
   experiments are very useful in physics, but you have to be careful.
   It's too easy to idealize away some important aspect of the real world
   in contructing your `apparatus'.

   Among hackers, accordingly, the word has a pejorative connotation.
   It is said of a project, especially one in artificial intelligence
   research, that is written up in grand detail (typically as a Ph.D.
   thesis) without ever being implemented to any great extent.  Such a
   project is usually perpetrated by people who aren't very good
   hackers or find programming distasteful or are just in a hurry.  A
   `gedanken thesis' is usually marked by an obvious lack of intuition
   about what is programmable and what is not, and about what does and
   does not constitute a clear specification of an algorithm.  See
   also {AI-complete}, {DWIM}.

geef: v. [ostensibly from `gefingerpoken'] vt. Syn. {mung}.  See
   also {blinkenlights}.

geek out: vi. To temporarily enter techno-nerd mode while in a
   non-hackish context, for example at parties held near computer
   equipment.  Especially used when you need to do something highly
   technical and don't have time to explain: "Pardon me while I geek
   out for a moment."  See {computer geek}.

gen: /jen/ n.,v. Short for {generate}, used frequently in both spoken
   and written contexts.

gender mender: n. A cable connector shell with either two male or two
   female connectors on it, used to correct the mismatches that result
   when some {loser} didn't understand the RS232C specification and
   the distinction between DTE and DCE.  Used esp. for RS-232C
   parts in either the original D-25 or the IBM PC's bogus D-9 format.
   Also called `gender bender', `gender blender', `sex
   changer', and even `homosexual adapter'; however, there appears
   to be some confusion as to whether a `male homosexual adapter' has
   pins on both sides (is male) or sockets on both sides (connects two
   males).

General Public Virus: n. Pejorative name for some versions of the
   {GNU} project {copyleft} or General Public License (GPL), which
   requires that any tools or {app}s incorporating copylefted code
   must be source-distributed on the same counter-commercial terms as
   GNU stuff.  Thus it is alleged that the copyleft `infects' software
   generated with GNU tools, which may in turn infect other software
   that reuses any of its code.  The Free Software Foundation's
   official position as of January 1991 is that copyright law limits
   the scope of the GPL to "programs textually incorporating
   significant amounts of GNU code", and that the `infection' is not
   passed on to third parties unless actual GNU source is transmitted
   (as in, for example, use of the Bison parser skeleton).
   Nevertheless, widespread suspicion that the {copyleft} language
   is `boobytrapped' has caused many developers to avoid using GNU
   tools and the GPL.  Recent (July 1991) changes in the language of
   the version 2.00 language may eliminate this problem.

generate: vt. To produce something according to an algorithm or
   program or set of rules, or as a (possibly unintended) side effect
   of the execution of an algorithm or program.  The opposite of
   {parse}.  This term retains its mechanistic connotations (though
   often humorously) when used of human behavior.  "The guy is
   rational most of the time, but mention nuclear energy around him
   and he'll generate {infinite} flamage."

gensym: /jen'sim/ [from MacLISP for `generated symbol'] 1. v.
   To invent a new name for something temporary, in such a way that
   the name is almost certainly not in conflict with one already in
   use.  2. n.  The resulting name.  The canonical form of a gensym is
   `Gnnnn' where nnnn represents a number; any LISP hacker would
   recognize G0093 (for example) as a gensym.  3. A freshly generated
   data structure with a gensymmed name.  These are useful for storing
   or uniquely identifying crufties (see {cruft}).

Get a life!: imp. Hacker-standard way of suggesting that the person
   to whom you are speaking has succumbed to terminal geekdom (see
   {computer geek}).  Often heard on {USENET}, esp. as a way of
   suggesting that the target is taking some obscure issue of
   {theology} too seriously.  This exhortation was popularized by
   William Shatner on a "Saturday Night Live" episode in a speech that
   ended "Get a *life*!", but some respondents believe it to
   have been in use before then.

Get a real computer!: imp. Typical hacker response to news that
   somebody is having trouble getting work done on a system that
   (a) is single-tasking, (b) has no hard disk, or (c) has an address
   space smaller than 4 megabytes.  This is as of mid-1991; note that
   the threshold for `real computer' rises with time, and it may well
   be (for example) that machines with character-only displays will be
   generally considered `unreal' in a few years (GLS points out that
   they already are in some circles).  See {essentials}, {bitty
   box}, and {toy}.

GFR: /G-F-R/ vt. [ITS] From `Grim File Reaper', an ITS and Lisp
   Machine utility.  To remove a file or files according to some
   program-automated or semi-automatic manual procedure, especially
   one designed to reclaim mass storage space or reduce name-space
   clutter (the original GFR actually moved files to tape).  Often
   generalized to pieces of data below file level.  "I used to have
   his phone number, but I guess I {GFR}ed it."  See also
   {prowler}, {reaper}.  Compare {GC}, which discards only
   provably worthless stuff.

gig: /jig/ or /gig/ [SI] n. See {{quantifiers}}.

giga-: /ji'ga/ or /gi'ga/ [SI] pref. See {{quantifiers}}.

GIGO: /gi:'goh/ [acronym] 1. `Garbage In, Garbage Out' ---
   usually said in response to {luser}s who complain that a program
   didn't complain about faulty data.  Also commonly used to describe
   failures in human decision making due to faulty, incomplete, or
   imprecise data.  2. `Garbage In, Gospel Out': this more recent
   expansion is a sardonic comment on the tendency human beings have
   to put excessive trust in `computerized' data.

gillion: /gil'y*n/ or /jil'y*n/ [formed from {giga-} by analogy
   with mega/million and tera/trillion] n. 10^9. Same as an
   American billion or a British `milliard'.  How one pronounces
   this depends on whether one speaks {giga-} with a hard or
   soft `g'.

GIPS: /gips/ or /jips/ [analogy with {MIPS}] n.
   Giga-Instructions per Second (also possibly `Gillions of
   Instructions per Second'; see {gillion}).  In 1991, this is used
   of only a handful of highly parallel machines, but this is expected
   to change.  Compare {KIPS}.

glark: /glark/ vt. To figure something out from context.  "The
   System III manuals are pretty poor, but you can generally glark the
   meaning from context."  Interestingly, the word was originally
   `glork'; the context was "This gubblick contains many nonsklarkish
   English flutzpahs, but the overall pluggandisp can be glorked [sic]
   from context" (David Moser, quoted by Douglas Hofstadter in his
   "Metamagical Themas" column in the January 1981 `Scientific
   American').  It is conjectured that hackish usage mutated the verb to
   `glark' because {glork} was already an established jargon
   term.  Compare {grok}, {zen}.

glass: [IBM] n. Synonym for {silicon}.

glass tty: /glas T-T-Y/ or /glas ti'tee/ n. A terminal that
   has a display screen but which, because of hardware or software
   limitations, behaves like a teletype or some other printing
   terminal, thereby combining the disadvantages of both: like a
   printing terminal, it can't do fancy display hacks, and like a
   display terminal, it doesn't produce hard copy.  An example is the
   early `dumb' version of Lear-Siegler ADM 3 (without cursor
   control).  See {tube}, {tty}.  See appendix A for an
   interesting true story about a glass tty.

glassfet: /glas'fet/ [by analogy with MOSFET, the acronym for
   `Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor'] n. Syn.
   {firebottle}, a humorous way to refer to a vacuum tube.

glitch: /glich/ [from German `glitschen' to slip, via Yiddish
   `glitshen', to slide or skid] 1. n. A sudden interruption in
   electric service, sanity, continuity, or program function.
   Sometimes recoverable.  An interruption in electric service is
   specifically called a `power glitch'.  This is of grave concern
   because it usually crashes all the computers.  In jargon, though, a
   hacker who got to the middle of a sentence and then forgot how he
   or she intended to complete it might say, "Sorry, I just
   glitched".  2. vi. To commit a glitch.  See {gritch}.  3. vt.
   [Stanford] To scroll a display screen, esp. several lines at a
   time.  {{WAITS}} terminals used to do this in order to avoid
   continuous scrolling, which is distracting to the eye.  4. obs.
   Same as {magic cookie}, sense 2.

   All these uses of `glitch' derive from the specific technical
   meaning the term has to hardware people.  If the inputs of a
   circuit change, and the outputs change to some {random} value for
   some very brief time before they settle down to the correct value,
   then that is called a glitch.  This may or may not be harmful,
   depending on what the circuit is connected to.  This term is
   techspeak, found in electronics texts.

glob: /glob/, *not* /glohb/ [UNIX] vt.,n. To expand special
   characters in a wildcarded name, or the act of so doing (the action
   is also called `globbing').  The UNIX conventions for filename
   wildcarding have become sufficiently pervasive that many hackers
   use some of them in written English, especially in email or news on
   technical topics.  Those commonly encountered include the following:

     *
          wildcard for any string (see also {UN*X})
  
     ?
          wildcard for any character (generally read this way only at the
          beginning or in the middle of a word)

     []
          delimits a wildcard matching any of the enclosed characters

     {}
          alternation of comma-separated alternatives; thus, `foo{baz,qux}'
          would be read as `foobaz' or `fooqux'

   Some examples: "He said his name was [KC]arl" (expresses
   ambiguity).  "I don't read talk.politics.*" (any of the
   talk.politics subgroups on {USENET}).  Other examples are given
   under the entry for {X}.  Compare {regexp}.

   Historical note: The jargon usage derives from `glob', the
   name of a subprogram that expanded wildcards in archaic pre-Bourne
   versions of the UNIX shell.

glork: /glork/ 1. interj. Term of mild surprise, usually tinged with
   outrage, as when one attempts to save the results of 2 hours of
   editing and finds that the system has just crashed.  2. Used as a
   name for just about anything.  See {foo}.  3. vt. Similar to
   {glitch}, but usually used reflexively.  "My program just glorked
   itself."  See also {glark}.

glue: n. Generic term for any interface logic or protocol that
   connects two component blocks.  For example,  {Blue
   Glue} is IBM's SNA protocol, and hardware designers call anything
   used to connect large VLSI's or circuit blocks `glue logic'.

gnarly: /nar'lee/ adj. Both {obscure} and {hairy} in the
   sense of complex.  "{Yow}! --- the tuned assembler
   implementation of BitBlt is really gnarly!"  From a similar but
   less specific usage in surfer slang.

GNU: /gnoo/, *not* /noo/ 1. [acronym: `GNU's Not UNIX!',
   see {{recursive acronym}}] A UNIX-workalike development effort of
   the Free Software Foundation headed by Richard Stallman
   (rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu).  GNU EMACS and the GNU C compiler, two tools
   designed for this project, have become very popular in hackerdom
   and elsewhere.  The GNU project was designed partly to proselytize
   for RMS's position that information is community property and all
   software source should be shared.  One of its slogans is "Help
   stamp out software hoarding!"  Though this remains controversial
   (because it implicitly denies any right of designers to own,
   assign, and sell the results of their labors), many hackers who
   disagree with RMS have nevertheless cooperated to produce large
   amounts of high-quality software for free redistribution under the
   Free Software Foundation's imprimatur.  See {EMACS},
   {copyleft}, {General Public Virus}.  2. Noted UNIX hacker
   John Gilmore (gnu@toad.com), founder of USENET's anarchic alt.*
   hierarchy.

GNUMACS: /gnoo'maks/ [contraction of `GNU EMACS'] Often-heard
   abbreviated name for the {GNU} project's flagship tool, {EMACS}.
   Used esp. in contrast with {GOSMACS}.

go flatline: [from cyberpunk SF, refers to flattening of EEG traces
   upon brain-death] vi., also adjectival `flatlined'. 1. To die,
   terminate, or fail, esp. irreversibly.  In hacker parlance, this is
   used of machines only, human death being considered somewhat too
   serious a matter to employ jargon-jokes.  2. To go completely
   quiescent; said of machines undergoing controlled shutdown.  "You
   can suffer file damage if you shut down UNIX but power off before
   the system has gone flatline."  3. Of a video tube, to fail by
   losing vertical scan, so all one sees is a bright horizontal line
   bisecting the screen.

go root: [UNIX] vi. To temporarily enter {root mode} in order
   to perform a privileged operation.  This use is deprecated in
   Australia, where v. `root' refers to animal sex.

go-faster stripes: [UK] Syn. {chrome}.

gobble: vt. To consume or to obtain.  The phrase `gobble up' tends to
   imply `consume', while `gobble down' tends to imply `obtain'.
   "The output spy gobbles characters out of a {tty} output buffer."
   "I guess I'll gobble down a copy of the documentation tomorrow."
   See also {snarf}.

Godzillagram: /god-zil'*-gram/ n. [from Japan's national hero]
   1. A network packet that in theory is a broadcast to every machine
   in the universe.  The typical case of this is an IP datagram whose
   destination IP address is [255.255.255.255].  Fortunately, few
   gateways are foolish enough to attempt to implement this!  2. A
   network packet of maximum size.  An IP Godzillagram has
   65,536 octets.

golden: adj. [prob. from folklore's `golden egg'] When used to
   describe a magnetic medium (e.g., `golden disk', `golden tape'),
   describes one containing a tested, up-to-spec, ready-to-ship
   software version.  Compare {platinum-iridium}.

golf-ball printer: n. The IBM 2741, a slow but letter-quality
   printing device and terminal based on the IBM Selectric typewriter.
   The `golf ball' was a round object bearing reversed embossed
   images of 88 different characters arranged on four meridians of
   latitude; one could change the font by swapping in a different golf
   ball.  This was the technology that enabled APL to use a
   non-EBCDIC, non-ASCII, and in fact completely non-standard
   character set.  This put it 10 years ahead of its time --- where it
   stayed, firmly rooted, for the next 20, until character displays
   gave way to programmable bit-mapped devices with the flexibility to
   support other character sets.

gonk: /gonk/ vt.,n. 1. To prevaricate or to embellish the truth
   beyond any reasonable recognition.  It is alleged that in German
   the term is (mythically) `gonken'; in Spanish the verb becomes
   `gonkar'.  "You're gonking me.  That story you just told me is a
   bunch of gonk."  In German, for example, "Du gonkst mir" (You're
   pulling my leg).  See also {gonkulator}.  2. [British] To grab some
   sleep at an odd time; compare {gronk out}.

gonkulator: /gon'kyoo-lay-tr/ [from the old "Hogan's Heroes" TV
   series] n. A pretentious piece of equipment that actually serves no
   useful purpose.  Usually used to describe one's least favorite
   piece of computer hardware.  See {gonk}.

gonzo: /gon'zoh/ [from Hunter S. Thompson] adj. Overwhelming;
   outrageous; over the top; very large, esp. used of collections of
   source code, source files, or individual functions.  Has some of the
   connotations of {moby} and {hairy}, but without the
   implication of obscurity or complexity.

Good Thing: n.,adj. Often capitalized; always pronounced as if
   capitalized.  1. Self-evidently wonderful to anyone in a position
   to notice: "The Trailblazer's 19.2Kbaud PEP mode with on-the-fly
   Lempel-Ziv compression is a Good Thing for sites relaying
   netnews."  2. Something that can't possibly have any ill
   side-effects and may save considerable grief later: "Removing the
   self-modifying code from that shared library would be a Good
   Thing."  3. When said of software tools or libraries, as in "YACC
   is a Good Thing", specifically connotes that the thing has
   drastically reduced a programmer's work load.  Oppose {Bad
   Thing}.

gorilla arm: n. The side-effect that destroyed touch-screens as a
   mainstream input technology despite a promising start in the early
   1980s.  It seems the designers of all those {spiffy} touch-menu
   systems failed to notice that humans aren't designed to hold their
   arms in front of their faces making small motions.  After more than
   a very few selections, the arm begins to feel sore, cramped, and
   oversized; hence `gorilla arm'.  This is now considered a classic
   cautionary tale to human-factors designers; "Remember the gorilla
   arm!" is shorthand for "How is this going to fly in *real*
   use?".

gorp: /gorp/ [CMU: perhaps from the canonical hiker's food, Good
   Old Raisins and Peanuts] Another metasyntactic variable, like
   {foo} and {bar}.

GOSMACS: /goz'maks/ [contraction of `Gosling EMACS'] n. The first
   {EMACS}-in-C implementation, predating but now largely eclipsed by
   {GNUMACS}.  Originally freeware; a commercial version is now
   modestly popular as `UniPress EMACS'.  The author (James Gosling)
   went on to invent {NeWS}.

Gosperism: /gos'p*r-izm/ A hack, invention, or saying by
   arch-hacker R. William (Bill) Gosper.  This notion merits its own
   term because there are so many of them.  Many of the entries in
   {HAKMEM} are Gosperisms; see also {life}.

gotcha: n. A {misfeature} of a system, especially a programming
   language or environment, that tends to breed bugs or mistakes because
   it behaves in an unexpected way.  For example, a classic gotcha in {C}
   is the fact that `if (a=b) {code;}' is syntactically valid
   and sometimes even correct.  It puts the value of `b' into `a'
   and then executes `code' if `a' is non-zero.  What the
   programmer probably meant was `if (a==b) {code;}',
   which executes `code' if `a' and `b' are equal.

GPL: /G-P-L/ n. Abbrev. for `General Public License' in
   widespread use; see {copyleft}.

GPV: /G-P-V/ n. Abbrev. for {General Public Virus} in
   widespread use.

grault: /grawlt/ n. Yet another meta-syntactic variable, invented by
   Mike Gallaher and propagated by the {GOSMACS} documentation.  See
   {corge}.

gray goo: n. A hypothetical substance composed of {sagan}s of
   sub-micron-sized self-replicating robots programmed to make copies
   of themselves out of whatever is available.  The image that goes
   with the term is one of the entire biosphere of Earth being
   eventually converted to robot goo.  This is the simplest of the
   {{nanotechnology}} disaster scenarios, easily refuted by arguments
   from energy requirements and elemental abundances.  Compare {blue
   goo}.

Great Renaming: n. The {flag day} on which all of the non-local
   groups on the {USENET} had their names changed from the net.-
   format to the current multiple-hierarchies scheme.

Great Runes: n. Uppercase-only text or display messages.  Some
   archaic operating systems still emit these.  See also {runes},
   {smash case}, {fold case}.

   Decades ago, back in the days when it was the sole supplier of
   long-distance hardcopy transmittal devices, the Teletype
   Corporation was faced with a major design choice.  To shorten code
   lengths and cut complexity in the printing mechanism, it had been
   decided that teletypes would use a monocase font, either ALL UPPER
   or all lower.  The question was, which one to choose.  A study was
   conducted on readability under various conditions of bad ribbon,
   worn print hammers, etc.  Lowercase won; it is less dense and has
   more distinctive letterforms, and is thus much easier to read both
   under ideal conditions and when the letters are mangled or partly
   obscured.  The results were filtered up through {management}.
   The chairman of Teletype killed the proposal because it failed one
   incredibly important criterion:

     "It would be impossible to spell the name of the Deity correctly."

   In this way (or so, at least, hacker folklore has it) superstition
   triumphed over utility.  Teletypes were the major input devices on
   most early computers, and terminal manufacturers looking for
   corners to cut naturally followed suit until well into the 1970s.
   Thus, that one bad call stuck us with Great Runes for thirty years.

great-wall: [from SF fandom] vi.,n. A mass expedition to an
   oriental restaurant, esp. one where food is served family-style
   and shared.  There is a common heuristic about the amount of food
   to order, expressed as "Get N - 1 entrees"; the value of N,
   which is the number of people in the group, can be inferred from
   context (see {N}).  See {{oriental food}}, {ravs},
   {stir-fried random}.

Green Book: n. 1. One of the three standard PostScript references:
   `PostScript Language Program Design', bylined `Adobe Systems'
   (Addison-Wesley, 1988; QA76.73.P67P66 ISBN; 0-201-14396-8); see
   also {Red Book}, {Blue Book}).  2. Informal name for one of
   the three standard references on SmallTalk: `Smalltalk-80:
   Bits of History, Words of Advice', by Glenn Krasner
   (Addison-Wesley, 1983; QA76.8.S635S58; ISBN 0-201-11669-3) (this,
   too, is associated with blue and red books).  3. The `X/Open
   Compatibility Guide'.  Defines an international standard {{UNIX}}
   environment that is a proper superset of POSIX/SVID; also includes
   descriptions of a standard utility toolkit, systems administrations
   features, and the like.  This grimoire is taken with particular
   seriousness in Europe.  See {Purple Book}.  4. The IEEE 1003.1
   POSIX Operating Systems Interface standard has been dubbed "The
   Ugly Green Book".  5. Any of the 1992 standards which will be
   issued by the CCITT's tenth plenary assembly.  Until now, these
   have changed color each review cycle (1984 was {Red Book}, 1988
   {Blue Book}); however, it is rumored that this convention is
   going to be dropped before 1992.  These include, among other
   things, the X.400 email standard and the Group 1 through 4 fax
   standards.  See also {{book titles}}.

green bytes: n. 1. Meta-information embedded in a file, such as
   the length of the file or its name; as opposed to keeping such
   information in a separate description file or record.  The term
   comes from an IBM user's group meeting (ca. 1962) at which these
   two approaches were being debated and the diagram of the file on
   the blackboard had the `green bytes' drawn in green.  2. By
   extension, the non-data bits in any self-describing format.  "A
   GIF file contains, among other things, green bytes describing the
   packing method for the image." Compare {out-of-band},
   {zigamorph}, {fence} (sense 1).

green card: n. [after the `IBM System/360 Reference Data'
   card] This is used for any summary of an assembly language, even if
   the color is not green.  Less frequently used now because of the
   decrease in the use of assembly language.  "I'll go get my green
   card so I can check the addressing mode for that instruction."
   Some green cards are actually booklets.

   The original green card became a yellow card when the System/370
   was introduced, and later a yellow booklet.  An anecdote from IBM
   refers to a scene that took place in a programmers' terminal room
   at Yorktown in 1978.  A luser overheard one of the programmers ask
   another "Do you have a green card?"  The other grunted and
   passed the first a thick yellow booklet.  At this point the luser
   turned a delicate shade of olive and rapidly left the room, never
   to return.  See also {card}.

green lightning: [IBM] n. 1. Apparently random flashing streaks on
   the face of 3278-9 terminals while a new symbol set is being
   downloaded.  This hardware bug was left deliberately unfixed, as
   some genius within IBM suggested it would let the user know that
   `something is happening'.  That, it certainly does.  Later
   microprocessor-driven IBM color graphics displays were actually
   *programmed* to produce green lightning!  2. [proposed] Any
   bug perverted into an alleged feature by adroit rationalization or
   marketing.  "Motorola calls the CISC cruft in the 88000
   architecture `compatibility logic', but I call it green
   lightning".  See also {feature}.

green machine: n. A computer or peripheral device that has been
   designed and built to military specifications for field equipment
   (that is, to withstand mechanical shock, extremes of temperature
   and humidity, and so forth).  Comes from the olive-drab `uniform'
   paint used for military equipment.

Green's Theorem: [TMRC] prov. For any story, in any group of people
   there will be at least one person who has not heard the story.
   [The name of this theorem is a play on a fundamental theorem in
   calculus. --- ESR]

grep: /grep/ [from the qed/ed editor idiom g/re/p , where
   re stands for a regular expression, to Globally search for the
   Regular Expression and Print the lines containing matches to it,
   via {{UNIX}} `grep(1)'] vt. To rapidly scan a file or file set
   looking for a particular string or pattern.  By extension, to look
   for something by pattern.  "Grep the bulletin board for the system
   backup schedule, would you?"  See also {vgrep}.

grind: vt. 1. [MIT and Berkeley] To format code, especially LISP
   code, by indenting lines so that it looks pretty.  This usage was
   associated with the MacLISP community and is now rare;
   {prettyprint} was and is the generic term for such
   operations.  2. [UNIX] To generate the formatted version of a
   document from the nroff, troff, TeX, or Scribe source.  The BSD
   program `vgrind(1)' grinds code for printing on a Versatec
   bitmapped printer.  3. To run seemingly interminably, esp. (but
   not necessarily) if performing some tedious and inherently useless
   task.  Similar to {crunch} or {grovel}.  Grinding has a
   connotation of using a lot of CPU time, but it is possible to grind
   a disk, network, etc.  See also {hog}.  4. To make the whole
   system slow.  "Troff really grinds a PDP-11."  5. `grind grind'
   excl. Roughly, "Isn't the machine slow today!"

grind crank: n. A mythical accessory to a terminal.  A crank on the
   side of a monitor, which when operated makes a zizzing noise and
   causes the computer to run faster.  Usually one does not refer to a
   grind crank out loud, but merely makes the appropriate gesture and
   noise.  See {grind} and {wugga wugga}.

   Historical note: At least one real machine actually had a grind
   crank --- the R1, a research machine built toward the end of the
   days of the great vacuum tube computers, in 1959.  R1 (also known as
   `The Rice Institute Computer' (TRIC) and later as `The Rice
   University Computer' (TRUC)) had a single-step/free-run switch for
   use when debugging programs.  Since single-stepping through a large
   program was rather tedious, there was also a crank with a cam and
   gear arrangement that repeatedly pushed the single-step button.
   This allowed one to `crank' through a lot of code, then slow down
   to single-step for a bit when you got near the code of interest, poke
   at some registers using the console typewriter, and then keep on
   cranking.

gritch: /grich/ 1. n. A complaint (often caused by a {glitch}).
   2. vi. To complain.  Often verb-doubled: "Gritch gritch".  3. A
   synonym for {glitch} (as verb or noun).

grok: /grok/, var. /grohk/ [from the novel `Stranger in
   a Strange Land', by Robert A. Heinlein, where it is a Martian word
   meaning literally `to drink' and metaphorically `to be one
   with'] vt. 1. To understand, usually in a global sense.  Connotes
   intimate and exhaustive knowledge.  Contrast {zen}, similar
   supernal understanding as a single brief flash.  See also
   {glark}.  2. Used of programs, may connote merely sufficient
   understanding.  "Almost all C compilers grok the `void' type
   these days."

gronk: /gronk/ [popularized by Johnny Hart's comic strip
   "B.C." but the word apparently predates that] vt. 1. To
   clear the state of a wedged device and restart it.  More severe
   than `to {frob}'.  2. [TMRC] To cut, sever, smash, or
   similarly disable.  3. The sound made by many 3.5-inch diskette
   drives.  In particular, the microfloppies on a Commodore Amiga go
   "grink, gronk".

gronk out: vi. To cease functioning.  Of people, to go home and go
   to sleep.  "I guess I'll gronk out now; see you all tomorrow."

gronked: adj. 1. Broken.  "The teletype scanner was gronked, so
   we took the system down."  2. Of people, the condition of feeling
   very tired or (less commonly) sick.  "I've been chasing that bug
   for 17 hours now and I am thoroughly gronked!"  Compare
   {broken}, which means about the same as {gronk} used of
   hardware, but connotes depression or mental/emotional problems in
   people.

grovel: vi. 1. To work interminably and without apparent progress.
   Often used transitively with `over' or `through'.  "The file
   scavenger has been groveling through the file directories for 10
   minutes now."  Compare {grind} and {crunch}.  Emphatic form:
   `grovel obscenely'.  2. To examine minutely or in complete detail.
   "The compiler grovels over the entire source program before
   beginning to translate it."  "I grovelled through all the
   documentation, but I still couldn't find the command I wanted."

grunge: /gruhnj/ n. 1. That which is grungy, or that which makes
   it so.  2. [Cambridge] Code which is inaccessible due to changes in
   other parts of the program.  The preferred term in North America is
   {dead code}.

gubbish: /guhb'*sh/ [a portmanteau of `garbage' and `rubbish'?]
   n. Garbage; crap; nonsense.  "What is all this gubbish?"  The
   opposite portmanteau `rubbage' is also reported.

guiltware: /gilt'weir/ n. 1. A piece of {freeware} decorated
   with a message telling one how long and hard the author worked on
   it and intimating that one is a no-good freeloader if one does not
   immediately send the poor suffering martyr gobs of money.
   2. {Shareware} that works.

gumby: /guhm'bee/ [from a class of Monty Python characters, poss.
   themselves named after the 1960s claymation character] n. An act of
   minor but conspicuous stupidity, often in `gumby maneuver' or
   `pull a gumby'.

gun: [ITS: from the `:GUN' command] vt. To forcibly
   terminate a program or job (computer, not career).  "Some idiot
   left a background process running soaking up half the cycles, so I
   gunned it."  Compare {can}.

gunch: /guhnch/ [TMRC] vt. To push, prod, or poke at a device
   that has almost produced the desired result.  Implies a threat to
   {mung}.

gurfle: /ger'fl/ interj. An expression of shocked disbelief.  "He
   said we have to recode this thing in FORTRAN by next week.
   Gurfle!"  Compare {weeble}.

guru: n. 1. [UNIX] An expert.  Implies not only {wizard} skill
   but also a history of being a knowledge resource for others.  Less
   often, used (with a qualifier) for other experts on other systems,
   as in `VMS guru'.  See {source of all good bits}.  2. Amiga
   equivalent of `panic' in UNIX.  When the system crashes, a
   cryptic message "GURU MEDITATION #XXXXXXXX.YYYYYYYY" appears,
   indicating what the problem was.  An Amiga guru can figure things
   out from the numbers.  Generally a {guru} event must be followed
   by a {Vulcan nerve pinch}.

= H =

h: [from SF fandom] infix. A method of `marking' common words,
   i.e., calling attention to the fact that they are being used in a
   nonstandard, ironic, or humorous way.  Originated in the fannish
   catchphrase "Bheer is the One True Ghod!" from decades ago.
   H-infix marking of `Ghod' and other words spread into the 1960s
   counterculture via underground comix, and into early hackerdom
   either from the counterculture or from SF fandom (the three overlapped
   heavily at the time).  More recently, the h infix has become an
   expected feature of benchmark names (Dhrystone, Rhealstone,
   etc.); this is prob. patterning on the original Whetstone (the name
   of a laboratory) but influenced by the fannish/counterculture
   h infix.

ha ha only serious: [from SF fandom, orig. as mutation of HHOK,
   `Ha Ha Only Kidding'] A phrase (often seen abbreviated as HHOS)
   that aptly captures the flavor of much hacker discourse.  Applied
   especially to parodies, absurdities, and ironic jokes that are both
   intended and perceived to contain a possibly disquieting amount of
   truth, or truths that are constructed on in-joke and self-parody.
   This lexicon contains many examples of ha-ha-only-serious in both
   form and content.  Indeed, the entirety of hacker culture is often
   perceived as ha-ha-only-serious by hackers themselves; to take it
   either too lightly or too seriously marks a person as an outsider,
   a {wannabee}, or in {larval stage}.  For further
   enlightenment on this subject, consult any Zen master.  See also
   {{Humor, Hacker}}, and {AI koans}.

hack: 1. n. Originally, a quick job that produces what is needed,
   but not well.  2. n. An incredibly good, and perhaps very
   time-consuming, piece of work that produces exactly what is needed.
   3. vt. To bear emotionally or physically.  "I can't hack this
   heat!"  4. vt. To work on something (typically a program).  In an
   immediate sense: "What are you doing?"  "I'm hacking TECO."
   In a general (time-extended) sense: "What do you do around here?"
   "I hack TECO."  More generally, "I hack `foo'" is roughly
   equivalent to "`foo' is my major interest (or project)".  "I
   hack solid-state physics."  5. vt. To pull a prank on.  See
   sense 2 and {hacker} (sense 5).  6. vi. To interact with a
   computer in a playful and exploratory rather than goal-directed
   way.  "Whatcha up to?"  "Oh, just hacking."  7. n. Short for
   {hacker}.  8. See {nethack}.

   Constructions on this term abound.  They include `happy
   hacking' (a farewell), `how's hacking?' (a friendly greeting
   among hackers) and `hack, hack' (a fairly content-free but
   friendly comment, often used as a temporary farewell).  For more on
   the meaning of hack see appendix A.  See also {neat hack},
   {real hack}.

hack attack: [poss. by analogy with `Big Mac Attack' from ads
   for the McDonald's fast-food chain; the variant `big hack attack'
   is reported] n. Nearly synonymous with {hacking run}, though the
   latter more strongly implies an all-nighter.

hack mode: n. 1. What one is in when hacking, of course.  2. More
   specifically, a Zen-like state of total focus on The Problem that
   may be achieved when one is hacking (this is why every good hacker
   is part mystic).  Ability to enter such concentration at will
   correlates strongly with wizardliness; it is one of the most
   important skills learned during {larval stage}.  Sometimes
   amplified as `deep hack mode'.

   Being yanked out of hack mode (see {priority interrupt}) may be
   experienced as a physical shock, and the sensation of being in it
   is more than a little habituating.  The intensity of this
   experience is probably by itself sufficient explanation for the
   existence of hackers, and explains why many resist being promoted
   out of positions where they can code.  See also {cyberspace}
   (sense 2).

   Some aspects of hackish etiquette will appear quite odd to an
   observer unaware of the high value placed on hack mode.  For
   example, if someone appears at your door, it is perfectly okay to
   hold up a hand (without turning one's eyes away from the screen) to
   avoid being interrupted.  One may read, type, and interact with the
   computer for quite some time before further acknowledging the
   other's presence (of course, he or she is reciprocally free to
   leave without a word).  The understanding is that you might be in
   {hack mode} with a lot of delicate {state} (sense 2) in your
   head, and you dare not {swap} that context out until you have
   reached a good point to pause. See also {juggling eggs}.

hack on: vt. To {hack}; implies that the subject is some
   pre-existing hunk of code that one is evolving, as opposed to
   something one might {hack up}.

hack together: vt. To throw something together so it will work.
   Unlike `kluge together' or {cruft together}, this does not
   necessarily have negative connotations.

hack up: vt. To {hack}, but generally implies that the result is
   a hack in sense 1 (a quick hack).  Contrast this with {hack on}.
   To `hack up on' implies a {quick-and-dirty} modification to an
   existing system.  Contrast {hacked up}; compare {kluge up},
   {monkey up}, {cruft together}.

hack value: n. Often adduced as the reason or motivation for
   expending effort toward a seemingly useless goal, the point being
   that the accomplished goal is a hack.  For example, MacLISP had
   features for reading and printing Roman numerals, which were
   installed purely for hack value.  See {display hack} for one
   method of computing hack value, but this cannot really be
   explained.  As a great artist once said of jazz: "If you hafta ask,
   you ain't never goin' to find out."

hack-and-slay: v. (also `hack-and-slash') 1. To play a {MUD}
   or go mudding, especially with the intention of {berserking} for
   pleasure.  2. To undertake an all-night programming/hacking
   session, interspersed with stints of mudding as a change of pace.
   This term arose on the British academic network amongst students
   who worked nights and logged onto Essex University's MUDs during
   public-access hours (2 A.M. to 7 A.M.).  Usually more
   mudding than work was done in these sessions.

hacked off: [analogous to `pissed off'] adj. Said of system
   administrators who have become annoyed, upset, or touchy owing to
   suspicions that their sites have been or are going to be victimized
   by crackers, or used for inappropriate, technically illegal, or
   even overtly criminal activities.  For example, having unreadable
   files in your home directory called `worm', `lockpick', or `goroot'
   would probably be an effective (as well as impressively obvious and
   stupid) way to get your sysadmin hacked off at you.

hacked up: adj. Sufficiently patched, kluged, and tweaked that the
   surgical scars are beginning to crowd out normal tissue (compare
   {critical mass}).  Not all programs that are hacked become
   `hacked up'; if modifications are done with some eye to coherence
   and continued maintainability, the software may emerge better for
   the experience.  Contrast {hack up}.

hacker: [originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe] n.
   1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable
   systems and how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most
   users, who prefer to learn only the minimum necessary.  2. One who
   programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys
   programming rather than just theorizing about programming.  3. A
   person capable of appreciating {hack value}.  4. A person who is
   good at programming quickly.  5. An expert at a particular program,
   or one who frequently does work using it or on it; as in `a UNIX
   hacker'.  (Definitions 1 through 5 are correlated, and people who fit
   them congregate.)  6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind.  One
   might be an astronomy hacker, for example.  7. One who enjoys the
   intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or circumventing
   limitations.  8. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to
   discover sensitive information by poking around.  Hence `password
   hacker', `network hacker'.  See {cracker}.

   It is better to be described as a hacker by others than to describe
   oneself that way.  Hackers consider themselves something of an
   elite (a meritocracy based on ability), though one to which new
   members are gladly welcome.  There is thus a certain ego
   satisfaction to be had in identifying yourself as a hacker (but if
   you claim to be one and are not, you'll quickly be labeled
   {bogus}).

hacking run: [analogy with `bombing run' or `speed run'] n. A
   hack session extended long outside normal working times, especially
   one longer than 12 hours.  May cause you to `change phase the hard
   way' (see {phase}).

Hacking X for Y: [ITS] n. The information ITS made publicly
   available about each user (the INQUIR record) was a sort of form in
   which the user could fill out fields.  On display, two of these
   fields were combined into a project description of the form
   "Hacking X for Y" (e.g., `"Hacking perceptrons for
   Minsky"').  This form of description became traditional and has
   since been carried over to other systems with more general
   facilities for self-advertisement (such as UNIX {plan file}s).

Hackintosh: n. 1. An Apple Lisa that has been hacked into emulating a
   Macintosh (also called a `Mac XL').  2. A Macintosh assembled
   from parts theoretically belonging to different models in the line.

hackish: /hak'ish/ adj. (also {hackishness} n.) 1. Said of
   something that is or involves a hack.  2. Of or pertaining to
   hackers or the hacker subculture.  See also {true-hacker}.

hackishness: n. The quality of being or involving a hack.  This
   term is considered mildly silly.  Syn.  {hackitude}.

hackitude: n. Syn. {hackishness}; this word is considered sillier.

hair: [back-formation from {hairy}] n. The complications that
   make something hairy.  "Decoding {TECO} commands requires a
   certain amount of hair."  Often seen in the phrase `infinite
   hair', which connotes extreme complexity.  Also in `hairiferous'
   (tending to promote hair growth): "GNUMACS Elisp encourages lusers
   to write complex editing modes."  "Yeah, it's pretty hairiferous
   all right." (or just: "Hair squared!")

hairy: adj. 1. Annoyingly complicated.  "{DWIM} is incredibly
   hairy."  2. Incomprehensible.  "{DWIM} is incredibly hairy."
   3. Of people, high-powered, authoritative, rare, expert, and/or
   incomprehensible.  Hard to explain except in context: "He knows
   this hairy lawyer who says there's nothing to worry about."  See
   also {hirsute}.

HAKMEM: /hak'mem/ n. MIT AI Memo 239 (February 1972).  A
   legendary collection of neat mathematical and programming hacks
   contributed by many people at MIT and elsewhere.  (The title of the
   memo really is "HAKMEM", which is a 6-letterism for `hacks
   memo'.)  Some of them are very useful techniques, powerful
   theorems, or interesting unsolved problems, but most fall into the
   category of mathematical and computer trivia.  Here is a sampling
   of the entries (with authors), slightly paraphrased:

   Item 41 (Gene Salamin): There are exactly 23,000 prime numbers less
   than 2^18.

   Item 46 (Rich Schroeppel): The most *probable* suit
   distribution in bridge hands is 4-4-3-2, as compared to 4-3-3-3,
   which is the most *evenly* distributed.  This is because the
   world likes to have unequal numbers: a thermodynamic effect saying
   things will not be in the state of lowest energy, but in the state
   of lowest disordered energy.

   Item 81 (Rich Schroeppel): Count the magic squares of order 5
   (that is, all the 5-by-5 arrangements of the numbers from 1 to 25
   such that all rows, columns, and diagonals add up to the same
   number).  There are about 320 million, not counting those that
   differ only by rotation and reflection.

   Item 154 (Bill Gosper): The myth that any given programming language is
   machine independent is easily exploded by computing the sum of
   powers of 2.  If the result loops with period = 1 with
   sign +, you are on a sign-magnitude machine.  If the result
   loops with period = 1 at -1, you are on a
   twos-complement machine.  If the result loops with period greater
   than 1, including the beginning, you are on a ones-complement
   machine.  If the result loops with period greater than 1, not
   including the beginning, your machine isn't binary --- the pattern
   should tell you the base.  If you run out of memory, you are on a
   string or bignum system.  If arithmetic overflow is a fatal error,
   some fascist pig with a read-only mind is trying to enforce machine
   independence.  But the very ability to trap overflow is machine
   dependent.  By this strategy, consider the universe, or, more
   precisely, algebra: Let X = the sum of many powers of 2 =
   ...111111.  Now add X to itself:
   X + X = ...111110 Thus, 2X = X - 1, so
   X = -1.  Therefore algebra is run on a machine (the
   universe) that is two's-complement.

   Item 174 (Bill Gosper and Stuart Nelson): 21963283741 is the only
   number such that if you represent it on the {PDP-10} as both an
   integer and a floating-point number, the bit patterns of the two
   representations are identical.

   Item 176 (Gosper): The "banana phenomenon" was encountered when
   processing a character string by taking the last 3 letters typed
   out, searching for a random occurrence of that sequence in the
   text, taking the letter following that occurrence, typing it out,
   and iterating.  This ensures that every 4-letter string output
   occurs in the original.  The program typed BANANANANANANANA....  We
   note an ambiguity in the phrase, "the Nth occurrence of."  In one
   sense, there are five 00's in 0000000000; in another, there are
   nine.  The editing program TECO finds five.  Thus it finds only the
   first ANA in BANANA, and is thus obligated to type N next.  By
   Murphy's Law, there is but one NAN, thus forcing A, and thus a
   loop.  An option to find overlapped instances would be useful,
   although it would require backing up N - 1 characters before
   seeking the next N-character string.

   Note: This last item refers to a {Dissociated Press}
   implementation.  See also {banana problem}.

   HAKMEM also contains some rather more complicated mathematical and
   technical items, but these examples show some of its fun flavor.

hakspek: /hak'speek/ n. A shorthand method of spelling found on
   many British academic bulletin boards and {talker system}s.
   Syllables and whole words in a sentence are replaced by single
   ASCII characters the names of which are phonetically similar or
   equivalent, while multiple letters are usually dropped.  Hence,
   `for' becomes `4'; `two', `too', and `to' become `2'; `ck'
   becomes `k'.  "Before I see you tomorrow" becomes "b4 i c u
   2moro".  First appeared in London about 1986, and was probably
   caused by the slowness of available talker systems, which
   operated on archaic machines with outdated operating systems and
   no standard methods of communication.  Has become rarer since.
   See also {talk mode}.

hamster: n. 1. [Fairchild] A particularly slick little piece of code
   that does one thing well; a small, self-contained hack.  The image
   is of a hamster happily spinning its exercise wheel.  2. [UK] Any item
   of hardware made by Amstrad, a company famous for its cheap
   plastic PC-almost-compatibles.

hand-hacking: n. 1. The practice of translating {hot spot}s from
   an {HLL} into hand-tuned assembler, as opposed to trying to
   coerce the compiler into generating better code.  Both the term and
   the practice are becoming uncommon.  See {tune}, {bum}, {by
   hand}; syn.  with v. {cruft}.  2. More generally, manual
   construction or patching of data sets that would normally be
   generated by a translation utility and interpreted by another
   program, and aren't really designed to be read or modified by
   humans.

handshaking: n. Hardware or software activity designed to start or
   keep two machines or programs in synchronization as they {do
   protocol}.  Often applied to human activity; thus, a hacker might
   watch two people in conversation nodding their heads to indicate
   that they have heard each others' points and say "Oh, they're
   handshaking!".  See also {protocol}.

handwave: [poss. from gestures characteristic of stage magicians]
   1. v. To gloss over a complex point; to distract a listener; to
   support a (possibly actually valid) point with blatantly faulty
   logic.  2. n. The act of handwaving.  "Boy, what a handwave!"

   If someone starts a sentence with "Clearly..." or
   "Obviously..." or "It is self-evident that...", it is
   a good bet he is about to handwave (alternatively, use of these
   constructions in a sarcastic tone before a paraphrase of someone
   else's argument suggests that it is a handwave).  The theory behind
   this term is that if you wave your hands at the right moment, the
   listener may be sufficiently distracted to not notice that what you
   have said is {bogus}.  Failing that, if a listener does object,
   you might try to dismiss the objection with a wave of your hand.

   The use of this word is often accompanied by gestures: both hands
   up, palms forward, swinging the hands in a vertical plane pivoting
   at the elbows and/or shoulders (depending on the magnitude of the
   handwave); alternatively, holding the forearms in one position
   while rotating the hands at the wrist to make them flutter.  In
   context, the gestures alone can suffice as a remark; if a speaker
   makes an outrageously unsupported assumption, you might simply wave
   your hands in this way, as an accusation, far more eloquent than
   words could express, that his logic is faulty.

hang: v. 1. To wait for an event that will never occur.  "The
   system is hanging because it can't read from the crashed drive".
   See {wedged}, {hung}.  2. To wait for some event to occur; to
   hang around until something happens.  "The program displays a menu
   and then hangs until you type a character."  Compare {block}.
   3. To attach a peripheral device, esp. in the construction `hang
   off':  "We're going to hang another tape drive off the file
   server."  Implies a device attached with cables, rather than
   something that is strictly inside the machine's chassis.

Hanlon's Razor: prov. A corollary of {Finagle's Law}, similar to
   Occam's Razor, that reads "Never attribute to malice that which can
   be adequately explained by stupidity."  The derivation of the
   common title Hanlon's Razor is unknown; a similar epigram has been
   attributed to William James.  Quoted here because it seems to be a
   particular favorite of hackers, often showing up in {fortune
   cookie} files and the login banners of BBS systems and commercial
   networks.  This probably reflects the hacker's daily experience of
   environments created by well-intentioned but short-sighted people.

happily: adv.  Of software, used to emphasize that a program is
   unaware of some important fact about its environment, either
   because it has been fooled into believing a lie, or because it
   doesn't care.  The sense of `happy' here is not that of elation,
   but rather that of blissful ignorance.  "The program continues to
   run, happily unaware that its output is going to /dev/null."

hard boot: n. See {boot}.

hardcoded: adj. 1. Said of data inserted directly into a program,
   where it cannot be easily modified, as opposed to data in some
   {profile}, resource (see {de-rezz} sense 2), or environment
   variable that a {user} or hacker can easily modify.  2. In C,
   this is esp. applied to use of a literal instead of a
   `#define' macro (see {magic number}).

hardwarily: /hard-weir'*-lee/ adv. In a way pertaining to
   hardware.  "The system is hardwarily unreliable."  The adjective
   `hardwary' is *not* traditionally used, though it has recently
   been reported from the U.K.  See {softwarily}.

hardwired: adj. 1. In software, syn. for {hardcoded}.  2. By
   extension, anything that is not modifiable, especially in the sense
   of customizable to one's particular needs or tastes.

has the X nature: [seems to derive from Zen Buddhist koans of the
   form "Does an X have the Buddha-nature?"] adj. Common hacker
   construction for `is an X', used for humorous emphasis.  "Anyone
   who can't even use a program with on-screen help embedded in it
   truly has the {loser} nature!"  See also {the X that can be Y
   is not the true X}.

hash bucket: n. A notional receptacle into which more than one
   thing accessed by the same key or short code might be dropped.
   When you look up a name in the phone book (for example), you
   typically hash it by extracting its first letter; the hash buckets
   are the alphabetically ordered letter sections.  This is used as
   techspeak with respect to code that uses actual hash functions; in
   jargon, it is used for human associative memory as well.  Thus, two
   things `in the same hash bucket' may be confused with each other.
   "If you hash English words only by length, you get too many common
   grammar words in the first couple of hash buckets." Compare {hash
   collision}.

hash collision: [from the technical usage] n. (var. `hash
   clash') When used of people, signifies a confusion in associative
   memory or imagination, especially a persistent one (see
   {thinko}).  True story: One of us [ESR] was once on the phone
   with a friend about to move out to Berkeley.  When asked what he
   expected Berkeley to be like, the friend replied: "Well, I have
   this mental picture of naked women throwing Molotov cocktails, but
   I think that's just a collision in my hash tables."  Compare
   {hash bucket}.

hat: n. Common (spoken) name for the circumflex (`^', ASCII
   1011110) character.  See {ASCII} for other synonyms.

HCF: /H-C-F/ n. Mnemonic for `Halt and Catch Fire', any of
   several undocumented and semi-mythical machine instructions with
   destructive side-effects, supposedly included for test purposes on
   several well-known architectures going as far back as the IBM 360.
   The MC6800 microprocessor was the first for which the HCF opcode
   became widely known.  This instruction caused the processor to
   {toggle} a subset of the bus lines as rapidly as it could; in
   some configurations this can actually cause lines to burn
   up.

heads down: [Sun] adj. Concentrating, usually so heavily and for so
   long that everything outside the focus area is missed.  See also
   {hack mode} and {larval stage}, although it is not confined to
   fledgling hackers.

heartbeat: n. 1. The signal emitted by a Level 2 Ethernet
   transceiver at the end of every packet to show that the
   collision-detection circuit is still connected.  2. A periodic
   synchronization signal used by software or hardware, such as a bus
   clock or a periodic interrupt.  3. The `natural' oscillation
   frequency of a computer's clock crystal, before frequency division
   down to the machine's clock rate.  4. A signal emitted at regular
   intervals by software to demonstrate that it is still alive.
   Sometimes hardware is designed to reboot the machine if it stops
   hearing a heartbeat.  See also {breath-of-life packet}.

heavy metal: [Cambridge] n. Syn. {big iron}.

heavy wizardry: n. Code or designs that trade on a particularly
   intimate knowledge or experience of a particular operating system
   or language or complex application interface.  Distinguished from
   {deep magic}, which trades more on arcane *theoretical*
   knowledge.  Writing device drivers is heavy wizardry; so is
   interfacing to {X} (sense 2) without a toolkit.  Esp. found in
   comments similar to "Heavy wizardry begins here ...".  Compare
   {voodoo programming}.

heavyweight: adj. High-overhead; {baroque}; code-intensive;
   featureful, but costly.  Esp. used of communication protocols,
   language designs, and any sort of implementation in which maximum
   generality and/or ease of implementation has been pushed at the
   expense of mundane considerations such as speed, memory utilization,
   and startup time.  {EMACS} is a heavyweight editor; {X} is an
   *extremely* heavyweight window system.  This term isn't
   pejorative, but one man's heavyweight is another's {elephantine}
   and a third's {monstrosity}.  Oppose `lightweight'.

heisenbug: /hi:'zen-buhg/ [from Heisenberg's Uncertainty
   Principle in quantum physics] n. A bug that disappears or alters
   its behavior when one attempts to probe or isolate it.  Antonym of
   {Bohr bug}; see also {mandelbug}.  In C, nine out of ten heisenbugs
   result from either {fandango on core} phenomena (esp. lossage
   related to corruption of the malloc {arena}) or errors that
   {smash the stack}.

Helen Keller mode: n. State of a hardware or software system that
   is deaf, dumb, and blind, i.e., accepting no input and generating no
   output, usually due to an infinite loop or some other excursion
   into {deep space}.  (Unfair to the real Helen Keller, whose
   success at learning speech was triumphant.)  See also
   {go flatline}, {catatonic}.

hello, sailor!: interj. Occasional West Coast equivalent of
   {hello, world}; seems to have originated at SAIL, later
   associated with the game {Zork} (which also included "hello,
   aviator" and "hello, implementor").  Originally from the
   traditional hooker's greeting to a swabbie fresh off the boat, of
   course.

hello, wall!: excl. See {wall}.

hello, world: interj. 1. The canonical minimal test message in the
   C/UNIX universe.  2. Any of the minimal programs that emit this
   message.  Traditionally, the first program a C coder is supposed to
   write in a new environment is one that just prints "hello, world"
   to standard output (and indeed it is the first example program
   in {K&R}).  Environments that generate an unreasonably large
   executable for this trivial test or which require a {hairy}
   compiler-linker invocation to generate it are considered to
   {lose} (see {X}).  3. Greeting uttered by a hacker making an
   entrance or requesting information from anyone present.  "Hello,
   world!  Is the {VAX} back up yet?"

hex: n. 1. Short for {{hexadecimal}}, base 16.  2. A 6-pack
   of anything (compare {quad}, sense 2).  Neither usage has
   anything to do with {magic} or {black art}, though the pun is
   appreciated and occasionally used by hackers.  True story: As a
   joke, some hackers once offered some surplus ICs for sale to be
   worn as protective amulets against hostile magic.  The chips were,
   of course, hex inverters.

hexadecimal:: n. Base 16.  Coined in the early 1960s to replace
   earlier `sexadecimal', which was too racy and amusing for stuffy
   IBM, and later adopted by the rest of the industry.

   Actually, neither term is etymologically pure.  If we take `binary'
   to be paradigmatic, the most etymologically correct term for
   base 10, for example, is `denary', which
   comes from `deni' (ten at a time, ten each), a Latin `distributive'
   number; the corresponding term for base-16 would be something like
   `sendenary'.  `Decimal' is from an ordinal number; the
   corresponding prefix for 6 would imply something like
   `sextidecimal'.  The `sexa-' prefix is Latin but incorrect in this
   context, and `hexa-' is Greek.  The word `octal' is similarly
   incorrect; a correct form would be `octaval' (to go with decimal),
   or `octonary' (to go with binary).  If anyone ever implements a
   base-3 computer, computer scientists will be faced with the
   unprecedented dilemma of a choice between two *correct* forms;
   both `ternary' and `trinary' have a claim to this throne.

hexit: /hek'sit/ n. A hexadecimal digit (0--9, and A--F or a--f).
   Used by people who claim that there are only *ten* digits,
   dammit; sixteen-fingered human beings are rather rare, despite what
   some keyboard designs might seem to imply (see {space-cadet
   keyboard}).

hidden flag: [scientific computation] n. An extra option added to a
   routine without changing the calling sequence.  For example,
   instead of adding an explicit input variable to instruct a routine
   to give extra diagnostic output, the programmer might just add a
   test for some otherwise meaningless feature of the existing inputs,
   such as a negative mass.  Liberal use of hidden flags can make a
   program very hard to debug and understand.

high bit: [from `high-order bit'] n. 1. The most significant
   bit in a byte.  2. By extension, the most significant part of
   something other than a data byte: "Spare me the whole {saga},
   just give me the high bit."  See also {meta bit}, {hobbit},
   {dread high-bit disease}, and compare the mainstream slang
   `bottom line'.

high moby: /hi:' mohb'ee/ n. The high half of a 512K {PDP-10}'s
   physical address space; the other half was of course the low moby.  This
   usage has been generalized in a way that has outlasted the
   {PDP-10}; for example, at the 1990 Washington D.C. Area Science
   Fiction Conclave (Disclave), when a miscommunication resulted in two
   separate wakes being held in commemoration of the shutdown of MIT's
   last {{ITS}} machines, the one on the upper floor was dubbed the
   `high moby' and the other the `low moby'.  All parties involved
   {grok}ked this instantly.  See {moby}.

highly: [scientific computation] adv. The preferred modifier for
   overstating an understatement.  As in: `highly nonoptimal', the
   worst possible way to do something; `highly nontrivial', either
   impossible or requiring a major research project; `highly
   nonlinear', completely erratic and unpredictable; `highly
   nontechnical', drivel written for {luser}s, oversimplified to the
   point of being misleading or incorrect (compare {drool-proof
   paper}).  In other computing cultures, postfixing of {in the
   extreme} might be preferred.

hirsute: adj. Occasionally used humorously as a synonym for {hairy}.

HLL: /H-L-L/ n. [High-Level Language (as opposed to assembler)]
   Found primarily in email and news rather than speech.  Rarely, the
   variants `VHLL' and `MLL' are found.  VHLL stands for `Very-High-Level
   Language' and is used to describe a {bondage-and-discipline
   language} that the speaker happens to like; Prolog and Backus's FP
   are often called VHLLs.  `MLL' stands for `Medium-Level Language' and is
   sometimes used half-jokingly to describe {C}, alluding to its
   `structured-assembler' image.  See also {languages of choice}.

hobbit: n. 1. The High Order Bit of a byte; same as the {meta
   bit} or {high bit}.  2. The non-ITS name of vad@ai.mit.edu
   (*Hobbit*), master of lasers.

hog: n.,vt. 1. Favored term to describe programs or hardware that
   seem to eat far more than their share of a system's resources,
   esp. those which noticeably degrade interactive response.
   *Not* used of programs that are simply extremely large or
   complex or that are merely painfully slow themselves (see {pig,
   run like a}).  More often than not encountered in qualified forms,
   e.g., `memory hog', `core hog', `hog the processor', `hog
   the disk'.  "A controller that never gives up the I/O bus
   gets killed after the bus-hog timer expires."   2. Also said
   of *people* who use more than their fair share of resources
   (particularly disk, where it seems that 10% of the people use 90%
   of the disk, no matter how big the disk is or how many people use
   it).  Of course, once disk hogs fill up one filesystem, they
   typically find some other new one to infect, claiming to the
   sysadmin that they have an important new project to complete.

holy wars: [from {USENET}, but may predate it] n. {flame
   war}s over {religious issues}.  The paper by Danny Cohen that
   popularized the terms {big-endian} and {little-endian} in
   connection with the LSB-first/MSB-first controversy was entitled
   "On Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace".  Other perennial Holy
   Wars have included {EMACS} vs. {vi}, my personal computer vs.
   everyone else's personal computer, {{ITS}} vs. {{UNIX}},
   {{UNIX}} vs. {VMS}, {BSD} UNIX vs. {USG UNIX}, {C} vs.
   {{Pascal}}, {C} vs. {LISP}, etc., ad nauseam.  The
   characteristic that distinguishes {holy wars} from normal
   technical disputes is that in a holy wars most of the participants
   spend their time trying to pass off personal value choices and
   cultural attachments as objective technical evaluations. See also
   {theology}.

home box: n. A hacker's personal machine, especially one he or she
   owns.  "Yeah?  Well, *my* home box runs a full 4.2 BSD, so
   there!"

hook: n. A software or hardware feature included in order to
   simplify later additions or changes by a user.  For example,
   a simple program that prints numbers might always print them in
   base 10, but a more flexible version would let a variable
   determine what base to use; setting the variable to 5 would make
   the program print numbers in base 5.  The variable is a simple
   hook.  An even more flexible program might examine the variable
   and treat a value of 16 or less as the base to use, but treat any
   other number as the address of a user-supplied routine for printing
   a number.  This is a {hairy} but powerful hook; one can then write a
   routine to print numbers as Roman numerals, say, or as Hebrew
   characters, and plug it into the program through the hook.  Often
   the difference between a good program and a superb one is that the
   latter has useful hooks in judiciously chosen places.  Both may do
   the original job about equally well, but the one with the hooks is
   much more flexible for future expansion of capabilities ({EMACS},
   for example, is *all* hooks).  The term `user exit' is
   synonymous but much more formal and less hackish.

hop: n. One file transmission in a series required to get a file
   from point A to point B on a store-and-forward network.  On such
   networks (including {UUCPNET} and {FidoNet}), the important
   inter-machine metric is the number of hops in the shortest path
   between them, rather than their geographical separation.  See
   {bang path}.

hose: 1. vt. To make non-functional or greatly degraded in
   performance.  "That big ray-tracing program really hoses the
   system."  See {hosed}.  2. n. A narrow channel through which
   data flows under pressure.  Generally denotes data paths that
   represent performance bottlenecks.  3. n. Cabling, especially
   thick Ethernet cable.  This is sometimes called `bit hose' or
   `hosery' (play on `hosiery') or `etherhose'.  See also
   {washing machine}.

hosed: adj. Same as {down}.  Used primarily by UNIX hackers.
   Humorous: also implies a condition thought to be relatively easy to
   reverse.  Probably derived from the Canadian slang `hoser'
   popularized by the Bob and Doug Mackenzie skits on SCTV.  See
   {hose}.  It is also widely used of people in the mainstream sense
   of `in an extremely unfortunate situation'.

   Once upon a time, a Cray that had been experiencing periodic
   difficulties crashed, and it was announced to have been hosed.
   It was discovered that the crash was due to the disconnection of
   some coolant hoses.  The problem was corrected, and users were then
   assured that everything was OK because the system had been rehosed.
   See also {dehose}.

hot spot: n. 1. [primarily used by C/UNIX programmers, but
   spreading] It is received wisdom that in most programs, less than
   10% of the code eats 90% of the execution time; if one were to
   graph instruction visits versus code addresses, one would typically
   see a few huge spikes amidst a lot of low-level noise.  Such spikes
   are called `hot spots' and are good candidates for heavy
   optimization or {hand-hacking}.  The term is especially used of
   tight loops and recursions in the code's central algorithm, as
   opposed to (say) initial set-up costs or large but infrequent I/O
   operations.  See {tune}, {bum}, {hand-hacking}.  2. The
   active location of a cursor on a bit-map display.  "Put the
   mouse's hot spot on the `ON' widget and click the left button."
   3. In a massively parallel computer with shared memory, the one
   location that all 10,000 processors are trying to read or
   write at once (perhaps because they are all doing a {busy-wait}
   on the same lock).

house wizard: [prob. from ad-agency lingo, `house freak'] n. A
   hacker occupying a technical-specialist, R&D, or systems position
   at a commercial shop.  A really effective house wizard can have
   influence out of all proportion to his/her ostensible rank and
   still not have to wear a suit.  Used esp. of UNIX wizards.  The
   term `house guru' is equivalent.

HP-SUX: /H-P suhks/ n. Unflattering hackerism for HP-UX,
   Hewlett-Packard's UNIX port.  Features some truly unique bogosities
   in the filesystem internals and elsewhere which occasionally create
   portability problems.  HP-UX is often referred to as `hockey-pux'
   inside HP, and one respondent claims that the proper pronunciation
   is /H-P ukkkhhhh/ as though one were about to spit.  Another such
   alternate spelling and pronunciation is "H-PUX" /H-puhks/.
   Hackers at HP/Apollo (the former Apollo Computers which was swallowed
   by HP in 1989) have been heard to complain that Mr. Packard should
   have pushed to have his name first, if for no other reason than the
   greater eloquence of the resulting acronym.  Compare {buglix}.
   See also {Telerat}, {sun-stools}, {terminak}.

huff: v. To compress data using a Huffman code.  Various programs
   that use such methods have been called `HUFF' or some variant
   thereof.  Oppose {puff}.  Compare {crunch}, {compress}.

humma: // excl. A filler word used on various `chat' and
   `talk' programs when you had nothing to say but felt that it was
   important to say something.  The word apparently originated (at
   least with this definition) on the MECC Timeshare System (MTS, a
   now-defunct educational time-sharing system running in Minnesota
   during the 1970s and the early 1980s) but was later sighted on
   early UNIX systems.

Humor, Hacker:: n. A distinctive style of shared intellectual humor
   found among hackers, having the following distinctive
   characteristics:

   1. Fascination with form-vs.-content jokes, paradoxes, and humor
   having to do with confusion of metalevels (see {meta}).  One way
   to make a hacker laugh: hold a red index card in front of him/her
   with "GREEN" written on it, or vice-versa (note, however, that
   this is funny only the first time).

   2. Elaborate deadpan parodies of large intellectual constructs, such
   as specifications (see {write-only memory}), standards documents,
   language descriptions (see {INTERCAL}), and even entire scientific
   theories (see {quantum bogodynamics}, {computron}).

   3. Jokes that involve screwily precise reasoning from bizarre,
   ludicrous, or just grossly counter-intuitive premises.

   4. Fascination with puns and wordplay.

   5. A fondness for apparently mindless humor with subversive
   currents of intelligence in it --- for example, old Warner Brothers
   and Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons, the Marx brothers, the early
   B-52s, and Monty Python's Flying Circus.  Humor that combines this
   trait with elements of high camp and slapstick is especially
   favored.

   6. References to the symbol-object antinomies and associated ideas
   in Zen Buddhism and (less often) Taoism.  See {has the X nature},
   {Discordianism}, {zen}, {ha ha only serious}, {AI koans}.

   See also {filk}, {retrocomputing}, and appendix B.  If you have an
   itchy feeling that all 6 of these traits are really aspects of
   one thing that is incredibly difficult to talk about exactly, you
   are (a) correct and (b) responding like a hacker.  These traits are
   also recognizable (though in a less marked form) throughout
   {{science-fiction fandom}}.

hung: [from `hung up'] adj. Equivalent to {wedged}, but more
   common at UNIX/C sites.  Not generally used of people.  Syn. with
   {locked up}, {wedged}; compare {hosed}.  See also {hang}.
   A hung state is distinguished from {crash}ed or {down}, where the
   program or system is also unusable but because it is not running
   rather than because it is waiting for something.  However, the
   recovery from both situations is often the same.

hungry puppy: n. Syn. {slopsucker}.

hungus: /huhng'g*s/ [perhaps related to slang `humongous'] adj.
   Large, unwieldy, usually unmanageable.  "TCP is a hungus piece of
   code."  "This is a hungus set of modifications."

hyperspace: /hi:'per-spays/ n. A memory location that is *far*
   away from where the program counter should be pointing, often
   inaccessible because it is not even mapped in.  "Another core
   dump --- looks like the program jumped off to hyperspace
   somehow."  (Compare {jump off into never-never land}.)  This
   usage is from the SF notion of a spaceship jumping `into
   hyperspace', that is, taking a shortcut through higher-dimensional
   space --- in other words, bypassing this universe.  The variant
   `east hyperspace' is recorded among CMU and Bliss hackers.

= I =

I didn't change anything!: interj. An aggrieved cry often heard as
   bugs manifest during a regression test.  The {canonical} reply to
   this assertion is "Then it works just the same as it did before,
   doesn't it?"  See also {one-line fix}.  This is also heard from
   applications programmers trying to blame an obvious applications
   problem on an unrelated systems software change, for example a
   divide-by-0 fault after terminals were added to a network.
   Usually, their statement is found to be false.  Upon close
   questioning, they will admit some major restructuring of the
   program that shouldn't have broken anything, in their opinion,
   but which actually {hosed} the code completely.

I see no X here.: Hackers (and the interactive computer games they
   write) traditionally favor this slightly marked usage over other
   possible equivalents such as "There's no X here!" or "X is
   missing."  or "Where's the X?".  This goes back to the original
   PDP-10 {ADVENT}, which would respond in this wise if you asked
   it to do something involving an object not present at your location
   in the game.

i14y: // n. Abbrev. for `interoperability', with the `14'
   replacing fourteen letters.  Used in the {X} (windows)
   community.  Refers to portability and compatibility of data formats
   (even binary ones) between different programs or implementations of
   the same program on different machines.

i18n: // n. Abbrev. for `internationali{z,s}ation', with the 18
   replacing 18 letters.  Used in the {X} (windows) community.

IBM: /I-B-M/ Inferior But Marketable; It's Better Manually;
   Insidious Black Magic; It's Been Malfunctioning; Incontinent Bowel
   Movement; and a near-{infinite} number of even less complimentary
   expansions, including `International Business Machines'.  See
   {TLA}.  These abbreviations illustrate the considerable
   antipathy most hackers have long felt toward the `industry leader'
   (see {fear and loathing}).

   What galls hackers about most IBM machines above the PC level isn't
   so much that they are underpowered and overpriced (though that does
   count against them), but that the designs are incredibly archaic,
   {crufty}, and {elephantine} ... and you can't *fix* them
   --- source code is locked up tight, and programming tools are
   expensive, hard to find, and bletcherous to use once you've found
   them.  With the release of the UNIX-based RIOS family this may have
   begun to change --- but then, we thought that when the PC-RT came
   out, too.

   In the spirit of universal peace and brotherhood, this lexicon now
   includes a number of entries attributed to `IBM'; these derive from some
   rampantly unofficial jargon lists circulated within IBM's own
   beleaguered hacker underground.

IBM discount: n. A price increase.  Outside IBM, this derives from
   the common perception that IBM products are generally overpriced
   (see {clone}); inside, it is said to spring from a belief that
   large numbers of IBM employees living in an area cause prices to
   rise.

ice: [coined by USENETter Tom Maddox, popularized by William
   Gibson's cyberpunk SF novels: acronym for `Intrusion
   Countermeasure Electronics'] Security software (in Gibson's novels,
   software that responds to intrusion by attempting to literally kill
   the intruder).  Also, `icebreaker': a program designed for
   cracking security on a system.  Neither term is in serious use yet
   as of mid-1991, but many hackers find the metaphor attractive, and
   each may develop a denotation in the future.

ifdef out: /if'def owt/ v. Syn. for {condition out}, specific
   to {C}.

ill-behaved: adj. 1. [numerical analysis] Said of an algorithm or
   computational method that tends to blow up because of accumulated
   roundoff error or poor convergence properties.  2. Software that
   bypasses the defined {OS} interfaces to do things (like screen,
   keyboard, and disk I/O) itself, often in a way that depends on the
   hardware of the machine it is running on or which is nonportable or
   incompatible with other pieces of software.  In the IBM PC/MS-DOS
   world, there is a folk theorem (nearly true) to the effect that
   (owing to gross inadequacies and performance penalties in the OS
   interface) all interesting applications are ill-behaved.  See also
   {bare metal}. Oppose {well-behaved}, compare {PC-ism}.  See
   {mess-dos}.

IMHO: // [from SF fandom via USENET; acronym for `In My Humble
   Opinion']  "IMHO, mixed-case C names should be avoided, as
   mistyping something in the wrong case can cause hard-to-detect
   errors --- and they look too Pascalish anyhow."  Also seen in
   variant forms such as IMNSHO (In My Not-So-Humble Opinion) and IMAO
   (In My Arrogant Opinion).

in the extreme: adj. A preferred superlative suffix for many hackish
   terms.  See, for example, `obscure in the extreme' under {obscure},
   and compare {highly}.

incantation: n. Any particularly arbitrary or obscure command that
   one must mutter at a system to attain a desired result.  Not used
   of passwords or other explicit security features.  Especially used
   of tricks that are so poorly documented they must be learned from a
   {wizard}.  "This compiler normally locates initialized data
   in the data segment, but if you {mutter} the right incantation they
   will be forced into text space."

include: vt. [USENET] 1. To duplicate a portion (or whole) of
   another's message (typically with attribution to the source) in a
   reply or followup, for clarifying the context of one's response.
   See the the discussion of inclusion styles under "Hacker
   Writing Style".  2. [from {C}] `#include <disclaimer.h>'
   has appeared in {sig block}s to refer to a notional `standard
   disclaimer file'.

include war: n. Excessive multi-leveled including within a
   discussion {thread}, a practice that tends to annoy readers.  In
   a forum with high-traffic newsgroups, such as USENET, this can lead
   to {flame}s and the urge to start a {kill file}.

indent style: [C programmers] n. The rules one uses to indent code
   in a readable fashion; a subject of {holy wars}.  There are four
   major C indent styles, described below; all have the aim of
   making it easier for the reader to visually track the scope of
   control constructs.  The significant variable is the placement of
   `{' and `}' with respect to the statement(s) they
   enclose and the guard or controlling statement (`if',
   `else', `for', `while', or `do') on the block,
   if any.

   `K&R style' --- Named after Kernighan & Ritchie, because the
   examples in {K&R} are formatted this way.  Also called `kernel
   style' because the UNIX kernel is written in it, and the `One True
   Brace Style' (abbrev. 1TBS) by its partisans.  The basic indent
   shown here is eight spaces (or one tab) per level; four or are
   occasionally seen, but are much less common.

     if (cond) {
             <body>
     }

   `Allman style' --- Named for Eric Allman, a Berkeley hacker who
   wrote a lot of the BSD utilities in it (it is sometimes called
   `BSD style').  Resembles normal indent style in Pascal and Algol.
   Basic indent per level shown here is eight spaces, but four is just
   as common (esp. in C++ code).

     if (cond)
     {
             <body>
     }

   `Whitesmiths style' --- popularized by the examples that came
   with Whitesmiths C, an early commercial C compiler.  Basic indent
   per level shown here is eight spaces, but four is occasionally seen.

     if (cond)
             {
             <body>
             }

   `GNU style' --- Used throughout GNU EMACS and the Free Software
   Foundation code, and just about nowhere else.  Indents are always
   four spaces per level, with `{' and `}' halfway between the
   outer and inner indent levels.

     if (cond)
       {
         <body>
       }

   Surveys have shown the Allman and Whitesmiths styles to be the most
   common, with about equal mind shares.  K&R/1TBS used to be nearly
   universal, but is now much less common (the opening brace tends to
   get lost against the right paren of the guard part in an `if'
   or `while', which is a {Bad Thing}).  Defenders of 1TBS
   argue that any putative gain in readability is less important than
   their style's relative economy with vertical space, which enables
   one to see more code on one's screen at once.  Doubtless these
   issues will continue to be the subject of {holy wars}.

index: n. See {coefficient}.

infant mortality: n. It is common lore among hackers that the
   chances of sudden hardware failure drop off exponentially with a
   machine's time since power-up (that is, until the relatively
   distant time at which enough mechanical wear in I/O devices and
   thermal-cycling stress in components has accumulated for the
   machine to start going senile).  Up to half of all chip and wire
   failures happen within a new system's first few weeks; such
   failures are often referred to as `infant mortality' problems
   (or, occasionally, as `sudden infant death syndrome').  See
   {bathtub curve}, {burn-in period}.

infinite: adj. Consisting of a large number of objects; extreme.
   Used very loosely as in: "This program produces infinite
   garbage."  "He is an infinite loser."  The word most likely to
   follow `infinite', though, is {hair} (it has been pointed out
   that fractals are an excellent example of infinite hair).  These
   uses are abuses of the word's mathematical meaning.  The term
   `semi-infinite', denoting an immoderately large amount of some
   resource, is also heard.  "This compiler is taking a semi-infinite
   amount of time to optimize my program."  See also {semi}.

infinite loop: n. One that never terminates (that is, the machine
   {spin}s or {buzz}es forever; the usual symptom is
   {catatonia}).  There is a standard joke that has been made about
   each generation's exemplar of the ultra-fast machine: "The Cray-3
   is so fast it can execute an infinite loop in under 2 seconds!"

infinity: n. 1. The largest value that can be represented in a
   particular type of variable (register, memory location, data type,
   whatever).  2. `minus infinity': The smallest such value, not
   necessarily or even usually the simple negation of plus infinity.
   In N-bit twos-complement arithmetic, infinity is
   2^{N-1} - 1 but minus infinity is - (2^{N-1}),
   not -(2^{N-1} - 1).  Note also that this is different from
   "time T equals minus infinity", which is closer to a
   mathematician's usage of infinity.

insanely great: adj. [Mac community, from Steve Jobs; also BSD UNIX
   people via Bill Joy] Something so incredibly {elegant} that it is
   imaginable only to someone possessing the most puissant of
   {hacker}-natures.

INTERCAL: /in't*r-kal/ [said by the authors to stand for
   `Compiler Language With No Pronounceable Acronym'] n. A
   computer language designed by Don Woods and James Lyon in 1972.
   INTERCAL is purposely different from all other computer
   languages in all ways but one; it is purely a written language,
   being totally unspeakable.  An excerpt from the INTERCAL Reference
   Manual will make the style of the language clear:

        It is a well-known and oft-demonstrated fact that a person whose
        work is incomprehensible is held in high esteem.  For example, if
        one were to state that the simplest way to store a value of 65536
        in a 32-bit INTERCAL variable is:

          DO :1 <- #0$#256

        any sensible programmer would say that that was absurd.  Since this
        is indeed the simplest method, the programmer would be made to look
        foolish in front of his boss, who would of course have happened to
        turn up, as bosses are wont to do.  The effect would be no less
        devastating for the programmer having been correct.

   INTERCAL has many other peculiar features designed to make it even
   more unspeakable.  The Woods-Lyons implementation was actually used
   by many (well, at least several) people at Princeton.  The language
   has been recently reimplemented as C-INTERCAL and is consequently
   enjoying an unprecedented level of unpopularity; there is even an
   alt.lang.intercal newsgroup devoted to the study and ...
   appreciation of the language on USENET.

interesting: adj. In hacker parlance, this word has strong
   connotations of `annoying', or `difficult', or both.  Hackers
   relish a challenge, and enjoy wringing all the irony possible out
   of the ancient Chinese curse "May you live in interesting times".
   Oppose {trivial}, {uninteresting}.

Internet address:: n. 1. [techspeak] An absolute network address of
   the form foo@bar.baz, where foo is a user name, bar is a
   {sitename}, and baz is a `domain' name, possibly including
   periods itself.  Contrast with {bang path}; see also {network,
   the} and {network address}.  All Internet machines and most UUCP
   sites can now resolve these addresses, thanks to a large amount of
   behind-the-scenes magic and PD software written since 1980 or so.
   See also {bang path}, {domainist}.  2. More loosely, any
   network address reachable through Internet; this includes {bang
   path} addresses and some internal corporate and government
   networks.

   Reading Internet addresses is something of an art.  Here are the
   four most important top-level functional Internet domains followed
   by a selection of geographical domains:

     com
          commercial organizations
     edu
          educational institutions
     gov
          U.S. government civilian sites
     mil
          U.S. military sites

   Note that most of the sites in the com and edu domains are in
   the U.S. or Canada.

     us
          sites in the U.S. outside the functional domains
     su
          sites in the Soviet Union (see {kremvax}).
     uk
          sites in the United Kingdom

   Within the us domain, there are subdomains for the fifty
   states, each generally with a name identical to the state's postal
   abbreviation.  Within the uk domain, there is an ac subdomain for
   academic sites and a co domain for commercial ones.  Other
   top-level domains may be divided up in similar ways.

interrupt: 1. [techspeak] n. On a computer, an event that
   interrupts normal processing and temporarily diverts
   flow-of-control through an "interrupt handler" routine.  See also
   {trap}.  2. interj. A request for attention from a hacker.
   Often explicitly spoken.  "Interrupt --- have you seen Joe
   recently?"  See {priority interrupt}.  3. Under MS-DOS, the
   term `interrupt' is nearly synonymous with `system call', because
   the OS and BIOS routines are both called using the INT instruction
   (see {{interrupt list, the}}) and because programmers so often have
   to bypass the OS (going directly to a BIOS interrupt) to get
   reasonable performance.

interrupt list, the:: [MS-DOS] n. The list of all known software
   interrupt calls (both documented and undocumented) for IBM PCs and
   compatibles, maintained and made available for free redistribution
   by Ralf Brown (ralf@cs.cmu.edu).  As of early 1991, it had grown to
   approximately a megabyte in length.

interrupts locked out: When someone is ignoring you.  In a
   restaurant, after several fruitless attempts to get the waitress's
   attention, a hacker might well observe "She must have interrupts
   locked out".  The synonym `interrupts disabled' is also common.
   Variations of this abound; "to have one's interrupt mask bit set"
   or "interrupts masked out" is also heard.  See also {spl}.

iron: n. Hardware, especially older and larger hardware of
   {mainframe} class with big metal cabinets housing relatively
   low-density electronics (but the term is also used of modern
   supercomputers).  Often in the phrase {big iron}.  Oppose
   {silicon}.  See also {dinosaur}.

Iron Age: n. In the history of computing, 1961--1971 --- the
   formative era of commercial {mainframe} technology, when {big
   iron} {dinosaur}s ruled the earth.  These began with the delivery
   of the first PDP-1, coincided with the dominance of ferrite
   {core}, and ended with the introduction of the first commercial
   microprocessor (the Intel 4004) in 1971.  See also {Stone Age};
   compare {elder days}.

iron box: [UNIX/Internet] n. A special environment set up to trap
   a {cracker} logging in over remote connections long enough to be
   traced.  May include a modified {shell} restricting the hacker's
   movements in unobvious ways, and `bait' files designed to keep him
   interested and logged on.  See also {back door}, {firewall
   machine}, {Venus flytrap}, and Clifford Stoll's account in
   `The Cuckoo's Egg' of how he made and used one (see
   the Bibliography).  Compare {padded cell}.

ironmonger: [IBM] n. Derogatory.  A hardware specialist.  Compare
   {sandbender}, {polygon pusher}.

ITS:: /I-T-S/ n. 1. Incompatible Time-sharing System, an
   influential but highly idiosyncratic operating system written for
   PDP-6s and PDP-10s at MIT and long used at the MIT AI Lab.  Much
   AI-hacker jargon derives from ITS folklore, and to have been `an
   ITS hacker' qualifies one instantly as an old-timer of the most
   venerable sort.  ITS pioneered many important innovations,
   including transparent file sharing between machines and
   terminal-independent I/O.  After about 1982, most actual work was
   shifted to newer machines, with the remaining ITS boxes run
   essentially as a hobby and service to the hacker community.  The
   shutdown of the lab's last ITS machine in May 1990 marked the end
   of an era and sent old-time hackers into mourning nationwide (see
   {high moby}).  The Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden is
   maintaining one `live' ITS site at its computer museum (right next
   to the only TOPS-10 system still on the Internet), so ITS is still
   alleged to hold the record for OS in longest continuous use
   (however, {{WAITS}} is a credible rival for this palm).  See
   appendix A.  2. A mythical image of operating-system perfection
   worshiped by a bizarre, fervent retro-cult of old-time hackers and
   ex-users (see {troglodyte}, sense 2).  ITS worshipers manage
   somehow to continue believing that an OS maintained by
   assembly-language hand-hacking that supported only monocase
   6-character filenames in one directory per account remains superior
   to today's state of commercial art (their venom against UNIX is
   particularly intense).  See also {holy wars},
   {Weenix}.

IWBNI: // [acronym] `It Would Be Nice If'.  Compare {WIBNI}.

IYFEG: // [USENET] Abbreviation for `Insert Your Favorite Ethnic
   Group'.  Used as a meta-name when telling racist jokes on the net to
   avoid offending anyone.  See {JEDR}.

= J =

J. Random: /J rand'm/ n. [generalized from {J. Random Hacker}]
   Arbitrary; ordinary; any one; any old.  `J. Random' is often
   prefixed to a noun to make a name out of it.  It means roughly
   `some particular' or `any specific one'.  "Would you let
   J. Random Loser marry your daughter?"  The most common uses are
   `J. Random Hacker', `J. Random Loser', and `J. Random Nerd'
   ("Should J. Random Loser be allowed to {gun} down other
   people?"), but it can be used simply as an elaborate version of
   {random} in any sense.

J. Random Hacker: [MIT] /J rand'm hak'r/ n. A mythical figure
   like the Unknown Soldier; the archetypal hacker nerd.  See
   {random}, {Suzie COBOL}.  This may originally have been
   inspired or influenced by `J. Fred Muggs', a show-biz chimpanzee
   whose name was a household word back in the early days of {TMRC}.

jaggies: /jag'eez/ n. The `stairstep' effect observable when an
   edge (esp. a linear edge of very shallow or steep slope) is
   rendered on a pixel device (as opposed to a vector display).

JCL: /J-C-L/ n. 1. IBM's supremely {rude} Job Control
   Language.  JCL is the script language used to control the execution
   of programs in IBM's batch systems.  JCL has a very {fascist}
   syntax, and some versions will, for example, {barf} if two
   spaces appear where it expects one.  Most programmers confronted
   with JCL simply copy a working file (or card deck), changing the
   file names.  Someone who actually understands and generates unique
   JCL is regarded with the mixed respect one gives to someone who
   memorizes the phone book.  It is reported that hackers at IBM
   itself sometimes sing "Who's the breeder of the crud that mangles
   you and me?  I-B-M, J-C-L, M-o-u-s-e" to the tune of the
   "Mickey Mouse Club" theme to express their opinion of the
   beast.  2. A comparative for any very {rude} software that a
   hacker is expected to use.  "That's as bad as JCL."  As with
   {COBOL}, JCL is often used as an archetype of ugliness even by
   those who haven't experienced it.  See also {IBM}, {fear and
   loathing}.

JEDR: // n. Synonymous with {IYFEG}.  At one time, people in
   the USENET newsgroup rec.humor.funny tended to use `JEDR'
   instead of {IYFEG} or `<ethnic>'; this stemmed from a public
   attempt to suppress the group once made by a loser with initials
   JEDR after he was offended by an ethnic joke posted there.  (The
   practice was {retcon}ned by the expanding these initials as
   `Joke Ethnic/Denomination/Race'.)  After much sound and fury JEDR
   faded away; this term appears to be doing likewise.  JEDR's only
   permanent effect on the net.culture was to discredit
   `sensitivity' arguments for censorship so thoroughly that more
   recent attempts to raise them have met with immediate and
   near-universal rejection.

JFCL: /jif'kl/, /jaf'kl/, /j*-fi'kl/ vt., obs. (alt.
   `jfcl') To cancel or annul something.  "Why don't you jfcl that
   out?"  The fastest do-nothing instruction on older models of the
   PDP-10 happened to be JFCL, which stands for "Jump if Flag set and
   then CLear the flag"; this does something useful, but is a very
   fast no-operation if no flag is specified.  Geoff Goodfellow, one
   of the jargon-1 co-authors, has long had JFCL on the license plate
   of his BMW.  Usage: rare except among old-time PDP-10 hackers.

jiffy: n. 1. The duration of one tick of the system clock on the
   computer (see {tick}).  Often one AC cycle time (1/60 second in
   the U.S. and Canada, 1/50 most other places), but more recently
   1/100 sec has become common.  "The swapper runs every 6 jiffies" means
   that the virtual memory management routine is executed once for
   every 6 ticks of the clock, or about ten times a second.
   2. Confusingly, the term is sometimes also used for a 1-millisecond
   {wall time} interval.  3. Indeterminate time from a few seconds
   to forever.  "I'll do it in a jiffy" means certainly not now and
   possibly never.  This is a bit contrary to the more widespread use
   of the word.  Oppose {nano}. See also {Real Soon Now}.

job security: n. When some piece of code is written in a
   particularly {obscure} fashion, and no good reason (such as time
   or space optimization) can be discovered, it is often said that the
   programmer was attempting to increase his job security (i.e., by
   making himself indispensable for maintenance).  This sour joke
   seldom has to be said in full; if two hackers are looking over some
   code together and one points at a section and says "job security",
   the other one may just nod.

jock: n. 1. A programmer who is characterized by large and somewhat
   brute-force programs.  See {brute force}.  2. When modified by
   another noun, describes a specialist in some particular computing
   area.  The compounds `compiler jock' and `systems jock' seem to be
   the best-established examples of this.

joe code: /joh' kohd`/ n. 1. Code that is overly {tense} and
   unmaintainable.  "{Perl} may be a handy program, but if you look
   at the source, it's complete joe code."  2. Badly written,
   possibly buggy code.

   Correspondents wishing to remain anonymous have fingered a
   particular Joe at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and observed
   that usage has drifted slightly; the original sobriquet `Joe code'
   was intended in sense 1.

JR[LN]: /J-R-L/, /J-R-N/ n. The names JRL and JRN
   were sometimes used as example names when discussing a kind of user
   ID used under {{TOPS-10}}; they were understood to be the initials
   of (fictitious) programmers named `J. Random Loser' and `J. Random
   Nerd' (see {J. Random}).  For example, if one said "To log
   in, type log one comma jay are en" (that is, "log 1,JRN"), the
   listener would have understood that he should use his own computer
   ID in place of `JRN'.

JRST: /jerst/ [based on the PDP-10 jump instruction] v.,obs. To
   suddenly change subjects, with no intention of returning to the
   previous topic.  Usage: rather rare except among PDP-10 diehards, and
   considered silly.  See also {AOS}.

juggling eggs: vi. Keeping a lot of {state} in your head while
   modifying a program.  "Don't bother me now, I'm juggling eggs",
   means that an interrupt is likely to result in the program's being
   scrambled.  In the classic first-contact SF novel `The Mote in
   God's Eye', by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, an alien describes a
   very difficult task by saying "We juggle priceless eggs in
   variable gravity."  That is a very hackish use of language.  See
   also {hack mode}.

jump off into never-never land: [from J. M. Barrie's `Peter
   Pan'] v. Same as {branch to Fishkill}, but more common in
   technical cultures associated with non-IBM computers that use the
   term `jump' rather than `branch'.  Compare {hyperspace}.

= K =

K: /K/ [from {kilo-}] n. A kilobyte.  This is used both as a
   spoken word and a written suffix (like {meg} and {gig} for
   megabyte and gigabyte).  See {{quantifiers}}.

K&R: [Kernighan and Ritchie] n. Brian Kernighan and Dennis Ritchie's
   book `The C Programming Language', esp. the classic and influential
   first edition (Prentice-Hall 1978; ISBN 0-113-110163-3).  Syn.
   {White Book}, {Old Testament}.  See also {New Testament}.

kahuna: /k*-hoo'nuh/ [IBM: from the Hawaiian title for a shaman] n.
   Synonym for {wizard}, {guru}.

kamikaze packet: n. The `official' jargon for what is more commonly
   called a {Christmas tree packet}. RFC-1025, `TCP and IP Bake Off'
   says:

     10 points for correctly being able to process a "Kamikaze"
     packet (AKA nastygram, christmas tree packet, lamp test
     segment, et al.).  That is, correctly handle a segment with the
     maximum combination of features at once (e.g., a SYN URG PUSH
     FIN segment with options and data).

   See also {Chernobyl packet}.

kangaroo code: n. Syn. {spaghetti code}.

ken: /ken/ n. 1. [UNIX] Ken Thompson, principal inventor of
   UNIX.  In the early days he used to hand-cut distribution tapes,
   often with a note that read "Love, ken".  Old-timers still use
   his first name (sometimes uncapitalized, because it's a login name
   and mail address) in third-person reference; it is widely
   understood (on USENET, in particular) that without a last name
   `Ken' refers only to Ken Thompson.  Similarly, Dennis without last
   name means Dennis Ritchie (and he is often known as dmr).  See
   also {demigod}, {{UNIX}}.  2. A flaming user.  This was
   originated by the Software Support group at Symbolics because the
   two greatest flamers in the user community were both named Ken.

kgbvax: /K-G-B'vaks/ n. See {kremvax}.

kill file: [USENET] n. (alt. `KILL file') Per-user file(s) used
   by some {USENET} reading programs (originally Larry Wall's
   `rn(1)') to discard summarily (without presenting for reading)
   articles matching some particularly uninteresting (or unwanted)
   patterns of subject, author, or other header lines.  Thus to add
   a person (or subject) to one's kill file is to arrange for that
   person to be ignored by one's newsreader in future.  By extension,
   it may be used for a decision to ignore the person or subject in
   other media.  See also {plonk}.

killer micro: [popularized by Eugene Brooks] n. A
   microprocessor-based machine that infringes on mini, mainframe, or
   supercomputer performance turf.  Often heard in "No one will
   survive the attack of the killer micros!", the battle cry of the
   downsizers.  Used esp. of RISC architectures.

   The popularity of the phrase `attack of the killer micros' is
   doubtless reinforced by the movie title "Attack Of The Killer
   Tomatoes" (one of the {canonical} examples of
   so-bad-it's-wonderful among hackers).  This has even more flavor
   now that killer micros have gone on the offensive not just
   individually (in workstations) but in hordes (within massively
   parallel computers).

killer poke: n. A recipe for inducing hardware damage on a machine
   via insertion of invalid values (see {poke}) in a memory-mapped
   control register; used esp. of various fairly well-known tricks
   on {bitty box}es without hardware memory management (such as the
   IBM PC and Commodore PET) that can overload and trash analog
   electronics in the monitor.  See also {HCF}.

kilo-: [SI] pref. See {{quantifiers}}.

KIPS: /kips/ [acronym, by analogy with {MIPS} using {K}] n.
   Thousands (*not* 1024s) of Instructions Per Second.  Usage:
   rare.

KISS Principle: /kis' prin'si-pl/ n. "Keep It Simple, Stupid".
   A maxim often invoked when discussing design to fend off
   {creeping featurism} and control development complexity.
   Possibly related to the {marketroid} maxim on sales
   presentations, "Keep It Short and Simple".

kit: [USENET] n. A source software distribution that has been
   packaged in such a way that it can (theoretically) be unpacked and
   installed according to a series of steps using only standard UNIX
   tools, and entirely documented by some reasonable chain of
   references from the top-level {README file}.  The more general
   term {distribution} may imply that special tools or more
   stringent conditions on the host environment are required.

klone: /klohn/ n. See {clone}, sense 4.

kludge: /kluhj/ n. Common (but incorrect) variant of {kluge}, q.v.

kluge: /klooj/ [from the German `klug', clever] 1. n.  A Rube
   Goldberg (or Heath Robinson) device, whether in hardware or
   software.  (A long-ago `Datamation' article by Jackson Granholme
   said: "An ill-assorted collection of poorly matching parts,
   forming a distressing whole.")  2. n. A clever programming trick
   intended to solve a particular nasty case in an expedient, if not
   clear, manner.  Often used to repair bugs.  Often involves
   {ad-hockery} and verges on being a {crock}.  In fact, the
   TMRC Dictionary defined `kludge' as "a crock that works".  3. n.
   Something that works for the wrong reason.  4. vt. To insert a
   kluge into a program.  "I've kluged this routine to get around
   that weird bug, but there's probably a better way."  5. [WPI] n. A
   feature that is implemented in a {rude} manner.

   Nowadays this term is often encountered in the variant spelling
   `kludge'.  Reports from {old fart}s are consistent that `kluge'
   was the original spelling, and that `kludge' arose by mutation
   sometime in the early 1970s.  Some people who encountered the word
   first in print or on-line jumped to the reasonable but incorrect
   conclusion that the word should be pronounced /kluhj/ (rhyming
   with `sludge').  The result of this tangled history is a mess; in
   1991, many (perhaps even most) hackers pronounce the word correctly
   as /klooj/ but spell it incorrectly as `kludge' (compare the
   pronunciation drift of {mung}).  Some observers consider this
   appropriate in view of its meaning.

kluge around: vt. To avoid a bug or difficult condition by
   inserting a {kluge}.  Compare {workaround}.

kluge up: vt. To lash together a quick hack to perform a task; this
   is milder than {cruft together} and has some of the connotations
   of {hack up} (note, however, that the construction `kluge on'
   corresponding to {hack on} is never used).  "I've kluged up this
   routine to dump the buffer contents to a safe place."

Knights of the Lambda Calculus: n. A semi-mythical organization of
   wizardly LISP and Scheme hackers.  The name refers to a
   mathematical formalism invented by Alonzo Church, with which LISP is
   intimately connected.  There is no enrollment list and the criteria
   for induction are unclear, but one well-known LISPer has been known
   to give out buttons and, in general, the *members* know who
   they are....

Knuth: [Donald E. Knuth's `The Art of Computer Programming']
   n. Mythically, the reference that answers all questions about data
   structures or algorithms.  A safe answer when you do not know:
   "I think you can find that in Knuth."  Contrast {literature,
   the}.  See also {bible}.

kremvax: /krem-vaks/ [from the then large number of {USENET}
   {VAXen} with names of the form foovax] n. Originally, a
   fictitious USENET site at the Kremlin, announced on April 1, 1984
   in a posting ostensibly originated there by Soviet leader
   Konstantin Chernenko.  The posting was actually forged by Piet
   Beertema as an April Fool's joke.  Other fictitious sites mentioned in the
   hoax were moskvax and {kgbvax}, which now seems to be the one by
   which it is remembered.  This was probably the funniest of the many
   April Fool's forgeries perpetrated on USENET (which has negligible
   security against them), because the notion that USENET might ever
   penetrate the Iron Curtain seemed so totally absurd at the time.

   In fact, it was only six years later that the first genuine site in
   Moscow, demos.su, joined USENET.  Some readers needed
   convincing that the postings from it weren't just another prank.
   Vadim Antonov (avg@hq.demos.su), the major poster from there
   up to at least the end of 1990, was quite aware of all this,
   referred to it frequently in his own postings, and at one point
   twitted some credulous readers by blandly asserting that he
   *was* a hoax!

   Eventually he even arranged to have the domain's gateway site
   *named* kremvax, thus neatly turning fiction into truth
   and demonstrating that the hackish sense of humor transcends
   cultural barriers.  [Mr. Antonov also contributed the
   Russian-language material for this lexicon. --- ESR]

= L =

lace card: n. obs. A {{punched card}} with all holes punched (also
   called a `whoopee card').  Card readers jammed when they got to
   one of these, as the resulting card had too little structural
   strength to avoid buckling inside the mechanism.  Card punches
   could also jam trying to produce these things owing to power-supply
   problems.  When some practical joker fed a lace card through the
   reader, you needed to clear the jam with a `card knife' ---
   which you used on the joker first.

language lawyer: n. A person, usually an experienced or senior
   software engineer, who is intimately familiar with many or most of
   the numerous restrictions and features (both useful and esoteric)
   applicable to one or more computer programming languages.  A
   language lawyer is distinguished by the ability to show you the
   five sentences scattered through a 200-plus-page manual that
   together imply the answer to your question "if only you had
   thought to look there".  Compare {wizard}, {legal},
   {legalese}.

languages of choice: n. {C} and {LISP}.  Nearly every hacker
   knows one of these, and most good ones are fluent in both.  Smalltalk
   and Prolog are also popular in small but influential communities.

   There is also a rapidly dwindling category of older hackers with
   FORTRAN, or even assembler, as their language of choice.  They
   often prefer to be known as {real programmer}s, and other hackers
   consider them a bit odd (see "The Story of Mel, a Real Programmer"
   in appendix A).  Assembler is generally no longer considered
   interesting or appropriate for anything but {HLL} implementation,
   {glue}, and a few time-critical and hardware-specific uses in systems
   programs.  FORTRAN occupies a shrinking niche in scientific
   programming.

   Most hackers tend to frown on languages like {{Pascal}} and
   {{Ada}}, which don't give them the near-total freedom considered
   necessary for hacking (see {bondage-and-discipline language}), and
   to regard everything that's even remotely connected with {COBOL}
   or other traditional {card walloper} languages as a total
   and unmitigated {loss}.

larval stage: n. Describes a period of monomaniacal concentration
   on coding apparently passed through by all fledgling hackers.
   Common symptoms include the perpetration of more than one 36-hour
   {hacking run} in a given week; neglect of all other activities
   including usual basics like food, sleep, and personal hygiene; and
   a chronic case of advanced bleary-eye.  Can last from 6 months to 2
   years, the apparent median being around 18 months.  A few so
   afflicted never resume a more `normal' life, but the ordeal
   seems to be necessary to produce really wizardly (as opposed to
   merely competent) programmers.  See also {wannabee}.  A less
   protracted and intense version of larval stage (typically lasting
   about a month) may recur when one is learning a new {OS} or
   programming language.

lase: /layz/ vt. To print a given document via a laser printer.
   "OK, let's lase that sucker and see if all those graphics-macro
   calls did the right things."

laser chicken: n. Kung Pao Chicken, a standard Chinese dish
   containing chicken, peanuts, and hot red peppers in a spicy
   pepper-oil sauce.  Many hackers call it `laser chicken' for
   two reasons: It can {zap} you just like a laser, and the
   sauce has a red color reminiscent of some laser beams.

   In a variation on this theme, it is reported that some Australian
   hackers have redesignated the common dish `lemon chicken' as
   `Chernobyl Chicken'.  The name is derived from the color of the
   sauce, which is considered bright enough to glow in the dark (as,
   mythically, do some of the inhabitants of Chernobyl).

laundromat: n. Syn. {disk farm}; see {washing machine}.

LDB: /l*'d*b/ [from the PDP-10 instruction set] vt. To extract
   from the middle.  "LDB me a slice of cake, please." This usage
   has been kept alive by Common LISP's function of the same name.
   Considered silly.  See also {DPB}.

leaf site: n. A machine that merely originates and reads USENET
   news or mail, and does not relay any third-party traffic.  Often
   uttered in a critical tone; when the ratio of leaf sites to
   backbone, rib, and other relay sites gets too high, the network
   tends to develop bottlenecks.  Compare {backbone site}, {rib
   site}.

leak: n. With qualifier, one of a class of resource-management bugs
   that occur when resources are not freed properly after operations
   on them are finished, so they effectively disappear (leak out).
   This leads to eventual exhaustion as new allocation requests come
   in.  {memory leak} and {fd leak} have their own entries; one
   might also refer, to, say, a `window handle leak' in a window
   system.

leaky heap: [Cambridge] n. An {arena} with a {memory leak}.

legal: adj. Loosely used to mean `in accordance with all the
   relevant rules', esp. in connection with some set of constraints
   defined by software.  "The older =+ alternate for += is no longer
   legal syntax in ANSI C."  "This parser processes each line of
   legal input the moment it sees the trailing linefeed."  Hackers
   often model their work as a sort of game played with the
   environment in which the objective is to maneuver through the
   thicket of `natural laws' to achieve a desired objective.  Their
   use of `legal' is flavored as much by this game-playing sense as by
   the more conventional one having to do with courts and lawyers.
   Compare {language lawyer}, {legalese}.

legalese: n. Dense, pedantic verbiage in a language description,
   product specification, or interface standard; text that seems
   designed to obfuscate and requires a {language lawyer} to
   {parse} it.  Though hackers are not afraid of high information
   density and complexity in language (indeed, they rather enjoy
   both), they share a deep and abiding loathing for legalese; they
   associate it with deception, {suit}s, and situations in which
   hackers generally get the short end of the stick.

LER: /L-E-R/ [TMRC, from `Light-Emitting Diode] n. A
   light-emitting resistor (that is, one in the process of burning
   up).  Ohm's law was broken.  See {SED}.

LERP: /lerp/ vi.,n. Quasi-acronym for Linear Interpolation, used as a
   verb or noun for the operation.  E.g., Bresenham's algorithm lerps
   incrementally between the two endpoints of the line.

let the smoke out: v. To fry hardware (see {fried}).  See
   {magic smoke} for the mythology behind this.

letterbomb: n. A piece of {email} containing {live data}
   intended to do nefarious things to the recipient's machine or
   terminal.  It is possible, for example, to send letterbombs that
   will lock up some specific kinds of terminals when they are viewed,
   so thoroughly that the user must {cycle power} to unwedge them.
   Under UNIX, a letterbomb can also try to get part of its contents
   interpreted as a shell command to the mailer.  The results of this
   could range from silly to tragic.  See also {Trojan horse};
   compare {nastygram}.

lexer: /lek'sr/ n. Common hacker shorthand for `lexical
   analyzer', the input-tokenizing stage in the parser for a language
   (the part that breaks it into word-like pieces).  "Some C lexers
   get confused by the old-style compound ops like `=-'."

lexiphage: /lek'si-fayj`/ n. A notorious word {chomper} on
   ITS.  See {bagbiter}.

life: n. 1. A cellular-automata game invented by John Horton
   Conway and first introduced publicly by Martin Gardner (`Scientific
   American', October 1970).  Many hackers pass through a stage of
   fascination with it, and hackers at various places contributed
   heavily to the mathematical analysis of this game (most notably
   Bill Gosper at MIT, who even implemented life in {TECO}!; see
   {Gosperism}).  When a hacker mentions `life', he is much more
   likely to mean this game than the magazine, the breakfast cereal,
   or the human state of existence.  2. The opposite of {USENET}.
   As in {Get a life!}

light pipe: n. Fiber optic cable.  Oppose {copper}.

like kicking dead whales down the beach: adj. Describes a slow,
   difficult, and disgusting process.  First popularized by a famous
   quote about the difficulty of getting work done under one of IBM's
   mainframe OSes.  "Well, you *could* write a C compiler in
   COBOL, but it would be like kicking dead whales down the beach."
   See also {fear and loathing}

like nailing jelly to a tree: adj. Used to describe a task thought
   to be impossible, esp. one in which the difficulty arises from
   poor specification or inherent slipperiness in the problem domain.
   "Trying to display the `prettiest' arrangement of nodes and arcs
   that diagrams a given graph is like nailing jelly to a tree,
   because nobody's sure what `prettiest' means algorithmically."

line eater, the: [USENET] n. 1. A bug in some now-obsolete
   versions of the netnews software that used to eat up to BUFSIZ
   bytes of the article text.  The bug was triggered by having the
   text of the article start with a space or tab.  This bug was
   quickly personified as a mythical creature called the `line
   eater', and postings often included a dummy line of `line eater
   food'.  Ironically, line eater `food' not beginning with a space or
   tab wasn't actually eaten, since the bug was avoided; but if there
   *was* a space or tab before it, then the line eater would eat
   the food *and* the beginning of the text it was supposed to be
   protecting.  The practice of `sacrificing to the line eater'
   continued for some time after the bug had been {nailed to the
   wall}, and is still humorously referred to.  The bug itself is
   still (in mid-1991) occasionally reported to be lurking in some
   mail-to-netnews gateways.  2. See {NSA line eater}.

line starve: [MIT] 1. vi. To feed paper through a printer the wrong
   way by one line (most printers can't do this).  On a display
   terminal, to move the cursor up to the previous line of the screen.
   "To print `X squared', you just output `X', line starve,
   `2', line feed."  (The line starve causes the `2' to appear on the
   line above the `X', and the line feed gets back to the original
   line.)  2. n. A character (or character sequence) that causes a
   terminal to perform this action.  Unlike `line feed', `line starve'
   is *not* standard {{ASCII}} terminology.  Even among hackers
   it is considered a bit silly.  3. [proposed] A sequence such as \c
   (used in System V echo, as well as nroff/troff) that suppresses a
   {newline} or other character(s) that would normally be emitted.

link farm: [UNIX] n. A directory tree that contains many links to
   files in a master directory tree of files.  Link farms save space
   when (for example) one is maintaining several nearly identical
   copies of the same source tree, e.g., when the only difference is
   architecture-dependent object files.  "Let's freeze the source and
   then rebuild the FROBOZZ-3 and FROBOZZ-4 link farms."  Link farms
   may also be used to get around restrictions on the number of
   `-I' (include-file directory) arguments on older
   C preprocessors.

link-dead: [MUD] adj. Said of a {MUD} character who has frozen in
   place because of a dropped Internet connection.

lint: [from UNIX's `lint(1)', named perhaps for the bits of
   fluff it picks from programs] 1. vt. To examine a program closely
   for style, language usage, and portability problems, esp. if
   in C, esp. if via use of automated analysis tools, most esp. if
   the UNIX utility `lint(1)' is used.  This term used to be
   restricted to use of `lint(1)' itself, but (judging by
   references on USENET) it has become a shorthand for {desk check}
   at some non-UNIX shops, even in languages other than C.  Also as
   v.  {delint}.  2. n. Excess verbiage in a document, as in "this
   draft has too much lint".

lion food: [IBM] n. Middle management or HQ staff (by extension,
   administrative drones in general).  From an old joke about two
   lions who, escaping from the zoo, split up to increase their
   chances but agreed to meet after 2 months.  When they finally
   meet, one is skinny and the other overweight.  The thin one says:
   "How did you manage?  I ate a human just once and they turned out
   a small army to chase me --- guns, nets, it was terrible.  Since
   then I've been reduced to eating mice, insects, even grass."  The
   fat one replies: "Well, *I* hid near an IBM office and ate a
   manager a day.  And nobody even noticed!"

Lions Book: n. `Source Code and Commentary on UNIX level 6',
   by John Lions.  The two parts of this book contained (1) the entire
   source listing of the UNIX Version 6 kernel, and (2) a commentary
   on the source discussing the algorithms.  These were circulated
   internally at the University of New South Wales beginning 1976--77,
   and were for years after the *only* detailed kernel
   documentation available to anyone outside Bell Labs.  Because
   Western Electric wished to maintain trade secret status on the
   kernel, the Lions book was never formally published and was only
   supposed to be distributed to affiliates of source licensees.  In
   spite of this, it soon spread by samizdat to a good many of the
   early UNIX hackers.

LISP: [from `LISt Processing language', but mythically from
   `Lots of Irritating Superfluous Parentheses'] n. The name of AI's
   mother tongue, a language based on the ideas of (a) variable-length
   lists and trees as fundamental data types, and (b) the
   interpretation of code as data and vice-versa.  Invented by John
   McCarthy at MIT in the late 1950s, it is actually older than any
   other {HLL} still in use except FORTRAN.  Accordingly, it has
   undergone considerable adaptive radiation over the years; modern
   variants are quite different in detail from the original LISP 1.5.
   The dominant HLL among hackers until the early 1980s, LISP now
   shares the throne with {C}.  See {languages of choice}.

   All LISP functions and programs are expressions that return
   values; this, together with the high memory utilization of LISPs,
   gave rise to Alan Perlis's famous quip (itself a take on an Oscar
   Wilde quote) that "LISP programmers know the value of everything
   and the cost of nothing".

   One significant application for LISP has been as a proof by example
   that most newer languages, such as {COBOL} and {Ada}, are full
   of unnecessary {crock}s.  When the {Right Thing} has already
   been done once, there is no justification for {bogosity} in newer
   languages.

literature, the: n. Computer-science journals and other
   publications, vaguely gestured at to answer a question that the
   speaker believes is {trivial}.  Thus, one might answer an
   annoying question by saying "It's in the literature."  Oppose
   {Knuth}, which has no connotation of triviality.

little-endian: adj. Describes a computer architecture in which,
   within a given 16- or 32-bit word, bytes at lower addresses have
   lower significance (the word is stored `little-end-first').  The
   PDP-11 and VAX families of computers and Intel microprocessors and
   a lot of communications and networking hardware are little-endian.
   See {big-endian}, {middle-endian}, {NUXI problem}.  The term
   is sometimes used to describe the ordering of units other than
   bytes; most often these are bits within a byte.

live data: n. 1. Data that is written to be interpreted and takes
   over program flow when triggered by some un-obvious operation, such
   as viewing it.  One use of such hacks is to break security.  For
   example, some smart terminals have commands that allow one to
   download strings to program keys; this can be used to write live
   data that, when listed to the terminal, infects it with a
   security-breaking {virus} that is triggered the next time a
   hapless user strikes that key.  For another, there are some
   well-known bugs in {vi} that allow certain texts to send
   arbitrary commands back to the machine when they are simply viewed.
   2. In C code, data that includes pointers to function {hook}s
   (executable code).  3. An object, such as a {trampoline}, that is
   constructed on the fly by a program and intended to be executed as
   code. 4. Actual real-world data, as opposed to `test data'.
   For example, "I think I have the record deletion module
   finished."  "Have you tried it out on live data?"  It usually
   carries the connotation that live data is more fragile and must not
   be corrupted, else bad things will happen.  So a possible alternate
   response to the above claim might be: "Well, make sure it works
   perfectly before we throw live data at it."  The implication here
   is that record deletion is something pretty significant, and a
   haywire record-deletion module running amok on live data would
   cause great harm and probably require restoring from backups.

Live Free Or Die!: imp. 1. The state motto of New Hampshire, which
   appears on that state's automobile license plates.  2. A slogan
   associated with UNIX in the romantic days when UNIX aficionados saw
   themselves as a tiny, beleaguered underground tilting against the
   windmills of industry.  The "free" referred specifically to
   freedom from the {fascist} design philosophies and crufty
   misfeatures common on commercial operating systems.  Armando
   Stettner, one of the early UNIX developers, used to give out fake
   license plates bearing this motto under a large UNIX, all in New
   Hampshire colors of green and white.  These are now valued
   collector's items.

livelock: /li:v'lok/ n. A situation in which some critical stage
   of a task is unable to finish because its clients perpetually
   create more work for it to do after they have been serviced but
   before it can clear its queue.  Differs from {deadlock} in that
   the process is not blocked or waiting for anything, but has a
   virtually infinite amount of work to do and can never catch up.

liveware: /li:v'weir/ n. 1. Synonym for {wetware}.  Less
   common.  2. [Cambridge] Vermin. "Waiter, there's some liveware in my
   salad..."

lobotomy: n. 1. What a hacker subjected to formal management
   training is said to have undergone.  At IBM and elsewhere this term
   is used by both hackers and low-level management; the latter
   doubtless intend it as a joke.  2. The act of removing the
   processor from a microcomputer in order to replace or upgrade it.
   Some very cheap {clone} systems are sold in `lobotomized' form
   --- everything but the brain.

locked and loaded: [from military slang for an M-16 rifle with
   magazine inserted and prepared for firing] adj. Said of a removable
   disk volume properly prepared for use --- that is, locked into the
   drive and with the heads loaded.  Ironically, because their heads
   are `loaded' whenever the power is up, this description is never
   used of {{Winchester}} drives (which are named after a rifle).

locked up: adj. Syn. for {hung}, {wedged}.

logic bomb: n. Code surreptitiously inserted in an application or
   OS that causes it to perform some destructive or
   security-compromising activity whenever specified conditions are
   met.  Compare {back door}.

logical: [from the technical term `logical device', wherein a
   physical device is referred to by an arbitrary `logical' name]
   adj.  Having the role of.  If a person (say, Les Earnest at SAIL)
   who had long held a certain post left and were replaced, the
   replacement would for a while be known as the `logical' Les
   Earnest.  (This does not imply any judgment on the replacement.)
   Compare {virtual}.

   At Stanford, `logical' compass directions denote a coordinate
   system in which `logical north' is toward San Francisco,
   `logical west' is toward the ocean, etc., even though logical
   north varies between physical (true) north near San Francisco and
   physical west near San Jose.  (The best rule of thumb here is that,
   by definition, El Camino Real always runs logical north-and-south.)
   In giving directions, one might say: "To get to Rincon Tarasco
   restaurant, get onto {El Camino Bignum} going logical north."
   Using the word `logical' helps to prevent the recipient from
   worrying about that the fact that the sun is setting almost
   directly in front of him.  The concept is reinforced by North
   American highways which are almost, but not quite, consistently
   labeled with logical rather than physical directions.  A similar
   situation exists at MIT.  Route 128 (famous for the electronics
   industry that has grown up along it) is a 3-quarters circle
   surrounding Boston at a radius of 10 miles, terminating near the
   coastline at each end.  It would be most precise to describe the
   two directions along this highway as `clockwise' and
   `counterclockwise', but the road signs all say "north" and
   "south", respectively.  A hacker might describe these directions
   as `logical north' and `logical south', to indicate that they
   are conventional directions not corresponding to the usual
   denotation for those words.  (If you went logical south along the
   entire length of route 128, you would start out going northwest,
   curve around to the south, and finish headed due east!)

loop through: vt. To process each element of a list of things.
   "Hold on, I've got to loop through my paper mail."  Derives from
   the computer-language notion of an iterative loop; compare `cdr
   down' (under {cdr}), which is less common among C and UNIX
   programmers.  ITS hackers used to say `IRP over' after an
   obscure pseudo-op in the MIDAS PDP-10 assembler.

lord high fixer: [primarily British, from Gilbert & Sullivan's
   `lord high executioner'] n. The person in an organization who knows
   the most about some aspect of a system.  See {wizard}.

lose: [MIT] vi. 1. To fail.  A program loses when it encounters
   an exceptional condition or fails to work in the expected manner.
   2. To be exceptionally unesthetic or crocky.  3. Of people, to
   be obnoxious or unusually stupid (as opposed to ignorant).  See
   also {deserves to lose}.  4. n. Refers to something that is
   {losing}, especially in the phrases "That's a lose!" and "What
   a lose!"

lose lose: interj. A reply to or comment on an undesirable
   situation.  "I accidentally deleted all my files!"  "Lose,
   lose."

loser: n. An unexpectedly bad situation, program, programmer, or
   person.  Someone who habitually loses.  (Even winners can lose
   occasionally.)  Someone who knows not and knows not that he knows
   not.  Emphatic forms are `real loser', `total loser', and
   `complete loser' (but not *`moby loser', which would be a
   contradiction in terms).  See {luser}.

losing: adj. Said of anything that is or causes a {lose} or
   {lossage}.

loss: n. Something (not a person) that loses; a situation in which
   something is losing.  Emphatic forms include `moby loss', and
   `total loss', `complete loss'.  Common interjections are
   "What a loss!"  and "What a moby loss!"  Note that `moby loss'
   is OK even though `moby loser' is not used; applied to an abstract
   noun, moby is simply a magnifier, whereas when applied to a person
   it implies substance and has positive connotations.  Compare
   {lossage}.

lossage: /los'*j/ n. The result of a bug or malfunction.  This
   is a mass or collective noun.  "What a loss!" and "What
   lossage!"  are nearly synonymous.  The former is slightly more
   particular to the speaker's present circumstances; the latter
   implies a continuing {lose} of which the speaker is currently
   a victim.  Thus (for example) a temporary hardware failure is a loss,
   but bugs in an important tool (like a compiler) are serious
   lossage.

lost in the noise: adj. Syn. {lost in the underflow}.  This term
   is from signal processing, where signals of very small amplitude
   cannot be separated from low-intensity noise in the system.  Though
   popular among hackers, it is not confined to hackerdom; physicists,
   engineers, astronomers, and statisticians all use it.

lost in the underflow: adj. Too small to be worth considering;
   more specifically, small beyond the limits of accuracy or
   measurement.  This is a reference to `floating underflow', a
   condition that can occur when a floating-point arithmetic processor
   tries to handle quantities smaller than its limit of magnitude.  It
   is also a pun on `undertow' (a kind of fast, cold current that
   sometimes runs just offshore and can be dangerous to swimmers).
   "Well, sure, photon pressure from the stadium lights alters the
   path of a thrown baseball, but that effect gets lost in the
   underflow."  See also {overflow bit}.

lots of MIPS but no I/O: adj. Used to describe a person who is
   technically brilliant but can't seem to communicate with human
   beings effectively.  Technically it describes a machine that has
   lots of processing power but is bottlenecked on input-output (in
   1991, the IBM Rios, a.k.a. RS/6000, is a notorious recent
   example).

low-bandwidth: [from communication theory] adj. Used to indicate a
   talk that, although not {content-free}, was not terribly
   informative.  "That was a low-bandwidth talk, but what can you
   expect for an audience of {suit}s!"  Compare {zero-content},
   {bandwidth}, {math-out}.

LPT: /L-P-T/ or /lip'it/ or /lip-it'/ [MIT, via DEC] n.  Line
   printer, of course.  Rare under UNIX, commoner in hackers with
   MS-DOS or CP/M background.  The printer device is called
   `LPT:' on those systems that, like ITS, were strongly
   influenced by early DEC conventions.

lunatic fringe: [IBM] n. Customers who can be relied upon to accept
   release 1 versions of software.

lurker: n. One of the `silent majority' in a electronic forum;
   one who posts occasionally or not at all but is known to read the
   group's postings regularly.  This term is not pejorative and indeed
   is casually used reflexively: "Oh, I'm just lurking."  Often used
   in `the lurkers', the hypothetical audience for the group's
   {flamage}-emitting regulars.

luser: /loo'zr/ n. A {user}; esp. one who is also a {loser}.
   ({luser} and {loser} are pronounced identically.)  This word
   was coined around 1975 at MIT.  Under ITS, when you first walked up
   to a terminal at MIT and typed Control-Z to get the computer's
   attention, it printed out some status information, including how
   many people were already using the computer; it might print
   "14 users", for example.  Someone thought it would be a great joke to
   patch the system to print "14 losers" instead.  There ensued a
   great controversy, as some of the users didn't particularly want to
   be called losers to their faces every time they used the computer.
   For a while several hackers struggled covertly, each changing the
   message behind the back of the others; any time you logged into the
   computer it was even money whether it would say "users" or
   "losers".  Finally, someone tried the compromise "lusers", and it
   stuck.  Later one of the ITS machines supported `luser' as a
   request-for-help command.  ITS died the death in mid-1990, except
   as a museum piece; the usage lives on, however, and the term
   `luser' is often seen in program comments.

= M =

M: [SI] pref. (on units) suff. (on numbers) See {{quantifiers}}.

macdink: /mak'dink/ [from the Apple Macintosh, which is said to
   encourage such behavior] vt. To make many incremental and
   unnecessary cosmetic changes to a program or file.  Often the
   subject of the macdinking would be better off without them.
   "When I left at 11 P.M. last night, he was still macdinking the
   slides for his presentation."  See also {fritterware}.

machinable: adj. Machine-readable.  Having the {softcopy} nature.

machoflops: /mach'oh-flops/ [pun on `megaflops', a coinage for
   `millions of FLoating-point Operations Per Second'] n. Refers to
   artificially inflated performance figures often quoted by computer
   manufacturers.  Real applications are lucky to get half the quoted
   speed. See {Your mileage may vary}, {benchmark}.

Macintoy: /mak'in-toy/ n. The Apple Macintosh, considered as a
   {toy}.  Less pejorative than {Macintrash}.

Macintrash: /mak'in-trash`/ n. The Apple Macintosh, as described
   by a hacker who doesn't appreciate being kept away from the
   *real computer* by the interface.  The term {maggotbox} has
   been reported in regular use in the Research Triangle area of North
   Carolina.  Compare {Macintoy}. See also {beige toaster},
   {WIMP environment}, {drool-proof paper}, {user-friendly}.

macro: /mak'roh/ [techspeak] n. A name (possibly followed by a
   formal {arg} list) that is equated to a text or symbolic
   expression to which it is to be expanded (possibly with the
   substitution of actual arguments) by a macro expander.  This
   definition can be found in any technical dictionary; what those
   won't tell you is how the hackish connotations of the term have
   changed over time.

   The term `macro' originated in early assemblers, which encouraged
   the use of macros as a structuring and information-hiding device.
   During the early 1970s, macro assemblers became ubiquitous, and
   sometimes quite as powerful and expensive as {HLL}s, only to fall
   from favor as improving compiler technology marginalized assembler
   programming (see {languages of choice}).  Nowadays the term is
   most often used in connection with the C preprocessor, LISP, or one
   of several special-purpose languages built around a macro-expansion
   facility (such as TeX or UNIX's [nt]roff suite).

   Indeed, the meaning has drifted enough that the collective
   `macros' is now sometimes used for code in any special-purpose
   application control language (whether or not the language is
   actually translated by text expansion), and for macro-like entities
   such as the `keyboard macros' supported in some text editors
   (and PC TSR or Macintosh INIT/CDEV keyboard enhancers).

macro-: pref. Large.  Opposite of {micro-}.  In the mainstream
   and among other technical cultures (for example, medical people)
   this competes with the prefix {mega-}, but hackers tend to
   restrict the latter to quantification.

macrology: /mak-rol'*-jee/ n. 1. Set of usually complex or crufty
   macros, e.g., as part of a large system written in {LISP},
   {TECO}, or (less commonly) assembler.  2. The art and science
   involved in comprehending a macrology in sense 1.  Sometimes
   studying the macrology of a system is not unlike archeology,
   ecology, or {theology}, hence the sound-alike construction.  See
   also {boxology}.

macrotape: /ma'kroh-tayp/ n. An industry-standard reel of tape, as
   opposed to a {microtape}.

maggotbox: /mag'*t-boks/ n. See {Macintrash}.  This is even
   more derogatory.

magic: adj. 1. As yet unexplained, or too complicated to explain;
   compare {automagically} and (Arthur C.) Clarke's Third Law:
   "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from
   magic."  "TTY echoing is controlled by a large number of magic
   bits."  "This routine magically computes the parity of an 8-bit
   byte in three instructions."  2. Characteristic of something that
   works although no one really understands why (this is especially called
   {black magic}).  3. [Stanford] A feature not generally
   publicized that allows something otherwise impossible, or a feature
   formerly in that category but now unveiled.  Compare {black
   magic}, {wizardly}, {deep magic}, {heavy wizardry}.

   For more about hackish `magic', see appendix A.

magic cookie: [UNIX] n. 1. Something passed between routines or
   programs that enables the receiver to perform some operation; a
   capability ticket or opaque identifier.  Especially used of small
   data objects that contain data encoded in a strange or
   intrinsically machine-dependent way.  E.g., on non-UNIX OSes with a
   non-byte-stream model of files, the result of `ftell(3)' may
   be a magic cookie rather than a byte offset; it can be passed to
   `fseek(3)', but not operated on in any meaningful way.  The
   phrase `it hands you a magic cookie' means it returns a result
   whose contents are not defined but which can be passed back to the
   same or some other program later.  2. An in-band code for
   changing graphic rendition (e.g., inverse video or underlining) or
   performing other control functions.  Some older terminals would
   leave a blank on the screen corresponding to mode-change magic
   cookies; this was also called a {glitch}.  See also {cookie}.

magic number: [UNIX/C] n. 1. In source code, some non-obvious
   constant whose value is significant to the operation of a program
   and that is inserted inconspicuously in-line ({hardcoded}),
   rather than expanded in by a symbol set by a commented
   `#define'.  Magic numbers in this sense are bad style.  2. A
   number that encodes critical information used in an algorithm in
   some opaque way.  The classic examples of these are the numbers
   used in hash or CRC functions, or the coefficients in a linear
   congruential generator for pseudo-random numbers.  This sense
   actually predates and was ancestral to the more common sense 1.
   3. Special data located at the beginning of a binary data file to
   indicate its type to a utility.  Under UNIX, the system and various
   applications programs (especially the linker) distinguish between
   types of executable file by looking for a magic number.  Once upon
   a time, these magic numbers were PDP-11 branch instructions that
   skipped over header data to the start of executable code; the 0407,
   for example, was octal for `branch 16 bytes relative'.  Nowadays
   only a {wizard} knows the spells to create magic numbers.  How do
   you choose a fresh magic number of your own?  Simple --- you pick
   one at random.  See?  It's magic!

magic smoke: n. A substance trapped inside IC packages that enables
   them to function (also called `blue smoke'; this is similar to
   the archaic `phlogiston' hypothesis about combustion).  Its
   existence is demonstrated by what happens when a chip burns up ---
   the magic smoke gets let out, so it doesn't work any more.  See
   {smoke test}, {let the smoke out}.

   USENETter Jay Maynard tells the following story: "Once, while
   hacking on a dedicated Z80 system, I was testing code by blowing
   EPROMs and plugging them in the system, then seeing what happened.
   One time, I plugged one in backwards.  I only discovered that
   *after* I realized that Intel didn't put power-on lights under
   the quartz windows on the tops of their EPROMs --- the die was
   glowing white-hot.  Amazingly, the EPROM worked fine after I erased
   it, filled it full of zeros, then erased it again.  For all I know,
   it's still in service.  Of course, this is because the magic smoke
   didn't get let out."  Compare the original phrasing of {Murphy's
   Law}.

mailing list: n. (often shortened in context to `list') 1. An
   {email} address that is an alias (or {macro}, though that word
   is never used in this connection) for many other email addresses.
   Some mailing lists are simple `reflectors', redirecting mail sent
   to them to the list of recipients.  Others are filtered by humans
   or programs of varying degrees of sophistication; lists filtered by
   humans are said to be `moderated'.  2. The people who receive
   your email when you send it to such an address.

   Mailing lists are one of the primary forms of hacker interaction,
   along with {USENET}.  They predate USENET, having originated
   with the first UUCP and ARPANET connections.  They are often used
   for private information-sharing on topics that would be too
   specialized for or inappropriate to public USENET groups.  Though
   some of these maintain purely technical content (such as the
   Internet Engineering Task Force mailing list), others (like the
   `sf-lovers' list maintained for many years by Saul Jaffe) are
   recreational, and others are purely social.  Perhaps the most
   infamous of the social lists was the eccentric bandykin
   distribution; its latter-day progeny, lectroids and
   tanstaafl, still include a number of the oddest and most
   interesting people in hackerdom.

   Mailing lists are easy to create and (unlike USENET) don't tie up a
   significant amount of machine resources.  Thus, they are often
   created temporarily by working groups, the members of which can
   then collaborate on a project without ever needing to meet
   face-to-face.  Much of the material in this book was criticized and
   polished on just such a mailing list (called `jargon-friends'),
   which included all the co-authors of Steele-1983.

main loop: n. Software tools are often written to perform some
   actions repeatedly on whatever input is handed to them, terminating
   when there is no more input or they are explicitly told to go away.
   In such programs, the loop that gets and processes input is called
   the `main loop'.  See also {driver}.

mainframe: n. This term originally referred to the cabinet
   containing the central processor unit or `main frame' of a
   room-filling {Stone Age} batch machine.  After the emergence of
   smaller `minicomputer' designs in the early 1970s, the
   traditional {big iron} machines were described as `mainframe
   computers' and eventually just as mainframes.  The term carries the
   connotation of a machine designed for batch rather than interactive
   use, though possibly with an interactive timesharing operating
   system retrofitted onto it; it is especially used of machines built
   by IBM, Unisys, and the other great {dinosaur}s surviving from
   computing's {Stone Age}.

   It is common wisdom among hackers that the mainframe architectural
   tradition is essentially dead (outside of the tiny market for
   {number-crunching} supercomputers (see {cray})), having been
   swamped by the recent huge advances in IC technology and low-cost
   personal computing.  As of 1991, corporate America hasn't quite
   figured this out yet, though the wave of failures, takeovers, and
   mergers among traditional mainframe makers are certainly straws in
   the wind (see {dinosaurs mating}).

management: n. 1. Corporate power elites distinguished primarily by
   their distance from actual productive work and their chronic
   failure to manage (see also {suit}).  Spoken derisively, as in
   "*Management* decided that ...".  2. Mythically, a vast
   bureaucracy responsible for all the world's minor irritations.
   Hackers' satirical public notices are often signed `The Mgt'; this
   derives from the `Illuminatus' novels (see the Bibliography).

mandelbug: /mon'del-buhg/ [from the Mandelbrot set] n. A bug
   whose underlying causes are so complex and obscure as to make its
   behavior appear chaotic or even non-deterministic.  This term
   implies that the speaker thinks it is a {Bohr bug}, rather than a
   {heisenbug}.

manged: /monjd/ [probably from the French `manger' or Italian
   `mangiare', to eat; perhaps influenced by English n. `mange',
   `mangy'] adj. Refers to anything that is mangled or damaged,
   usually beyond repair.  "The disk was manged after the electrical
   storm."  Compare {mung}.

mangle: vt. Used similarly to {mung} or {scribble}, but more violent
   in its connotations; something that is mangled has been
   irreversibly and totally trashed.

mangler: [DEC] n. A manager.  Compare {mango}; see also
   {management}.  Note that {system mangler} is somewhat different
   in connotation.

mango: /mang'go/ [orig. in-house jargon at Symbolics] n. A manager.
   Compare {mangler}.  See also {devo} and {doco}.

marbles: [from mainstream "lost all his/her marbles"] pl.n. The
   minimum needed to build your way further up some hierarchy of tools
   or abstractions.  After a bad system crash, you need to determine
   if the machine has enough marbles to come up on its own, or enough
   marbles to allow a rebuild from backups, or if you need to rebuild
   from scratch.  "This compiler doesn't even have enough marbles to
   compile `Hello World'."

marginal: adj. 1. Extremely small.  "A marginal increase in
   {core} can decrease {GC} time drastically."  In everyday
   terms, this means that it is a lot easier to clean off your desk if
   you have a spare place to put some of the junk while you sort
   through it.  2. Of extremely small merit.  "This proposed new
   feature seems rather marginal to me."  3. Of extremely small
   probability of {win}ning.  "The power supply was rather marginal
   anyway; no wonder it fried."

Marginal Hacks: n. Margaret Jacks Hall, a building into which the
   Stanford AI Lab was moved near the beginning of the 1980s (from the
   {D. C. Power Lab}).

marginally: adv. Slightly.  "The ravs here are only marginally
   better than at Small Eating Place."  See {epsilon}.

marketroid: /mar'k*-troyd/ alt. `marketing slime',
   `marketing droid', `marketeer' n. A member of a company's
   marketing department, esp. one who promises users that the next
   version of a product will have features that are not actually
   scheduled for inclusion, are extremely difficult to implement,
   and/or are in violation of the laws of physics; and/or one who
   describes existing features (and misfeatures) in ebullient,
   buzzword-laden adspeak.  Derogatory.  Compare {droid}.

Mars: n. A legendary tragic failure, the archetypal Hacker Dream
   Gone Wrong.  Mars was the code name for a family of PDP-10
   compatible computers built by Systems Concepts (now, The SC Group);
   the multi-processor SC-30M, the small uniprocessor SC-25M, and the
   never-built superprocessor SC-40M.  These machines were marvels of
   engineering design; although not much slower than the unique
   {Foonly} F-1, they were physically smaller and consumed less
   power than the much slower DEC KS10 or Foonly F-2, F-3, or F-4
   machines.  They were slso completely compatible with the DEC KL10,
   and ran all KL10 binaries, including the operating system, with no
   modifications at about 2--3 times faster than a KL10.
   
   When DEC cancelled the Jupiter project in 1983, Systems Concepts
   should have made a bundle selling their machine into shops with a
   lot of software investment in PDP-10s, and in fact their spring
   1984 announcement generated a great deal of excitement in the
   PDP-10 world.  TOPS-10 was running on the Mars by the summer of
   1984, and TOPS-20 by early fall.  Unfortunately, the hackers
   running Systems Concepts were much better at designing machines
   than in mass producing or selling them; the company allowed itself
   to be sidetracked by a bout of perfectionism into continually
   improving the design, and lost credibility as delivery dates
   continued to slip.  They also overpriced the product ridiculously;
   they believed they were competing with the KL10 and VAX 8600 and
   failed to reckon with the likes of Sun Microsystems and other
   hungry startups building workstations with power comparable to the
   KL10 at a fraction of the price.  By the time SC shipped the first
   SC-30M to Stanford in late 1985, most customers had already made
   the traumatic decision to abandon the PDP-10, usually for VMS or
   UNIX boxes.  Most of the Mars computers built ended up being
   purchased by CompuServe.
   
   This tale and the related saga of Foonly hold a lesson for hackers:
   if you want to play in the Real World, you need to learn Real World
   moves.
   
martian: n. A packet sent on a TCP/IP network with a source
   address of the test loopback interface [127.0.0.1].  This means
   that it will come back at you labeled with a source address that
   is clearly not of this earth.  "The domain server is getting lots
   of packets from Mars.  Does that gateway have a martian filter?"

massage: vt. Vague term used to describe `smooth' transformations of
   a data set into a different form, esp. transformations that do
   not lose information.  Connotes less pain than {munch} or {crunch}.
   "He wrote a program that massages X bitmap files into GIF
   format."  Compare {slurp}.

math-out: [poss. from `white-out' (the blizzard variety)] n. A
   paper or presentation so encrusted with mathematical or other
   formal notation as to be incomprehensible.  This may be a device
   for concealing the fact that it is actually {content-free}.  See
   also {numbers}, {social science number}.

Matrix: [FidoNet] n. 1. What the Opus BBS software and sysops call
   {FidoNet}.  2. Fanciful term for a {cyberspace} expected to
   emerge from current networking experiments (see {network, the}).
   Some people refer to the totality of present networks this way.

Mbogo, Dr. Fred: /*m-boh'goh, dok'tr fred/ [Stanford] n. The
   archetypal man you don't want to see about a problem, esp. an
   incompetent professional; a shyster.  "Do you know a good eye
   doctor?"  "Sure, try Mbogo Eye Care and Professional Dry
   Cleaning."  The name comes from synergy between {bogus} and the
   original Dr. Mbogo, a witch doctor who was Gomez Addams' physician
   on the old "Addams Family" TV show.  See also
   {fred}.

meatware: n. Synonym for {wetware}.  Less common.

meeces: /mees'*z/ [TMRC] n. Occasional furry visitors who are not
   {urchin}s.  [That is, mice. This may no longer be in live use; it
   clearly derives from the refrain of the early-1960s cartoon character
   Mr. Jinx: "I hate meeces to *pieces*!" --- ESR]

meg: /meg/ n. See {{quantifiers}}.

mega-: /me'g*/ [SI] pref. See {{quantifiers}}.

megapenny: /meg'*-pen`ee/ n. $10,000 (1 cent * 10^6).
   Used semi-humorously as a unit in comparing computer cost and
   performance figures.

MEGO: /me'goh/ or /mee'goh/ [`My Eyes Glaze Over', often `Mine Eyes
   Glazeth (sic) Over', attributed to the futurologist Herman Kahn]
   Also `MEGO factor'.  1. n. A {handwave} intended to confuse the
   listener and hopefully induce agreement because the listener does
   not want to admit to not understanding what is going on.  MEGO is
   usually directed at senior management by engineers and contains a
   high proportion of {TLA}s.  2. excl. An appropriate response to
   MEGO tactics.  3. Among non-hackers this term often refers not to
   behavior that causes the eyes to glaze, but to the eye-glazing
   reaction itself, which may be triggered by the mere threat of
   technical detail as effectively as by an actual excess of it.

meltdown, network: n.  See {network meltdown}.

meme: /meem/ [coined on analogy with `gene' by Richard
   Dawkins] n. An idea considered as a {replicator}, esp. with
   the connotation that memes parasitize people into propagating them
   much as viruses do.  Used esp. in the phrase `meme complex'
   denoting a group of mutually supporting memes that form an
   organized belief system, such as a religion.  This lexicon is an
   (epidemiological) vector of the `hacker subculture' meme complex;
   each entry might be considered a meme.  However, `meme' is often
   misused to mean `meme complex'.  Use of the term connotes
   acceptance of the idea that in humans (and presumably other tool-
   and language-using sophonts) cultural evolution by selection of
   adaptive ideas has superseded biological evolution by selection of
   hereditary traits.  Hackers find this idea congenial for tolerably
   obvious reasons.

meme plague: n. The spread of a successful but pernicious {meme},
   esp. one that parasitizes the victims into giving their all to
   propagate it.  Astrology, BASIC, and the other guy's religion are
   often considered to be examples.  This usage is given point by the
   historical fact that `joiner' ideologies like Naziism or various
   forms of millennarian Christianity have exhibited plague-like cycles
   of exponential growth followed by collapses to small reservoir
   populations.

memetics: /me-met'iks/ [from {meme}] The study of memes.  As of
   mid-1991, this is still an extremely informal and speculative
   endeavor, though the first steps towards at least statistical rigor
   have been made by H. Keith Henson and others.  Memetics is a
   popular topic for speculation among hackers, who like to see
   themselves as the architects of the new information ecologies in
   which memes live and replicate.

memory leak: n. An error in a program's dynamic-store allocation
   logic that causes it to fail to reclaim discarded memory, leading
   to eventual collapse due to memory exhaustion.  Also (esp. at
   CMU) called {core leak}.  See {aliasing bug}, {fandango on
   core}, {smash the stack}, {precedence lossage}, {overrun
   screw}, {leaky heap}, {leak}.

menuitis: /men`yoo-i:'tis/ n. Notional disease suffered by software
   with an obsessively simple-minded menu interface and no escape.
   Hackers find this intensely irritating and much prefer the
   flexibility of command-line or language-style interfaces,
   especially those customizable via macros or a special-purpose
   language in which one can encode useful hacks.  See
   {user-obsequious}, {drool-proof paper}, {WIMP environment},
   {for the rest of us}.

mess-dos: /mes-dos/ n. Derisory term for MS-DOS.  Often followed
   by the ritual banishing "Just say No!"  See {{MS-DOS}}.  Most
   hackers (even many MS-DOS hackers) loathe MS-DOS for its
   single-tasking nature, its limits on application size, its nasty
   primitive interface, and its ties to IBMness (see {fear and
   loathing}).  Also `mess-loss', `messy-dos', `mess-dog',
   `mess-dross', `mush-dos', and various combinations thereof.  In
   Ireland and the U.K. it is even sometimes called `Domestos' after a
   brand of toilet cleanser.

meta: /me't*/ or /may't*/ or (Commonwealth) /mee't*/ [from
   analytic philosophy] adj.,pref. One level of description up.
   A meta-syntactic variable is a variable in notation used to describe
   syntax, and meta-language is language used to describe language.
   This is difficult to explain briefly, but much hacker humor turns
   on deliberate confusion between meta-levels.  See {{Humor,
   Hacker}}.

meta bit: n. The top bit of an 8-bit character, which is on in
   character values 128--255.  Also called {high bit}, {alt bit},
   or {hobbit}.  Some terminals and consoles (see {space-cadet
   keyboard}) have a META shift key.  Others (including,
   *mirabile dictu*, keyboards on IBM PC-class machines) have an
   ALT key.  See also {bucky bits}.

MFTL: /M-F-T-L/ [acronym: `My Favorite Toy Language'] 1. adj.
   Describes a talk on a programming language design that is heavy on
   the syntax (with lots of BNF), sometimes even talks about semantics
   (e.g., type systems), but rarely, if ever, has any content (see
   {content-free}).  More broadly applied to talks --- even when
   the topic is not a programming language --- in which the subject
   matter is gone into in unnecessary and meticulous detail at the
   sacrifice of any conceptual content.  "Well, it was a typical MFTL
   talk".  2. n. Describes a language about which the developers are
   passionate (often to the point of prosyletic zeal) but no one else
   cares about.  Applied to the language by those outside the
   originating group.  "He cornered me about type resolution in his
   MFTL."

   The first great goal in the mind of the designer of an MFTL is
   usually to write a compiler for it, then bootstrap the design away
   from contamination by lesser languages by writing a compiler for it
   in itself.  Thus, the standard put-down question at an MFTL talk is
   "Has it been used for anything besides its own compiler?".  On
   the other hand, a language that *cannot* be used to write
   its own compiler is beneath contempt...

mickey: n. The resolution unit of mouse movement.  It has been
   suggested that the `disney' will become a benchmark unit for
   animation graphics performance.

mickey mouse program: n. North American equivalent of a {noddy}
   (that is, trivial) program.  Doesn't necessarily have the
   belittling connotations of mainstream slang "Oh, that's just
   mickey mouse stuff!"; sometimes trivial programs can be very
   useful.

micro-: pref. 1. Very small; this is the root of its use as a
   quantifier prefix.  2. A quantifier prefix, calling for
   multiplication by 10^{-6} (see {{quantifiers}}).  Neither
   of these uses is peculiar to hackers, but hackers tend to fling
   them both around rather more freely than is countenanced in
   standard English.  It is recorded, for example, that one
   CS professor used to characterize the standard length of his
   lectures as a microcentury --- that is, about 52.6 minutes (see
   also {attoparsec}, {nanoacre}, and especially
   {microfortnight}).  3. Personal or human-scale --- that is,
   capable of being maintained or comprehended or manipulated by one
   human being.  This sense is generalized from `microcomputer',
   and is esp. used in contrast with `macro-' (the corresponding
   Greek prefix meaning `large').  4. Local as opposed to global (or
   {macro-}).  Thus a hacker might say that buying a smaller car to
   reduce pollution only solves a microproblem; the macroproblem of
   getting to work might be better solved by using mass transit,
   moving to within walking distance, or (best of all) telecommuting.
   

microfloppies: n. 3.5-inch floppies, as opposed to 5.25-inch
   {vanilla} or mini-floppies and the now-obsolete 8-inch variety.
   This term may be headed for obsolescence as 5.25-inchers pass out
   of use, only to be revived if anybody floats a sub-3-inch floppy
   standard.  See {stiffy}, {minifloppies}.

microfortnight: n. About 1.2 sec. The VMS operating system has a
   lot of tuning parameters that you can set with the SYSGEN utility,
   and one of these is TIMEPROMPTWAIT, the time the system will wait
   for an operator to set the correct date and time at boot if it
   realizes that the current value is bogus.  This time is specified
   in microfortnights!

   Multiple uses of the millifortnight (about 20 minutes) and
   {nanofortnight} have also been reported.

microLenat: /mi:-kroh-len'-*t/ n. See {bogosity}.

microReid: /mi:'kroh-reed/ n. See {bogosity}.

Microsloth Windows: /mi:'kroh-sloth` win'dohz/ n. Hackerism for
   `Microsoft Windows', a windowing system for the IBM-PC which is so
   limited by bug-for-bug compatibility with {mess-dos} that it is
   agonizingly slow on anything less than a fast 386.  Compare {X},
   {sun-stools}.

microtape: /mi:'kroh-tayp/ n. Occasionally used to mean a
   DECtape, as opposed to a {macrotape}.  A DECtape is a small
   reel, about 4 inches in diameter, of magnetic tape about an inch
   wide.  Unlike drivers for today's {macrotape}s, microtape
   drivers allow random access to the data, and therefore could be
   used to support file systems and even for swapping (this was
   generally done purely for {hack value}, as they were far too
   slow for practical use).  In their heyday they were used in pretty
   much the same ways one would now use a floppy disk: as a small,
   portable way to save and transport files and programs.  Apparently
   the term `microtape' was actually the official term used within
   DEC for these tapes until someone coined the word `DECtape',
   which, of course, sounded sexier to the {marketroid}s.

middle-endian: adj. Not {big-endian} or {little-endian}.
   Used of perverse byte orders such as 3-4-1-2 or 2-1-4-3,
   occasionally found in the packed-decimal formats of minicomputer
   manufacturers who shall remain nameless.  See {NUXI problem}.

milliLampson: /mil'*-lamp`sn/ n. A unit of talking speed,
   abbreviated mL.  Most people run about 200 milliLampsons.  Butler
   Lampson (a CS theorist and systems implementor highly regarded
   among hackers) goes at 1000.  A few people speak faster.  This unit
   is sometimes used to compare the (sometimes widely disparate) rates
   at which people can generate ideas and actually emit them in
   speech.  For example, noted computer architect C. Gordon Bell
   (designer of the PDP-11) is said, with some awe, to think at about
   1200 mL but only talk at about 300; he is frequently reduced to
   fragments of sentences as his mouth tries to keep up with his
   speeding brain.

minifloppies: n. 5.25-inch {vanilla} floppy disks, as opposed to
   3.5-inch or {microfloppies} and the now-obsolescent 8-inch
   variety.  At one time, this term was a trademark of Shugart
   Associates for their SA-400 minifloppy drive.  Nobody paid any
   attention.  See {stiffy}.

MIPS: /mips/ [acronym] n. 1. A measure of computing speed;
   formally, `Million Instructions Per Second' (that's 10^6
   per second, not 2^{20}!); often rendered by hackers as
   `Meaningless Indication of Processor Speed' or in other
   unflattering ways.  This joke expresses a nearly universal attitude
   about the value of most {benchmark} claims, said attitude being
   one of the great cultural divides between hackers and
   {marketroid}s.  The singular is sometimes `1 MIP' even though
   this is clearly etymologically wrong.  See also {KIPS} and
   {GIPS}.  2. Computers, especially large computers, considered
   abstractly as sources of {computron}s.  "This is just a
   workstation; the heavy MIPS are hidden in the basement."  3. The
   corporate name of a particular RISC-chip company; among other
   things, they designed the processor chips used in DEC's 3100
   workstation series.  4. Acronym for `Meaningless Information per
   Second' (a joke, prob. from sense 1).

misbug: /mis-buhg/ [MIT] n. An unintended property of a program
   that turns out to be useful; something that should have been a
   {bug} but turns out to be a {feature}.  Usage: rare.  Compare
   {green lightning}. See {miswart}.

misfeature: /mis-fee'chr/ or /mis'fee`chr/ n. A feature that
   eventually causes lossage, possibly because it is not adequate for
   a new situation which has evolved.  It is not the same as a bug,
   because fixing it involves a substantial philosophical change to
   the structure of the system involved.  A misfeature is different
   from a simple unforeseen side effect; the term implies that the
   misfeature was actually carefully planned to be that way, but
   its future consequences or circumstances just weren't predicted
   accurately.  This is different from just not having thought ahead
   about it at all.  Many misfeatures (especially in user-interface
   design) arise because the designers/implementors mistook their
   personal tastes for laws of nature.  Often a former feature becomes
   a misfeature because a tradeoff was made whose parameters
   subsequently changed (possibly only in the judgment of the
   implementors).  "Well, yeah, it is kind of a misfeature that file
   names are limited to 6 characters, but the original implementors
   wanted to save directory space and we're stuck with it for now."

Missed'em-five: n. Pejorative hackerism for AT&T System V UNIX,
   generally used by {BSD} partisans in a bigoted mood.  (The
   synonym `SysVile' is also encountered.)  See {software bloat},
   {Berzerkeley}.

miswart: /mis-wort/ [from {wart} by analogy with {misbug}] n.
   A {feature} that superficially appears to be a {wart} but has been
   determined to be the {Right Thing}.  For example, in some versions
   of the {EMACS} text editor, the `transpose characters' command
   exchanges the two characters on either side of the cursor on the
   screen, *except* when the cursor is at the end of a line, in
   which case the two characters before the cursor are exchanged.
   While this behavior is perhaps surprising, and certainly
   inconsistent, it has been found through extensive experimentation
   to be what most users want.  This feature is a miswart.

moby: /moh'bee/ [MIT: seems to have been in use among model
   railroad fans years ago.  Derived from Melville's `Moby Dick' (some
   say from `Moby Pickle').] 1. adj. Large, immense, complex,
   impressive.  "A Saturn V rocket is a truly moby frob."  "Some
   MIT undergrads pulled off a moby hack at the Harvard-Yale game."
   (See appendix A).  2. n. obs. The maximum address space of a
   machine (see below).  For a 680[234]0 or VAX or most modern 32-bit
   architectures, it is 4,294,967,296 8-bit bytes (4 gigabytes).  3. A
   title of address (never of third-person reference), usually used to
   show admiration, respect, and/or friendliness to a competent
   hacker.  "Greetings, moby Dave.  How's that address-book thing for
   the Mac going?"  4. adj. In backgammon, doubles on the dice, as in
   `moby sixes', `moby ones', etc.  Compare this with
   {bignum} (sense 2): double sixes are both bignums and moby
   sixes, but moby ones are not bignums (the use of `moby' to
   describe double ones is sarcastic).  Standard emphatic forms:
   `Moby foo', `moby win', `moby loss'.  `Foby moo': a
   spoonerism due to Richard Greenblatt.

   This term entered hackerdom with the Fabritek 256K memory added to
   the MIT AI PDP-6 machine, which was considered unimaginably huge
   when it was installed in the 1960s (at a time when a more typical
   memory size for a timesharing system was 72 kilobytes).  Thus, a
   moby is classically 256K 36-bit words, the size of a PDP-6 or
   PDP-10 moby.  Back when address registers were narrow the term was
   more generally useful, because when a computer had virtual memory
   mapping, it might actually have more physical memory attached to it
   than any one program could access directly.  One could then say
   "This computer has 6 mobies" meaning that the ratio of physical
   memory to address space is 6, without having to say specifically
   how much memory there actually is.  That in turn implied that the
   computer could timeshare six `full-sized' programs without having to
   swap programs between memory and disk.

   Nowadays the low cost of processor logic means that address spaces
   are usually larger than the most physical memory you can cram onto
   a machine, so most systems have much *less* than one theoretical
   `native' moby of core.  Also, more modern memory-management
   techniques (esp. paging) make the `moby count' less significant.
   However, there is one series of popular chips for which the term
   could stand to be revived --- the Intel 8088 and 80286 with their
   incredibly {brain-damaged} segmented-memory designs.  On these, a
   `moby' would be the 1-megabyte address span of a segment/offset
   pair (by coincidence, a PDP-10 moby was exactly 1 megabyte of 9-bit
   bytes).

mod: vt.,n. 1. Short for `modify' or `modification'.  Very
   commonly used --- in fact the full terms are considered markers
   that one is being formal.  The plural `mods' is used esp. with
   reference to bug fixes or minor design changes in hardware or
   software, most esp. with respect to {patch} sets or a {diff}.
   2. Short for {modulo} but used *only* for its techspeak sense.

mode: n. A general state, usually used with an adjective
   describing the state.  Use of the word `mode' rather than
   `state' implies that the state is extended over time, and
   probably also that some activity characteristic of that state is
   being carried out. "No time to hack; I'm in thesis mode."  In its
   jargon sense, `mode' is most often attributed to people, though it is
   sometimes applied to programs and inanimate objects. In particular,
   see {hack mode}, {day mode}, {night mode}, {demo mode},
   {fireworks mode}, and {yoyo mode}; also {talk
   mode}.

   One also often hears the verbs `enable' and `disable' used in
   connection with jargon modes.  Thus, for example, a sillier way of
   saying "I'm going to crash" is "I'm going to enable crash mode
   now".  One might also hear a request to "disable flame mode,
   please".

mode bit: n. A {flag}, usually in hardware, that selects between
   two (usually quite different) modes of operation.  The connotations
   are different from {flag} bit in that mode bits are mainly
   written during a boot or set-up phase, are seldom explicitly read,
   and seldom change over the lifetime of an ordinary program.  The
   classic example was the EBCDIC-vs.-ASCII bit (#12) of the Program
   Status Word of the IBM 360.  Another was the bit on a PDP-12 that
   controlled whether it ran the PDP-8 or the LINC instruction set.

modulo: /mo'dyu-loh/ prep. Except for.  From mathematical
   terminology; one can consider saying that 4 = 22 except for
   the 9s (4 = 22 mod 9).  "Well, LISP seems to work okay now,
   modulo that {GC} bug."  "I feel fine today modulo a slight
   headache."

molly-guard: /mol'ee-gard/ [University of Illinois] n. A shield
   to prevent tripping of some {Big Red Switch} by clumsy or
   ignorant hands.  Originally used of some plexiglass covers
   improvised for the BRS on an IBM 4341 after a programmer's toddler
   daughter (named Molly) frobbed it twice in one day.  Later
   generalized to covers over stop/reset switches on disk drives and
   networking equipment.

Mongolian Hordes technique: n. Development by {gang bang}
   (poss. from the Sixties counterculture expression `Mongolian
   clusterfuck' for a public orgy).  Implies that large numbers of
   inexperienced programmers are being put on a job better performed
   by a few skilled ones.  Also called `Chinese Army technique';
   see also {Brooks's Law}.

monkey up: vt. To hack together hardware for a particular task,
   especially a one-shot job.  Connotes an extremely {crufty} and
   consciously temporary solution.  Compare {hack up}, {kluge up},
   {cruft together}, {cruft together}.

monkey, scratch: n.  See {scratch monkey}.

monstrosity: 1. n. A ridiculously {elephantine} program or system,
   esp. one that is buggy or only marginally functional.  2. The
   quality of being monstrous (see `Overgeneralization' in the discussion
   of jargonification).  See also {baroque}.

Moof: /moof/ [MAC users] n. The Moof or `dogcow' is a
   semi-legendary creature that lurks in the depths of the Macintosh
   Technical Notes Hypercard stack V3.1; specifically, the full story
   of the dogcow is told in technical note #31 (the particular Moof
   illustrated is properly named `Clarus').  Option-shift-click will
   cause it to emit a characteristic `Moof!' or `!fooM' sound.
   *Getting* to tech note 31 is the hard part; to discover how
   to do that, one must needs examine the stack script with a hackerly
   eye.  Clue: {rot13} is involved.  A dogcow also appears if you
   choose `Page Setup...' with a LaserWriter selected and click on
   the `Options' button.

Moore's Law: /morz law/ prov. The observation that the logic
   density of silicon integrated circuits has closely followed the
   curve (bits per square inch)  = 2^{(n - 1962)}; that is, the
   amount of information storable in one square inch of silicon has
   roughly doubled yearly every year since the technology was
   invented.  See also {Parkinson's Law of Data}.

moria: /mor'ee-*/ n. Like {nethack} and {rogue}, one of the
   large PD Dungeons-and-Dragons-like simulation games, available for
   a wide range of machines and operating systems.  Extremely
   addictive and a major consumer of time better used for hacking.

MOTAS: /moh-toz/ [USENET: Member Of The Appropriate Sex, after
   {MOTOS} and {MOTSS}] n. A potential or (less often) actual sex
   partner.  See also {SO}.

MOTOS: /moh-tohs/ [acronym from the 1970 U.S. census forms via
   USENET: Member Of The Opposite Sex] n. A potential or (less often)
   actual sex partner.  See {MOTAS}, {MOTSS}, {SO}.  Less
   common than MOTSS or {MOTAS}, which have largely displaced it.

MOTSS: /mots/ or /M-O-T-S-S/ [from the 1970 U.S. census forms
   via USENET, Member Of The Same Sex] n. Esp. one considered as a
   possible sexual partner.  The gay-issues newsgroup on USENET is
   called soc.motss.  See {MOTOS} and {MOTAS}, which derive
   from it.  Also see {SO}.

mouse ahead: vi. Point-and-click analog of `type ahead'.  To
   manipulate a computer's pointing device (almost always a mouse in
   this usage, but not necessarily) and its selection or command
   buttons before a computer program is ready to accept such input, in
   anticipation of the program accepting the input.  Handling this
   properly is rare, but it can help make a {WIMP environment} much
   more usable, assuming the users are familiar with the behavior of the
   user interface.

mouse around: vi. To explore public portions of a large system, esp.
   a network such as Internet via {FTP} or {TELNET}, looking for
   interesting stuff to {snarf}.

mouse belt: n. See {rat belt}.

mouse droppings: [MS-DOS] n. Pixels (usually single) that are not
   properly restored when the mouse pointer moves away from a
   particular location on the screen, producing the appearance that
   the mouse pointer has left droppings behind.  The major causes for
   this problem are programs that write to the screen memory
   corresponding to the mouse pointer's current location without
   hiding the mouse pointer first, and mouse drivers that do not quite
   support the graphics mode in use.

mouse elbow: n. A tennis-elbow-like fatigue syndrome resulting from
   excessive use of a {WIMP environment}.  Similarly, `mouse
   shoulder'; GLS reports that he used to get this a lot before he
   taught himself to be ambimoustrous.

mouso: /mow'soh/ n. [by analogy with `typo'] An error in mouse usage
   resulting in an inappropriate selection or graphic garbage on the
   screen.  Compare {thinko}, {braino}.

MS-DOS:: /M-S-dos/ [MicroSoft Disk Operating System] n. A
   {clone} of {{CP/M}} for the 8088 crufted together in 6 weeks by
   hacker Tim Paterson, who is said to have regretted it ever since.
   Numerous features, including vaguely UNIX-like but rather broken
   support for subdirectories, I/O redirection, and pipelines, were
   hacked into 2.0 and subsequent versions; as a result, there are two
   or more incompatible versions of many system calls, and MS-DOS
   programmers can never agree on basic things like what character to
   use as an option switch or whether to be case-sensitive.  The
   resulting mess is now the highest-unit-volume OS in history.  Often
   known simply as DOS, which annoys people familiar with other
   similarly abbreviated operating systems (the name goes back to the
   mid-1960s, when it was attached to IBM's first disk operating
   system for the 360).  Some people like to pronounce DOS like
   "dose", as in "I don't work on dose, man!", or to compare it
   to a dose of brain-damaging drugs (a slogan button in wide
   circulation among hackers exhorts: "MS-DOS: Just say No!").  See
   {mess-dos}, {ill-behaved}.

mu: /moo/ The correct answer to the classic trick question
   "Have you stopped beating your wife yet?".  Assuming that you
   have no wife or you have never beaten your wife, the answer "yes"
   is wrong because it implies that you used to beat your wife and
   then stopped, but "no" is worse because it suggests that you
   have one and are still beating her.  According to various
   Discordians and Douglas Hofstadter (see the Bibliography), the
   correct answer is usually "mu", a Japanese word alleged to mean
   "Your question cannot be answered because it depends on incorrect
   assumptions".  Hackers tend to be sensitive to logical
   inadequacies in language, and many have adopted this suggestion
   with enthusiasm.  The word `mu' is actually from Chinese, meaning
   `nothing'; it is used in mainstream Japanese in that sense, but
   native speakers do not recognize the Discordian question-denying
   use.  It almost certainly derives from overgeneralization of the
   answer in the following well-known Rinzei Zen teaching riddle:

     A monk asked Joshu, "Does a dog have the Buddha nature?"
     Joshu retorted, "Mu!"

   See also {has the X nature}, {AI Koans}, and Douglas
   Hofstadter's `G"odel, Escher, Bach' (pointer in the
   Bibliography).

MUD: /muhd/ [acronym, Multi-User Dungeon; alt. Multi-User
   Dimension] 1. n.  A class of {virtual reality} experiments
   accessible via the Internet.  These are real-time chat forums with
   structure; they have multiple `locations' like an adventure game,
   and may include combat, traps, puzzles, magic, a simple economic
   system, and the capability for characters to build more structure
   onto the database that represents the existing world.  2. vi. To
   play a MUD (see {hack-and-slay}).  The acronym MUD is often
   lowercased and/or verbed; thus, one may speak of `going
   mudding', etc.

   Historically, MUDs (and their more recent progeny with names of MU-
   form) derive from an AI experiment by Richard Bartle and Roy
   Trubshaw on the University of Essex's DEC-10 in the early 1980s;
   descendants of that game still exist today (see {BartleMUD}).
   The title `MUD' is still trademarked to the commercial MUD run by
   Bartle on British Telecom (the motto: "You haven't *lived*
   'til you've *died* on MUD!"); however, this did not stop
   students on the European academic networks from copying and improving
   on the MUD concept, from which sprung several new MUDs (VAXMUD,
   AberMUD, LPMUD).  Many of these had associated bulletin-board
   systems for social interaction.  Because USENET feeds have been
   spotty and difficult to get in the U.K.  and the British JANET
   network doesn't support {FTP} or remote login via telnet, the
   MUDs became major foci of hackish social interaction there.

   AberMUD and other variants crossed the Atlantic around 1988 and
   quickly gained popularity in the U.S.; they became nuclei for large
   hacker communities with only loose ties to traditional hackerdom
   (some observers see parallels with the growth of USENET in the
   early 1980s).  The second wave of MUDs (TinyMUD and variants)
   tended to emphasize social interaction, puzzles, and cooperative
   world-building as opposed to combat and competition.  In 1991, over
   50% of MUD sites are of a third major variety, LPMUD, which
   synthesizes the combat/puzzle aspects of AberMUD and older systems
   with the extensibility of TinyMud. The trend toward greater
   programmability and flexibility will doubtless continue.

   The state of the art in MUD design is still moving very rapidly,
   with new simulation designs appearing (seemingly) every month.
   There is now (early 1991) a move afoot to deprecate the term
   {MUD} itself, as newer designs exhibit an exploding variety of
   names corresponding to the different simulation styles being
   explored.  See also {BartleMUD}, {berserking}, {bonk/oif},
   {brand brand brand}, {FOD}, {hack-and-slay}, {link-dead},
   {mudhead}, {posing}, {talk mode}, {tinycrud}.

mudhead: n. Commonly used to refer to a {MUD} player who
   sleeps, breathes, and eats MUD.  Mudheads have been known to fail
   their degrees, drop out, etc., with the consolation, however, that
   they made wizard level.  When encountered in person, all a mudhead
   will talk about is two topics: the tactic, character, or wizard
   that is supposedly always unfairly stopping him/her from becoming a
   wizard or beating a favorite MUD, and the MUD he or she is writing
   or going to write because all existing MUDs are so dreadful!  See
   also {wannabee}.

multician: /muhl-ti'shn/ [coined at Honeywell, ca. 1970] n.
   Competent user of {{Multics}}.  Perhaps oddly, no one has ever
   promoted the analogous `Unician'.

Multics:: /muhl'tiks/ n. [from "MULTiplexed Information and
   Computing Service"] An early (late 1960s) timesharing operating
   system co-designed by a consortium including MIT, GE, and Bell
   Laboratories.  Very innovative for its time --- among other things,
   it introduced the idea of treating all devices uniformly as special
   files.  All the members but GE eventually pulled out after
   determining that {second-system effect} had bloated Multics to
   the point of practical unusability (the `lean' predecessor in
   question was {CTSS}).  Honeywell commercialized Multics after
   buying out GE's computer group, but it was never very successful
   (among other things, on some versions one was commonly required to
   enter a password to log out).  One of the developers left in the
   lurch by the project's breakup was Ken Thompson, a circumstance
   which led directly to the birth of {{UNIX}}.  For this and other
   reasons, aspects of the Multics design remain a topic of occasional
   debate among hackers.  See also {brain-damaged} and {GCOS}.

multitask: n. Often used of humans in the same meaning it has for
   computers, to describe a person doing several things at once (but
   see {thrash}).  The term `multiplex', from communications
   technology (meaning to handle more than one channel at the same
   time), is used similarly.

mumblage: /muhm'bl*j/ n. The topic of one's mumbling (see {mumble}).
   "All that mumblage" is used like "all that stuff" when it is
   not quite clear how the subject of discussion works, or like "all that
   crap" when `mumble' is being used as an implicit replacement for
   pejoratives.

mumble: interj. 1. Said when the correct response is too
   complicated to enunciate, or the speaker has not thought it out.
   Often prefaces a longer answer, or indicates a general reluctance
   to get into a long discussion.  "Don't you think that we could
   improve LISP performance by using a hybrid reference-count
   transaction garbage collector, if the cache is big enough and there
   are some extra cache bits for the microcode to use?"  "Well,
   mumble ... I'll have to think about it."  2. Sometimes used as
   an expression of disagreement.  "I think we should buy a
   {VAX}."  "Mumble!"  Common variant: `mumble frotz' (see
   {frotz}; interestingly, one does not say `mumble frobnitz'
   even though `frotz' is short for `frobnitz').  3. Yet another
   metasyntactic variable, like {foo}.  4. When used as a question
   ("Mumble?") means "I didn't understand you".  5. Sometimes used
   in `public' contexts on-line as a placefiller for things one is
   barred from giving details about.  For example, a poster with
   pre-released hardware in his machine might say "Yup, my machine
   now has an extra 16M of memory, thanks to the card I'm testing for
   Mumbleco."

munch: [often confused with {mung}, q.v.] vt. To transform
   information in a serial fashion, often requiring large amounts of
   computation.  To trace down a data structure.  Related to {crunch}
   and nearly synonymous with {grovel}, but connotes less pain.

munching: n. Exploration of security holes of someone else's
   computer for thrills, notoriety, or to annoy the system manager.
   Compare {cracker}.  See also {hacked off}.

munching squares: n. A {display hack} dating back to the PDP-1
   (ca. 1962, reportedly discovered by Jackson Wright), which employs a
   trivial computation (repeatedly plotting the graph Y = X XOR T for
   successive values of T --- see {HAKMEM} items 146--148) to produce
   an impressive display of moving and growing squares that devour the
   screen.  The initial value of T is treated as a parameter, which,
   when well-chosen, can produce amazing effects.  Some of these,
   later (re)discovered on the LISP machine, have been christened
   `munching triangles' (try AND for XOR and toggling points
   instead of plotting them), `munching w's', and `munching
   mazes'.  More generally, suppose a graphics program produces an
   impressive and ever-changing display of some basic form, foo, on a
   display terminal, and does it using a relatively simple program;
   then the program (or the resulting display) is likely to be
   referred to as `munching foos' (this is a good example of the use
   of the word {foo} as a metasyntactic variable).

munchkin: /muhnch'kin/ [from the squeaky-voiced little people in
   L. Frank Baum's `The Wizard of Oz'] n. A teenage-or-younger micro
   enthusiast hacking BASIC or something else equally constricted.  A
   term of mild derision --- munchkins are annoying but some grow up
   to be hackers after passing through a {larval stage}.  The term
   {urchin} is also used.  See also {wannabee}, {bitty box}.

mundane: [from SF fandom] n. 1. A person who is not in science
   fiction fandom.  2. A person who is not in the computer industry.
   In this sense, most often an adjectival modifier as in "in my
   mundane life...." See also {Real World}.

mung: /muhng/ alt. `munge' /muhnj/ [in 1960 at MIT, `Mash
   Until No Good'; sometime after that the derivation from the
   {{recursive acronym}} `Mung Until No Good' became standard] vt.
   1. To make changes to a file, esp. large-scale and irrevocable
   changes.  See {BLT}.  2. To destroy, usually accidentally,
   occasionally maliciously.  The system only mungs things
   maliciously; this is a consequence of {Finagle's Law}.  See
   {scribble}, {mangle}, {trash}, {nuke}.  Reports from
   {USENET} suggest that the pronunciation /muhnj/ is now usual
   in speech, but the spelling `mung' is still common in program
   comments (compare the widespread confusion over the proper spelling
   of {kluge}).  3. The kind of beans of which the sprouts are used
   in Chinese food.  (That's their real name!  Mung beans!  Really!)

Murphy's Law: prov. The correct, *original* Murphy's Law
   reads: "If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of
   those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it."
   This is a principle of defensive design, cited here because it is
   usually given in mutant forms less descriptive of the challenges of
   design for lusers.  For example, you don't make a two-pin plug
   symmetrical and then label it `THIS WAY UP'; if it matters which
   way it is plugged in, then you make the design asymmetrical (see
   also the anecdote under {magic smoke}).

   Edward A. Murphy, Jr. was one of the engineers on the rocket-sled
   experiments that were done by the U.S. Air Force in 1949 to test
   human acceleration tolerances.  One experiment involved a set of
   16 accelerometers mounted to different parts of the subject's body.
   There were two ways each sensor could be glued to its mount, and
   somebody methodically installed all 16 the wrong way around.
   Murphy then made the original form of his pronouncement, which the
   test subject (Major John Paul Stapp) quoted at a news conference a
   few days later.

   Within months `Murphy's Law' had spread to various technical
   cultures connected to aerospace engineering.  Before too many years
   had gone by variants had passed into the popular imagination,
   changing as they went.  Most of these are variants on "Anything
   that can go wrong, will"; this is sometimes referred to as
   {Finagle's Law}.  The memetic drift apparent in these mutants
   clearly demonstrates Murphy's Law acting on itself!

Music:: n. A common extracurricular interest of hackers (compare
   {{science-fiction fandom}}, {{oriental food}}; see also
   {filk}).  Hackish folklore has long claimed that musical and
   programming abilities are closely related, and there has been at
   least one large-scale statistical study that supports this.
   Hackers, as a rule, like music and often develop musical
   appreciation in unusual and interesting directions.  Folk music is
   very big in hacker circles; so is electronic music, and the sort of
   elaborate instrumental jazz/rock that used to be called
   `progressive' and isn't recorded much any more.  The hacker's
   musical range tends to be wide; many can listen with equal
   appreciation to (say) Talking Heads, Yes, Gentle Giant, Spirogyra,
   Scott Joplin, Tangerine Dream, King Sunny Ade, The Pretenders, or
   Bach's Brandenburg Concerti.  It is also apparently true that
   hackerdom includes a much higher concentration of talented amateur
   musicians than one would expect from a similar-sized control group
   of {mundane} types.

mutter: vt. To quietly enter a command not meant for the ears, eyes,
   or fingers of ordinary mortals.  Often used in `mutter an
   {incantation}'.  See also {wizard}.

= N =

N: /N/ quant. 1. A large and indeterminate number of objects:
   "There were N bugs in that crock!"  Also used in its
   original sense of a variable name: "This crock has N bugs,
   as N goes to infinity."  (The true number of bugs is always
   at least N + 1.)  2. A variable whose value is inherited
   from the current context.  For example, when a meal is being
   ordered at a restaurant, N may be understood to mean however
   many people there are at the table.  From the remark "We'd like to
   order N wonton soups and a family dinner
   for N - 1" you can deduce that one person at the table
   wants to eat only soup, even though you don't know how many people
   there are (see {great-wall}).  3. `Nth': adj. The
   ordinal counterpart of N, senses #1 and #2.  "Now for the
   Nth and last time..." In the specific context
   "Nth-year grad student", N is generally assumed to
   be at least 4, and is usually 5 or more (see {tenured graduate
   student}).  See also {{random numbers}}, {two-to-the-n}.

nailed to the wall: [like a trophy] adj. Said of a bug finally
   eliminated after protracted, and even heroic, effort.

nailing jelly: vi. See {like nailing jelly to a tree}.

na"ive: adj. Untutored in the perversities of some particular
   program or system; one who still tries to do things in an intuitive
   way, rather than the right way (in really good designs these
   coincide, but most designs aren't `really good' in the
   appropriate sense).  This is completely unrelated to general
   maturity or competence, or even competence at any other specific
   program.  It is a sad commentary on the primitive state of
   computing that the natural opposite of this term is often claimed
   to be `experienced user' but is really more like `cynical
   user'.

na"ive user: n. A {luser}.  Tends to imply someone who is
   ignorant mainly owing to inexperience.  When this is applied to
   someone who *has* experience, there is a definite implication
   of stupidity.

NAK: /nak/ [from the ASCII mnemonic for 0010101] interj.
   1. On-line joke answer to {ACK}?: "I'm not here."
   2. On-line answer to a request for chat: "I'm not available."
   3. Used to politely interrupt someone to tell them you don't
   understand their point or that they have suddenly stopped making
   sense.  See {ACK}, sense 3.  "And then, after we recode the
   project in COBOL...."  "Nak, Nak, Nak!  I thought I heard you
   say COBOL!"

nano: /nan'oh/ [CMU: from `nanosecond'] n. A brief period of
   time.  "Be with you in a nano" means you really will be free
   shortly, i.e., implies what mainstream people mean by "in a
   jiffy" (whereas the hackish use of `jiffy' is quite different ---
   see {jiffy}).

nano-: [SI: the next quantifier below {micro-}; meaning *
   10^{-9}] pref. Smaller than {micro-}, and used in the same rather
   loose and connotative way.  Thus, one has {{nanotechnology}}
   (coined by hacker K. Eric Drexler) by analogy with
   `microtechnology'; and a few machine architectures have a
   `nanocode' level below `microcode'.  Tom Duff at Bell Labs has
   also pointed out that "Pi seconds is a nanocentury".
   See also {{quantifiers}}, {pico-}, {nanoacre}, {nanobot},
   {nanocomputer}, {nanofortnight}.

nanoacre: /nan'oh-ay`kr/ n. A unit (about 2 mm square) of real
   estate on a VLSI chip.  The term gets its giggle value from the
   fact that VLSI nanoacres have costs in the same range as real acres
   once one figures in design and fabrication-setup costs.

nanobot: /nan'oh-bot/ n. A robot of microscopic proportions,
   presumably built by means of {{nanotechnology}}.  As yet, only
   used informally (and speculatively!).  Also called a `nanoagent'.

nanocomputer: /nan'oh-k*m-pyoo'tr/ n. A computer whose switching
   elements are molecular in size.  Designs for mechanical
   nanocomputers which use single-molecule sliding rods for their
   logic have been proposed.  The controller for a {nanobot} would be
   a nanocomputer.

nanofortnight: [Adelaide University] n. 1 fortnight * 10^-9,
   or about 1.2 msec.  This unit was used largely by students doing
   undergraduate practicals.  See {microfortnight}, {attoparsec},
   and {micro-}.

nanotechnology:: /nan'-oh-tek-no`l*-jee/ n. A hypothetical
   fabrication technology in which objects are designed and built with
   the individual specification and placement of each separate atom.
   The first unequivocal nanofabrication experiments are taking place
   now (1990), for example with the deposition of individual xenon
   atoms on a nickel substrate to spell the logo of a certain very
   large computer company.  Nanotechnology has been a hot topic in the
   hacker subculture ever since the term was coined by K. Eric Drexler
   in his book `Engines of Creation', where he predicted that
   nanotechnology could give rise to replicating assemblers,
   permitting an exponential growth of productivity and personal
   wealth.  See also {blue goo}, {gray goo}, {nanobot}.

nastygram: /nas'tee-gram/ n. 1. A protocol packet or item of email
   (the latter is also called a {letterbomb}) that takes advantage
   of misfeatures or security holes on the target system to do
   untoward things.  2. Disapproving mail, esp. from a {net.god},
   pursuant to a violation of {netiquette} or a complaint about
   failure to correct some mail- or news-transmission problem.  Compare
   {shitogram}.  3. A status report from an unhappy, and probably
   picky, customer.  "What'd Corporate say in today's nastygram?"
   4. [deprecated] An error reply by mail from a {daemon}; in
   particular, a {bounce message}.

Nathan Hale: n. An asterisk (see also {splat}, {{ASCII}}).  Oh,
   you want an etymology?  Notionally, from "I regret that I have only
   one asterisk for my country!", a misquote of the famous remark
   uttered by Nathan Hale just before he was hanged.  Hale was a
   (failed) spy for the rebels in the American War of Independence.

nature: n. See {has the X nature}.

neat hack: n. 1. A clever technique.  2. A brilliant practical
   joke, where neatness is correlated with cleverness, harmlessness,
   and surprise value.  Example: the Caltech Rose Bowl card display
   switch (see appendix A).  See {hack}.

neep-neep: /neep neep/ [onomatopoeic, from New York SF fandom] n.
   One who is fascinated by computers.  More general than {hacker},
   as it need not imply more skill than is required to boot games on a
   PC.  The derived noun `neep-neeping' applies specifically to
   the long conversations about computers that tend to develop in the
   corners at most SF-convention parties.  Fandom has a related
   proverb to the effect that "Hacking is a conversational black
   hole!".

neophilia: /nee`oh-fil'-ee-*/ n. The trait of being excited and
   pleased by novelty.  Common trait of most hackers, SF fans, and
   members of several other connected leading-edge subcultures,
   including the pro-technology `Whole Earth' wing of the ecology
   movement, space activists, many members of Mensa, and the
   Discordian/neo-pagan underground.  All these groups overlap heavily
   and (where evidence is available) seem to share characteristic
   hacker tropisms for science fiction, {{Music}}, and {{oriental
   food}}.

net.-: /net dot/ pref. [USENET] Prefix used to describe people and
   events related to USENET.  From the time before the {Great
   Renaming}, when most non-local newsgroups had names beginning
   `net.'.  Includes {net.god}s, `net.goddesses' (various
   charismatic net.women with circles of on-line admirers),
   `net.lurkers' (see {lurker}), `net.person',
   `net.parties' (a synonym for {boink}, sense 2), and
   many similar constructs.  See also {net.police}.

net.god: /net god/ n. Used to refer to anyone who satisfies some
   combination of the following conditions: has been visible on USENET
   for more than 5 years, ran one of the original backbone sites,
   moderated an important newsgroup, wrote news software, or knows
   Gene, Mark, Rick, Mel, Henry, Chuq, and Greg personally.  See
   {demigod}.   Net.goddesses such as Rissa or the Slime Sisters have
   (so far) been distinguished more by personality than by authority.

net.personality: /net per`sn-al'-*-tee/ n. Someone who has made a name
   for him or herself on {USENET}, through either longevity or
   attention-getting posts, but doesn't meet the other requirements of
   {net.god}hood.

net.police: /net-p*-lees'/ n. (var. `net.cops') Those USENET
   readers who feel it is their responsibility to pounce on and
   {flame} any posting which they regard as offensive or in
   violation of their understanding of {netiquette}.  Generally
   used sarcastically or pejoratively.  Also spelled `net police'.
   See also {net.-}, {code police}.

nethack: /net'hak/ [UNIX] n. A dungeon game similar to
   {rogue} but more elaborate, distributed in C source over
   {USENET} and very popular at UNIX sites and on PC-class machines
   (nethack is probably the most widely distributed of the freeware
   dungeon games).  The earliest versions, written by Jay Fenlason and later
   considerably enhanced by Andries Brouwer, were simply called
   `hack'.  The name changed when maintenance was taken over by a
   group of hackers originally organized by Mike Stephenson; the
   current contact address (as of mid-1991) is
   nethack-bugs@linc.cis.upenn.edu.

netiquette: /net'ee-ket/ or /net'i-ket/ [portmanteau from "network
   etiquette"] n. Conventions of politeness recognized on {USENET},
   such as avoidance of cross-posting to inappropriate groups or
   refraining from commercial pluggery on the net.

netnews: /net'n[y]ooz/ n. 1. The software that makes {USENET}
   run.  2. The content of USENET.  "I read netnews right after my
   mail most mornings."

netrock: /net'rok/ [IBM] n. A {flame}; used esp. on VNET,
   IBM's internal corporate network.

network address: n. (also `net address') As used by hackers,
   means an address on `the' network (see {network, the}; this is
   almost always a {bang path} or {{Internet address}}).  Such an
   address is essential if one wants to be to be taken seriously by
   hackers; in particular, persons or organizations that claim to
   understand, work with, sell to, or recruit from among hackers but
   *don't* display net addresses are quietly presumed to be
   clueless poseurs and mentally flushed (see {flush}, sense 4).
   Hackers often put their net addresses on their business cards and
   wear them prominently in contexts where they expect to meet other
   hackers face-to-face (see also {{science-fiction fandom}}).  This
   is mostly functional, but is also a signal that one identifies with
   hackerdom (like lodge pins among Masons or tie-dyed T-shirts among
   Grateful Dead fans).  Net addresses are often used in email text as
   a more concise substitute for personal names; indeed, hackers may
   come to know each other quite well by network names without ever
   learning each others' `legal' monikers.  See also {sitename},
   {domainist}.

network meltdown: n. A state of complete network overload; the
   network equivalent of {thrash}ing.  This may be induced by a
   {Chernobyl packet}.  See also {broadcast storm}, {kamikaze
   packet}.

network, the: n. 1. The union of all the major noncommercial,
   academic, and hacker-oriented networks, such as Internet, the old
   ARPANET, NSFnet, {BITNET}, and the virtual UUCP and {USENET}
   `networks', plus the corporate in-house networks and commercial
   time-sharing services (such as CompuServe) that gateway to them.  A
   site is generally considered `on the network' if it can be reached
   through some combination of Internet-style (@-sign) and UUCP
   (bang-path) addresses.  See {bang path}, {{Internet address}},
   {network address}.  2. A fictional conspiracy of libertarian
   hacker-subversives and anti-authoritarian monkeywrenchers described
   in Robert Anton Wilson's novel `Schr"odinger's Cat', to which
   many hackers have subsequently decided they belong (this is an
   example of {ha ha only serious}).

   In sense 1, `network' is often abbreviated to `net'.  "Are
   you on the net?" is a frequent question when hackers first meet
   face to face, and "See you on the net!" is a frequent goodbye.

New Jersey: [primarily Stanford/Silicon Valley] adj. Brain-damaged
   or of poor design.  This refers to the allegedly wretched quality
   of such software as C, C++, and UNIX (which originated at Bell Labs
   in Murray Hill, New Jersey).  "This compiler bites the bag, but
   what can you expect from a compiler designed in New Jersey?"
   Compare {Berkeley Quality Software}.  See also {UNIX
   conspiracy}.

New Testament: n. [C programmers] The second edition of K&R's
   `The C Programming Language' (Prentice-Hall, 1988; ISBN
   0-13-110362-8), describing ANSI Standard C.  See {K&R}.

newbie: /n[y]oo'bee/ n. [orig. from British public-school and
   military slang variant of `new boy'] A USENET neophyte.
   This term surfaced in the {newsgroup} talk.bizarre but is
   now in wide use.  Criteria for being considered a newbie vary
   wildly; a person can be called a newbie in one newsgroup while
   remaining a respected regular in another.  The label `newbie'
   is sometimes applied as a serious insult to a person who has been
   around USENET for a long time but who carefully hides all evidence
   of having a clue.  See {BIFF}.

newgroup wars: /n[y]oo'groop wohrz/ [USENET] n. The salvos of dueling
   `newgroup' and `rmgroup' messages sometimes exchanged by
   persons on opposite sides of a dispute over whether a {newsgroup}
   should be created net-wide.  These usually settle out within a week
   or two as it becomes clear whether the group has a natural
   constituency (usually, it doesn't).  At times, especially in the
   completely anarchic alt hierarchy, the names of newsgroups
   themselves become a form of comment or humor; e.g., the spinoff of
   alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork from alt.tv.muppets in
   early 1990, or any number of specialized abuse groups named after
   particularly notorious {flamer}s, e.g., alt.weemba.

newline: /n[y]oo'li:n/ n. 1. [techspeak, primarily UNIX] The
   ASCII LF character (0001010), used under {{UNIX}} as a text line
   terminator.  A Bell-Labs-ism rather than a Berkeleyism;
   interestingly (and unusually for UNIX jargon), it is said to have
   originally been an IBM usage.  (Though the term `newline' appears
   in ASCII standards, it never caught on in the general computing
   world before UNIX).  2. More generally, any magic character,
   character sequence, or operation (like Pascal's writeln procedure)
   required to terminate a text record or separate lines.  See
   {crlf}, {terpri}.

NeWS: /nee'wis/, /n[y]oo'is/ or /n[y]ooz/ [acronym; the
   `Network Window System'] n. The road not taken in window systems, an
   elegant PostScript-based environment that would almost certainly
   have won the standards war with {X} if it hadn't been
   {proprietary} to Sun Microsystems.  There is a lesson here that
   too many software vendors haven't yet heeded.  Many hackers insist
   on the two-syllable pronunciations above as a way of distinguishing
   NeWS from {news} (the {netnews} software).

news: n. See {netnews}.

newsfroup: // [USENET] n. Silly synonym for {newsgroup},
   originally a typo but now in regular use on USENET's talk.bizarre
   and other lunatic-fringe groups.

newsgroup: [USENET] n. One of {USENET}'s huge collection of
   topic groups or {fora}.  Usenet groups can be `unmoderated'
   (anyone can post) or `moderated' (submissions are automatically
   directed to a moderator, who edits or filters and then posts the
   results).  Some newsgroups have parallel {mailing list}s for
   Internet people with no netnews access, with postings to the group
   automatically propagated to the list and vice versa.  Some
   moderated groups (especially those which are actually gatewayed
   Internet mailing lists) are distributed as `digests', with groups
   of postings periodically collected into a single large posting with
   an index.

   Among the best-known are comp.lang.c (the C-language forum),
   comp.arch (on computer architectures), comp.unix.wizards
   (for UNIX wizards), rec.arts.sf-lovers (for science-fiction
   fans), and talk.politics.misc (miscellaneous political
   discussions and {flamage}).

nickle: /ni'kl/ [from `nickel', common name for the U.S.
   5-cent coin] n. A {nybble} + 1; 5 bits.  Reported among
   developers for Mattel's GI 1600 (the Intellivision games
   processor), a chip with 16-bit-wide RAM but 10-bit-wide ROM.  See
   also {deckle}.

night mode: n. See {phase} (of people).

Nightmare File System: n. Pejorative hackerism for Sun's Network
   File System (NFS).  In any nontrivial network of Suns where there
   is a lot of NFS cross-mounting, when one Sun goes down, the others
   often freeze up.  Some machine tries to access the down one, and
   (getting no response) repeats indefinitely.  This causes it to
   appear dead to some messages (what is actually happening is that
   it is locked up in what should have been a brief excursion to a
   higher {spl} level).  Then another machine tries to reach either
   the down machine or the pseudo-down machine, and itself becomes
   pseudo-down.  The first machine to discover the down one is now
   trying both to access the down one and to respond to the pseudo-down
   one, so it is even harder to reach.  This snowballs very fast, and
   soon the entire network of machines is frozen --- the user can't
   even abort the file access that started the problem!  (ITS
   partisans are apt to cite this as proof of UNIX's alleged bogosity;
   ITS had a working NFS-like shared file system with none of these
   problems in the early 1970s.)  See also {broadcast storm}.

NIL: /nil/ [from LISP terminology for `false'] No.  Used
   in reply to a question, particularly one asked using the
   `-P' convention.  See {T}.

NMI: /N-M-I/ n. Non-Maskable Interrupt.  An IRQ 7 on the PDP-11
   or 680[01234]0; the NMI line on an 80{88,[1234]}86.  In contrast
   with a {priority interrupt} (which might be ignored, although
   that is unlikely), an NMI is *never* ignored.

no-op: /noh'op/ alt. NOP /nop/ [no operation] n. 1. (also v.)
   A machine instruction that does nothing (sometimes used in
   assembler-level programming as filler for data or patch areas, or
   to overwrite code to be removed in binaries).  See also {JFCL}.
   2. A person who contributes nothing to a project, or has nothing
   going on upstairs, or both.  As in "He's a no-op." 3. Any
   operation or sequence of operations with no effect, such as
   circling the block without finding a parking space, or putting
   money into a vending machine and having it fall immediately into
   the coin-return box, or asking someone for help and being told to
   go away.  "Oh, well, that was a no-op."  Hot-and-sour soup (see
   {great-wall}) that is insufficiently either is `no-op soup';
   so is wonton soup if everybody else is having hot-and-sour.
   

noddy: /nod'ee/ [UK: from the children's books] adj.
   1. Small and un-useful, but demonstrating a point.  Noddy programs
   are often written by people learning a new language or system.  The
   archetypal noddy program is {hello, world}.  Noddy code may be
   used to demonstrate a feature or bug of a compiler.  May be used of
   real hardware or software to imply that it isn't worth using.
   "This editor's a bit noddy."  2. A program that is more or less
   instant to produce.  In this use, the term does not necessarily
   connote uselessness, but describes a {hack} sufficiently trivial
   that it can be written and debugged while carrying on (and during
   the space of) a normal conversation.  "I'll just throw together a
   noddy {awk} script to dump all the first fields."  In North
   America this might be called a {mickey mouse program}.  See
   {toy program}.

NOMEX underwear: /noh'meks uhn'-der-weir/ [USENET] n. Syn.
   {asbestos longjohns}, used mostly in auto-related mailing lists
   and newsgroups.  NOMEX underwear is an actual product available on
   the racing equipment market, used as a fire resistance measure and
   required in some racing series.

non-optimal solution: n. (also `sub-optimal solution') An
   astoundingly stupid way to do something.  This term is generally
   used in deadpan sarcasm, as its impact is greatest when the person
   speaking looks completely serious.  Compare {stunning}.  See also
   {Bad Thing}.

nonlinear: adj. [scientific computation] 1. Behaving in an erratic and
   unpredictable fashion.  When used to describe the behavior of a
   machine or program, it suggests that said machine or program is
   being forced to run far outside of design specifications.  This
   behavior may be induced by unreasonable inputs, or may be triggered
   when a more mundane bug sends the computation far off from its
   expected course.  2. When describing the behavior of a person,
   suggests a tantrum or a {flame}.  "When you talk to Bob, don't
   mention the drug problem or he'll go nonlinear for hours."  In
   this context, `go nonlinear' connotes `blow up out of proportion'
   (proportion connotes linearity).

nontrivial: adj. Requiring real thought or significant computing
   power.  Often used as an understated way of saying that a problem
   is quite difficult or impractical, or even entirely unsolvable
   ("Proving P=NP is nontrivial").  The preferred emphatic form is
   `decidedly nontrivial'.  See {trivial}, {uninteresting},
   {interesting}.

notwork: /not'werk/ n. A network, when it is acting {flaky} or is
   {down}.  Compare {nyetwork}.  Said at IBM to have orig.
   referred to a particular period of flakiness on IBM's VNET
   corporate network, ca. 1988; but there are independent reports of
   the term from elsewhere.

NP-: /N-P/ pref. Extremely.  Used to modify adjectives
   describing a level or quality of difficulty; the connotation is
   often `more so than it should be' (NP-complete problems all seem to
   be very hard, but so far no one has found a good a priori reason
   that they should be.)  "Getting this algorithm to perform
   correctly in every case is NP-annoying."  This is generalized from
   the computer-science terms `NP-hard' and `NP-complete'.  NP is
   the set of Nondeterministic-Polynomial algorithms, those that can
   be completed by a nondeterministic Turing machine in an amount of
   time that is a polynomial function of the size of the input; a
   solution for one NP-complete problem would solve all the others.

NSA line eater: n. The National Security Agency trawling
   program sometimes assumed to be reading {USENET} for the
   U.S. Government's spooks.  Most hackers describe it as a mythical
   beast, but some believe it actually exists, more aren't sure, and
   many believe in acting as though it exists just in case.  Some
   netters put loaded phrases like `KGB', `Uzi', `nuclear materials',
   `Palestine', `cocaine', and `assassination' in their {sig block}s
   in a (probably futile) attempt to confuse and overload the
   creature.  The {GNU} version of {EMACS} actually has a command
   that randomly inserts a bunch of insidious anarcho-verbiage into
   your edited text.

   There is a mainstream variant of this myth involving a `Trunk Line
   Monitor', which supposedly used speech recognition to extract words
   from telephone trunks.  This one was making the rounds in the
   late 1970s, spread by people who had no idea of then-current
   technology or the storage, signal-processing, or speech recognition
   needs of such a project.  On the basis of mass-storage costs alone
   it would have been cheaper to hire 50 high-school students and just
   let them listen in.  Speech-recognition technology can't do this
   job even now (1991), and almost certainly won't in this millennium,
   either.  The peak of silliness came with a letter to an alternative
   paper in New Haven, Connecticut, laying out the factoids of this
   Big Brotherly affair.  The letter writer then revealed his actual
   agenda by offering --- at an amazing low price, just this once, we
   take VISA and MasterCard --- a scrambler guaranteed to daunt the
   Trunk Trawler and presumably allowing the would-be Baader-Meinhof
   gangs of the world to get on with their business.

nuke: vt. 1. To intentionally delete the entire contents of a
   given directory or storage volume.  "On UNIX, `rm -r /usr'
   will nuke everything in the usr filesystem."  Never used for
   accidental deletion.  Oppose {blow away}.  2. Syn. for
   {dike}, applied to smaller things such as files, features, or
   code sections.  Often used to express a final verdict.  "What do
   you want me to do with that 80-meg {wallpaper} file?"  "Nuke
   it."  3. Used of processes as well as files; nuke is a frequent
   verbal alias for `kill -9' on UNIX.  4. On IBM PCs, a bug
   that results in {fandango on core} can trash the operating
   system, including the FAT (the in-core copy of the disk block
   chaining information).  This can utterly scramble attached disks,
   which are then said to have been `nuked'.  This term is also
   used of analogous lossages on Macintoshes and other micros without
   memory protection.

number-crunching: n. Computations of a numerical nature, esp.
   those that make extensive use of floating-point numbers.  The only
   thing {Fortrash} is good for.  This term is in widespread
   informal use outside hackerdom and even in mainstream slang, but
   has additional hackish connotations: namely, that the computations
   are mindless and involve massive use of {brute force}.  This is
   not always {evil}, esp. if it involves ray tracing or fractals
   or some other use that makes {pretty pictures}, esp. if such
   pictures can be used as {wallpaper}.  See also {crunch}.

numbers: [scientific computation] n. Output of a computation that
   may not be significant results but at least indicate that the
   program is running.  May be used to placate management, grant
   sponsors, etc.  `Making numbers' means running a program
   because output --- any output, not necessarily meaningful output
   --- is needed as a demonstration of progress.  See {pretty
   pictures}, {math-out}, {social science number}.

NUXI problem: /nuk'see pro'bl*m/ n. This refers to the problem of
   transferring data between machines with differing byte-order.  The
   string `UNIX' might look like `NUXI' on a machine with a
   different `byte sex' (e.g., when transferring data from a
   {little-endian} to a {big-endian}, or vice-versa).  See also
   {middle-endian}, {swab}, and {bytesexual}.

nybble: /nib'l/ (alt. `nibble') [from v. `nibble' by analogy
   with `bite' => `byte'] n. Four bits; one {hex} digit;
   a half-byte.  Though `byte' is now techspeak, this useful relative
   is still jargon.  Compare {{byte}}, {crumb}, {tayste},
   {dynner}; see also {bit}, {nickle}, {deckle}.  Apparently
   this spelling is uncommon in Commonwealth Hackish, as British
   orthography suggests the pronunciation /ni:'bl/.

nyetwork: /nyet'werk/ [from Russian `nyet' = no] n. A network,
   when it is acting {flaky} or is {down}.  Compare {notwork}.

= O =

Ob-: /ob/ pref. Obligatory.  A piece of {netiquette}
   acknowledging that the author has been straying from the newsgroup's
   charter topic.  For example, if a posting in alt.sex is a response
   to a part of someone else's posting that has nothing particularly
   to do with sex, the author may append `ObSex' (or `Obsex') and toss
   off a question or vignette about some unusual erotic act.  It is
   considered a sign of great {winnitude} when your Obs are more
   interesting than other people's whole postings.

Obfuscated C Contest: n. An annual contest run since 1984 over
   USENET by Landon Curt Noll and friends.  The overall winner is
   whoever produces the most unreadable, creative, and bizarre (but
   working) C program; various other prizes are awarded at the judges'
   whim.  C's terse syntax and macro-preprocessor facilities give
   contestants a lot of maneuvering room.  The winning programs often
   manage to be simultaneously (a) funny, (b) breathtaking works of
   art, and (c) horrible examples of how *not* to code in C.

   This relatively short and sweet entry might help convey the flavor
   of obfuscated C:

     /*
      * HELLO WORLD program
      * by Jack Applin and Robert Heckendorn, 1985
      */
     main(v,c)char**c;{for(v[c++]="Hello, world!\n)";
     (!!c)[*c]&&(v--||--c&&execlp(*c,*c,c[!!c]+!!c,!c));
     **c=!c)write(!!*c,*c,!!**c);}

   Here's another good one:

     /*
      * Program to compute an approximation of pi
      *  by Brian Westley, 1988
      */

     #define _ -F<00||--F-OO--;
     int F=00,OO=00;
     main(){F_OO();printf("%1.3f\n",4.*-F/OO/OO);}F_OO()
     {
                 _-_-_-_
            _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
         _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
       _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
      _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
      _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
     _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
     _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
     _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
     _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
      _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
      _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
       _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
         _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
             _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
                 _-_-_-_
     }

   See also {hello, world}.

obi-wan error: /oh'bee-won` er'*r/ [RPI, from `off-by-one' and
   the Obi-Wan Kenobi character in "Star Wars"] n.  A loop of
   some sort in which the index is off by 1.  Common when the index
   should have started from 0 but instead started from 1.  A kind of
   {off-by-one error}.  See also {zeroth}.

Objectionable-C: n. Hackish take on "Objective-C", the name of an
   object-oriented dialect of C in competition with the 
   better-known C++ (it is used to write native applications on the NeXT
   machine).  Objectionable-C uses a Smalltalk-like syntax, but lacks
   the flexibility of Smalltalk method calls, and (like many such
   efforts) comes frustratingly close to attaining the {Right Thing}
   without actually doing so.

obscure: adj. Used in an exaggeration of its normal meaning, to
   imply total incomprehensibility.  "The reason for that last crash
   is obscure."  "The `find(1)' command's syntax is obscure!"
   The phrase `moderately obscure' implies that it could be
   figured out but probably isn't worth the trouble.  The construction
   `obscure in the extreme' is the preferred emphatic form.

octal forty: /ok'tl for'tee/ n. Hackish way of saying "I'm
   drawing a blank."  Octal 40 is the {{ASCII}} space character,
   0100000; by an odd coincidence, {hex} 40 (01000000) is the
   {{EBCDIC}} space character.  See {wall}.

off the trolley: adj. Describes the behavior of a program that
   malfunctions and goes catatonic, but doesn't actually {crash} or
   abort.  See {glitch}, {bug}, {deep space}.

off-by-one error: n. Exceedingly common error induced in many
   ways, such as by starting at 0 when you should have started at 1 or
   vice versa, or by writing `< N' instead of `<= N' or
   vice-versa.  Also applied to giving something to the person next to
   the one who should have gotten it.  Often confounded with
   {fencepost error}, which is properly a particular subtype of it.

offline: adv. Not now or not here.  "Let's take this
   discussion offline."  Specifically used on {USENET} to suggest
   that a discussion be taken off a public newsgroup to email.

old fart: n. Tribal elder.  A title self-assumed with remarkable
   frequency by (esp.) USENETters who have been programming for more
   than about 25 years; often appears in {sig block}s attached to
   Jargon File contributions of great archeological significance.
   This is a term of insult in the second or third person but one of
   pride in first person.

Old Testament: n. [C programmers] The first edition of {K&R}, the
   sacred text describing {Classic C}.

one-line fix: n. Used (often sarcastically) of a change to a
   program that is thought to be trivial or insignificant right up to
   the moment it crashes the system.  Usually `cured' by another
   one-line fix.  See also {I didn't change anything!}

one-liner wars: n. A game popular among hackers who code in the
   language APL (see {write-only language}).  The objective is to
   see who can code the most interesting and/or useful routine in one
   line of operators chosen from APL's exceedingly {hairy} primitive
   set.  A similar amusement was practiced among {TECO} hackers.
   
   Ken Iverson, the inventor of APL, has been credited with a
   one-liner that, given a number N, produces a list of the
   prime numbers from 1 to N inclusive.  It looks like this:

	(2 = 0 +.= T o.| T) / T <- iN

   where `o' is the APL null character, the assignment arrow is a
   single character, and `i' represents the APL iota.

ooblick: /oo'blik/ [from Dr. Seuss's `Bartholomew and the
   Oobleck'] n. A bizarre semi-liquid sludge made from cornstarch and
   water.  Enjoyed among hackers who make batches during playtime at
   parties for its amusing and extremely non-Newtonian behavior; it
   pours and splatters, but resists rapid motion like a solid and will
   even crack when hit by a hammer.  Often found near lasers.

   Here is a field-tested ooblick recipe contributed by GLS:

     1 cup cornstarch

     1 cup baking soda

     3/4 cup water

     N drops of food coloring

   This recipe isn't quite as non-Newtonian as a pure cornstarch
   ooblick, but has an appropriately slimy feel.

   Some, however, insist that the notion of an ooblick *recipe*
   is far too mechanical, and that it is best to add the water in
   small increments so that the various mixed states the cornstarch
   goes through as it *becomes* ooblick can be grokked in
   fullness by many hands.  For optional ingredients of this
   experience, see the "Ceremonial Chemicals" section of
   appendix B.

open: n. Abbreviation for `open (or left) parenthesis' --- used when
   necessary to eliminate oral ambiguity.  To read aloud the LISP form
   (DEFUN FOO (X) (PLUS X 1)) one might say: "Open defun foo, open
   eks close, open, plus eks one, close close."

open switch: [IBM: prob. from railroading] n. An unresolved
   question, issue, or problem.

operating system:: [techspeak] n. (Often abbreviated `OS') The
   foundation software of a machine, of course; that which schedules
   tasks, allocates storage, and presents a default interface to the
   user between applications.  The facilities an operating system
   provides and its general design philosophy exert an extremely
   strong influence on programming style and on the technical cultures
   that grow up around its host machines.  Hacker folklore has been
   shaped primarily by the {{UNIX}}, {{ITS}}, {{TOPS-10}},
   {{TOPS-20}}/{{TWENEX}}, {{WAITS}}, {{CP/M}}, {{MS-DOS}}, and
   {{Multics}} operating systems (most importantly by ITS and
   UNIX).

Orange Book: n. The U.S. Government's standards document
   `Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria, DOD standard
   5200.28-STD, December, 1985' which characterize secure computing
   architectures and defines levels A1 (most secure) through D (least).
   Stock UNIXes are roughly C2, and can be upgraded to about C1
   without excessive pain.  See also {{book titles}}.

oriental food:: n. Hackers display an intense tropism towards
   oriental cuisine, especially Chinese, and especially of the spicier
   varieties such as Szechuan and Hunan.  This phenomenon (which has
   also been observed in subcultures that overlap heavily with
   hackerdom, most notably science-fiction fandom) has never been
   satisfactorily explained, but is sufficiently intense that one can
   assume the target of a hackish dinner expedition to be the best
   local Chinese place and be right at least three times out of four.
   See also {ravs}, {great-wall}, {stir-fried random},
   {laser chicken}, {Yu-Shiang Whole Fish}.  Thai, Indian,
   Korean, and Vietnamese cuisines are also quite popular.

orphan: [UNIX] n. A process whose parent has died; one inherited by
   `init(1)'.  Compare {zombie}.

orphaned i-node: /or'f*nd i:'nohd/ [UNIX] n. 1. [techspeak] A
   file that retains storage but no longer appears in the directories
   of a filesystem.  2. By extension, a pejorative for any person
   serving no useful function within some organization, esp.
   {lion food} without subordinates.

orthogonal: [from mathematics] adj. Mutually independent; well
   separated; sometimes, irrelevant to.  Used in a generalization of
   its mathematical meaning to describe sets of primitives or
   capabilities that, like a vector basis in geometry, span the
   entire `capability space' of the system and are in some sense
   non-overlapping or mutually independent.  For example, in
   architectures such as the PDP-11 or VAX where all or nearly all
   registers can be used interchangeably in any role with respect to
   any instruction, the register set is said to be orthogonal.  Or, in
   logic, the set of operators `not' and `or' is orthogonal,
   but the set `nand', `or', and `not' is not (because any
   one of these can be expressed in terms of the others).  Also used
   in comments on human discourse: "This may be orthogonal to the
   discussion, but...."

OS: /O-S/ 1. [Operating System] n. An acronym heavily used in email,
   occasionally in speech. 2. n.,obs. On ITS, an output spy.  See
   appendix A.

OS/2: /O S too/ n. The anointed successor to MS-DOS for Intel
   286- and 386-based micros; proof that IBM/Microsoft couldn't get it
   right the second time, either.  Mentioning it is usually good for a
   cheap laugh among hackers --- the design was so {baroque}, and
   the implementation of 1.x so bad, that 3 years after introduction
   you could still count the major {app}s shipping for it on the
   fingers of two hands --- in unary.  Often called `Half-an-OS'.  On
   January 28, 1991, Microsoft announced that it was dropping its OS/2
   development to concentrate on Windows, leaving the OS entirely in
   the hands of IBM; on January 29 they claimed the media had got the
   story wrong, but were vague about how.  It looks as though OS/2 is
   moribund.  See {vaporware}, {monstrosity}, {cretinous},
   {second-system effect}.

out-of-band: [from telecommunications and network theory] adj.
   1. In software, describes values of a function which are not in its
   `natural' range of return values, but are rather signals that
   some kind of exception has occurred.  Many C functions, for
   example, return either a nonnegative integral value, or indicate
   failure with an out-of-band return value of -1.  Compare
   {hidden flag}, {green bytes}.  2. Also sometimes used to
   describe what communications people call `shift characters',
   like the ESC that leads control sequences for many terminals, or
   the level shift indicators in the old 5-bit Baudot codes.  3. In
   personal communication, using methods other than email, such as
   telephones or {snail-mail}.

overflow bit: n. 1. [techspeak] On some processors, an attempt to
   calculate a result too large for a register to hold causes a
   particular {flag} called an {overflow bit} to be set.
   2. Hackers use the term of human thought too.  "Well, the {{Ada}}
   description was {baroque} all right, but I could hack it OK until
   they got to the exception handling ... that set my overflow bit."
   3. The hypothetical bit that will be set if a hacker doesn't get to
   make a trip to the Room of Porcelain Fixtures: "I'd better process
   an internal interrupt before the overflow bit gets set".

overrun: n. 1. [techspeak] Term for a frequent consequence of data
   arriving faster than it can be consumed, esp. in serial line
   communications.  For example, at 9600 baud there is almost exactly
   one character per millisecond, so if your {silo} can hold only
   two characters and the machine takes longer than 2 msec to get to
   service the interrupt, at least one character will be lost.  2. Also
   applied to non-serial-I/O communications. "I forgot to pay my
   electric bill due to mail overrun." "Sorry, I got four phone
   calls in 3 minutes last night and lost your message to
   overrun."  When {thrash}ing at tasks, the next person to make a
   request might be told "Overrun!"  3. More loosely, may refer to a
   {buffer overflow} not necessarily related to processing time (as
   in {overrun screw}).

overrun screw: [C programming] n. A variety of {fandango on core}
   produced by scribbling past the end of an array (C has no checks
   for this).  This is relatively benign and easy to spot if the array
   is static; if it is auto, the result may be to {smash the stack}
   --- often resulting in {heisenbug}s of the most diabolical
   subtlety.  The term `overrun screw' is used esp. of scribbles
   beyond the end of arrays allocated with `malloc(3)'; this
   typically trashes the allocation header for the next block in the
   {arena}, producing massive lossage within malloc and often
   a core dump on the next operation to use `stdio(3)' or
   `malloc(3)' itself.  See {spam}, {overrun}; see also
   {memory leak}, {aliasing bug}, {precedence lossage},
   {fandango on core}, {secondary damage}.

= P =

P.O.D.: /P-O-D/ Acronym for `Piece Of Data' (as opposed to a
   code section). Usage: pedantic and rare.  See also {pod}.

padded cell: n. Where you put {luser}s so they can't hurt
   anything.  A program that limits a luser to a carefully restricted
   subset of the capabilities of the host system (for example, the
   `rsh(1)' utility on USG UNIX).  Note that this is different
   from an {iron box} because it is overt and not aimed at
   enforcing security so much as protecting others (and the luser)
   from the consequences of the luser's boundless na"ivet'e (see
   {na"ive}).  Also `padded cell environment'.

page in: [MIT] vi. 1. To become aware of one's surroundings again after
   having paged out (see {page out}).  Usually confined to the sarcastic
   comment: "Eric pages in.  Film at 11."  See {film at 11}.
   2. Syn. `swap in'; see {swap}.

page out: [MIT] vi. 1. To become unaware of one's surroundings
   temporarily, due to daydreaming or preoccupation.  "Can you repeat
   that?  I paged out for a minute."  See {page in}.  Compare
   {glitch}, {thinko}.  2. Syn. `swap out'; see {swap}.

pain in the net: n. A {flamer}.

paper-net: n. Hackish way of referring to the postal service,
   analogizing it to a very slow, low-reliability network.  USENET
   {sig block}s not uncommonly include a "Paper-Net:" header just
   before the sender's postal address; common variants of this are
   "Papernet" and "P-Net".  Compare {voice-net}, {snail-mail}.

param: /p*-ram'/ n. Shorthand for `parameter'.  See also
   {parm}; Compare {arg}, {var}.

parent message: n. See {followup}.

parity errors: pl.n. Little lapses of attention or (in more severe
   cases) consciousness, usually brought on by having spent all night
   and most of the next day hacking.  "I need to go home and crash;
   I'm starting to get a lot of parity errors."  Derives from a
   relatively common but nearly always correctable transient error in
   RAM hardware.

Parkinson's Law of Data: prov. "Data expands to fill the space
   available for storage"; buying more memory encourages the use of
   more memory-intensive techniques.  It has been observed over the
   last 10 years that the memory usage of evolving systems tends to
   double roughly once every 18 months.  Fortunately, memory density
   available for constant dollars tends to double about once every
   12 months (see {Moore's Law}); unfortunately, the laws of
   physics guarantee that the latter cannot continue indefinitely.

parm: /parm/ n. Further-compressed form of {param}.  This term
   is an IBMism, and written use is almost unknown outside IBM
   shops; spoken /parm/ is more widely distributed, but the synonym
   {arg} is favored among hackers.  Compare {arg}, {var}.

parse: [from linguistic terminology] vt. 1. To determine the
   syntactic structure of a sentence or other utterance (close to the
   standard English meaning).  "That was the one I saw you."  "I
   can't parse that."  2. More generally, to understand or
   comprehend.  "It's very simple; you just kretch the glims and then
   aos the zotz."  "I can't parse that."  3. Of fish, to have to
   remove the bones yourself.  "I object to parsing fish", means "I
   don't want to get a whole fish, but a sliced one is okay".  A
   `parsed fish' has been deboned.  There is some controversy over
   whether `unparsed' should mean `bony', or also mean
   `deboned'.

Pascal:: n. An Algol-descended language designed by Niklaus Wirth
   on the CDC 6600 around 1967--68 as an instructional tool for
   elementary programming.  This language, designed primarily to keep
   students from shooting themselves in the foot and thus extremely
   restrictive from a general-purpose-programming point of view, was
   later promoted as a general-purpose tool and, in fact, became the
   ancestor of a large family of languages including Modula-2 and
   {{Ada}} (see also {bondage-and-discipline language}).  The
   hackish point of view on Pascal was probably best summed up by a
   devastating (and, in its deadpan way, screamingly funny) 1981 paper
   by Brian Kernighan (of {K&R} fame) entitled "Why Pascal is
   Not My Favorite Programming Language", which was never formally
   published but has circulated widely via photocopies.  Part of his
   discussion is worth repeating here, because its criticisms are
   still apposite to Pascal itself after ten years of improvement and
   could also stand as an indictment of many other
   bondage-and-discipline languages.  At the end of a summary of the
   case against Pascal, Kernighan wrote:

     9. There is no escape

     This last point is perhaps the most important.  The language is
     inadequate but circumscribed, because there is no way to escape its
     limitations.  There are no casts to disable the type-checking when
     necessary.  There is no way to replace the defective run-time
     environment with a sensible one, unless one controls the compiler that
     defines the "standard procedures".  The language is closed. 

     People who use Pascal for serious programming fall into a fatal trap.
     Because the language is impotent, it must be extended.  But each group
     extends Pascal in its own direction, to make it look like whatever
     language they really want.  Extensions for separate compilation,
     FORTRAN-like COMMON, string data types, internal static variables,
     initialization, octal numbers, bit operators, etc., all add to the
     utility of the language for one group but destroy its portability to
     others.

     I feel that it is a mistake to use Pascal for anything much beyond its
     original target.  In its pure form, Pascal is a toy language, suitable
     for teaching but not for real programming.

   Pascal has since been almost entirely displaced (by {C}) from the
   niches it had acquired in serious applications and systems
   programming, but retains some popularity as a hobbyist language in
   the MS-DOS and Macintosh worlds.

patch: 1. n. A temporary addition to a piece of code, usually as a
   {quick-and-dirty} remedy to an existing bug or misfeature.  A
   patch may or may not work, and may or may not eventually be
   incorporated permanently into the program.  Distinguished from a
   {diff} or {mod} by the fact that a patch is generated by more
   primitive means than the rest of the program; the classical
   examples are instructions modified by using the front panel
   switches, and changes made directly to the binary executable of a
   program originally written in an {HLL}.  Compare {one-line
   fix}.  2. vt. To insert a patch into a piece of code.  3. [in the
   UNIX world] n. A {diff} (sense 2).  4. A set of modifications to
   binaries to be applied by a patching program.  IBM operating
   systems often receive updates to the operating system in the form
   of absolute hexadecimal patches.  If you have modified your OS, you
   have to disassemble these back to the source.  The patches might
   later be corrected by other patches on top of them (patches were
   said to "grow scar tissue").  The result was often a convoluted
   {patch space} and headaches galore.

   There is a classic story of a {tiger team} penetrating a secure
   military computer that illustrates the danger inherent in binary
   patches (or, indeed, any that you can't --- or don't --- inspect
   and examine before installing).  They couldn't find any {trap
   door}s or any way to penetrate security of IBM's OS, so they made a
   site visit to an IBM office (remember, these were official military
   types who were purportedly on official business), swiped some IBM
   stationery, and created a fake patch.  The patch was actually the
   trapdoor they needed.  The patch was distributed at about the right
   time for an IBM patch, had official stationery and all accompanying
   documentation, and was dutifully installed.  The installation
   manager very shortly thereafter learned something about proper
   procedures.

patch space: n. An unused block of bits left in a binary so that
   it can later be modified by insertion of machine-language
   instructions there (typically, the patch space is modified to
   contain new code, and the superseded code is patched to contain a
   jump or call to the patch space).  The widening use of HLLs has
   made this term rare; it is now primarily historical outside IBM
   shops.  See {patch} (sense 4), {zap} (sense 4), {hook}.

path: n. 1. A {bang path} or explicitly routed {{Internet
   address}}; a node-by-node specification of a link between two
   machines.  2. [UNIX] A filename, fully specified relative to the
   root directory (as opposed to relative to the current directory;
   the latter is sometimes called a `relative path'). This is also
   called a `pathname'.  3. [UNIX and MS-DOS] The `search
   path', an environment variable specifying the directories in which
   the {shell} (COMMAND.COM, under MS-DOS) should look for commands.
   Other, similar constructs abound under UNIX (for example, the
   C preprocessor has a `search path' it uses in looking for
   `#include' files).

pathological: adj. 1. [scientific computation] Used of a data set
   that is grossly atypical of normal expected input, esp. one that
   exposes a weakness or bug in whatever algorithm one is using.  An
   algorithm that can be broken by pathological inputs may still be
   useful if such inputs are very unlikely to occur in practice.
   2. When used of test input, implies that it was purposefully
   engineered as a worst case.  The implication in both senses is that
   the data is spectacularly ill-conditioned or that someone had to
   explicitly set out to break the algorithm in order to come up with
   such a crazy example.  3. Also said of an unlikely collection of
   circumstances.  "If the network is down and comes up halfway
   through the execution of that command by root, the system may
   just crash."  "Yes, but that's a pathological case."  Often used
   to dismiss the case from discussion, with the implication that the
   consequences are acceptable since that they will happen so
   infrequently (if at all) that there is no justification for
   going to extra trouble to handle that case (see sense 1).

payware: /pay'weir/ n. Commercial software.  Oppose {shareware}
   or {freeware}.

PBD: /P-B-D/ [abbrev. of `Programmer Brain Damage'] n.  Applied
   to bug reports revealing places where the program was obviously
   broken by an incompetent or short-sighted programmer.  Compare
   {UBD}; see also {brain-damaged}.

PC-ism: /P-C-izm/ n. A piece of code or coding technique that
   takes advantage of the unprotected single-tasking environment in
   IBM PCs and the like, e.g., by busy-waiting on a hardware register,
   direct diddling of screen memory, or using hard timing loops.
   Compare {ill-behaved}, {vaxism}, {unixism}.  Also,
   `PC-ware' n., a program full of PC-isms on a machine with a more
   capable operating system.  Pejorative.

PD: /P-D/ adj. Common abbreviation for `public domain', applied
   to software distributed over {USENET} and from Internet archive
   sites.  Much of this software is not in fact public domain in
   the legal sense but travels under various copyrights granting
   reproduction and use rights to anyone who can {snarf} a copy.  See
   {copyleft}.

pdl: /pid'l/ or /puhd'l/ [acronym for `Push Down List'] 1. In
   ITS days, the preferred MITism for {stack}.  2. Dave Lebling, one
   of the co-authors of {Zork}; (his {network address} on the ITS
   machines was at one time pdl@dms).  3. `Program Design Language'.
   Any of a large class of formal and profoundly useless
   pseudo-languages in which {management} forces one to design
   programs.  {Management} often expects it to be maintained in
   parallel with the code.  See also {{flowchart}}.  4. To design
   using a program design language.  "I've been pdling so long my
   eyes won't focus beyond 2 feet."

PDP-10: [Programmed Data Processor model 10] n. The machine that
   made timesharing real.  It looms large in hacker folklore because
   of its adoption in the mid-1970s by many university computing
   facilities and research labs, including the MIT AI Lab, Stanford,
   and CMU.  Some aspects of the instruction set (most notably the
   bit-field instructions) are still considered unsurpassed.  The 10
   was eventually eclipsed by the VAX machines (descendants of the
   PDP-11) when DEC recognized that the 10 and VAX product lines were
   competing with each other and decided to concentrate its software
   development effort on the more profitable VAX.  The machine was
   finally dropped from DEC's line in 1983, following the failure of
   the Jupiter Project at DEC to build a viable new model. (Some
   attempts by other companies to market clones came to nothing; see
   {Foonly}) This event spelled the doom of {{ITS}} and the
   technical cultures that had spawned the original Jargon File, but
   by mid-1991 it had become something of a badge of honorable
   old-timerhood among hackers to have cut one's teeth on a PDP-10.
   See {{TOPS-10}}, {{ITS}}, {AOS}, {BLT}, {DDT}, {DPB},
   {EXCH}, {HAKMEM}, {JFCL}, {LDB}, {pop}, {push},
   appendix A.

PDP-20: n. The most famous computer that never was.  {PDP-10}
   computers running the {{TOPS-10}} operating system were labeled
   `DECsystem-10' as a way of differentiating them from the PDP-11.
   Later on, those systems running {TOPS-20} were labeled
   `DECSYSTEM-20' (the block capitals being the result of a lawsuit
   brought against DEC by Singer, which once made a computer called
   `system-10'), but contrary to popular lore there was never a
   `PDP-20'; the only difference between a 10 and a 20 was the
   operating system and the color of the paint.  Most (but not all)
   machines sold to run TOPS-10 were painted `Basil Blue', whereas
   most TOPS-20 machines were painted `Chinese Red' (often mistakenly
   called orange).

peek: n.,vt. (and {poke}) The commands in most microcomputer
   BASICs for directly accessing memory contents at an absolute
   address; often extended to mean the corresponding constructs in any
   {HLL} (peek reads memory, poke modifies it).  Much hacking on
   small, non-MMU micros consists of {peek}ing around memory, more
   or less at random, to find the location where the system keeps
   interesting stuff.  Long (and variably accurate) lists of such
   addresses for various computers circulate (see {{interrupt list,
   the}}).  The results of {poke}s at these addresses may be highly
   useful, mildly amusing, useless but neat, or (most likely) total
   {lossage} (see {killer poke}).

pencil and paper: n. An archaic information storage and
   transmission device that works by depositing smears of graphite on
   bleached wood pulp.  More recent developments in paper-based
   technology include improved `write-once' update devices which use
   tiny rolling heads similar to mouse balls to deposit colored
   pigment.  All these devices require an operator skilled at
   so-called `handwriting' technique.  These technologies are
   ubiquitous outside hackerdom, but nearly forgotten inside it.  Most
   hackers had terrible handwriting to begin with, and years of
   keyboarding tend to have encouraged it to degrade further.  Perhaps
   for this reason, hackers deprecate pencil-and-paper technology and
   often resist using it in any but the most trivial contexts.  See
   also appendix B.

peon: n. A person with no special ({root} or {wheel})
   privileges on a computer system.  "I can't create an account on
   *foovax* for you; I'm only a peon there."

percent-S: /per-sent' es'/ [From the code in C's `printf(3)'
   library function used to insert an arbitrary string argument] n. An
   unspecified person or object.  "I was just talking to some
   percent-s in administration."  Compare {random}.

perf: /perf/ n. See {chad} (sense 1).  The term `perfory'
   /per'f*-ree/ is also heard.

perfect programmer syndrome: n. Arrogance; the egotistical
   conviction that one is above normal human error.  Most frequently
   found among programmers of some native ability but relatively
   little experience (especially new graduates; their perceptions may
   be distorted by a history of excellent performance at solving {toy
   problem}s).  "Of course my program is correct, there is no need to
   test it."  "Yes, I can see there may be a problem here, but
   *I'll* never type `rm -r /' while in {root}."

Perl: /perl/ [Practical Extraction and Report Language, a.k.a
   Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister] n. An interpreted language
   developed by Larry Wall (lwall@jpl.nasa.gov, author of
   `patch(1)' and `rn(1)') and distributed over USENET.
   Superficially resembles `awk(1)', but is much hairier (see
   {awk}).  UNIX sysadmins, who are almost always incorrigible
   hackers, increasingly consider it one of the {languages of
   choice}.  Perl has been described, in a parody of a famous remark
   about `lex(1)', as the "Swiss-Army chainsaw" of UNIX
   programming.

pessimal: /pes'im-l/ [Latin-based antonym for `optimal'] adj.
   Maximally bad.  "This is a pessimal situation."  Also `pessimize'
   vt. To make as bad as possible.  These words are the obvious
   Latin-based antonyms for `optimal' and `optimize', but for some
   reason they do not appear in most English dictionaries, although
   `pessimize' is listed in the OED.

pessimizing compiler: /pes'*-mi:z`ing k*m-pi:l'r/ [antonym of
   `optimizing compiler'] n. A compiler that produces object code that
   is worse than the straightforward or obvious hand translation.  The
   implication is that the compiler is actually trying to optimize the
   program, but through excessive cleverness is doing the opposite.  A
   few pessimizing compilers have been written on purpose, however, as
   pranks or burlesques.

peta-: /pe't*/ [SI] pref. See {{quantifiers}}.

PETSCII: /pet'skee/ [abbreviation of PET ASCII] n. The variation
   (many would say perversion) of the {{ASCII}} character set used by
   the Commodore Business Machines PET series of personal computers
   and the later Commodore C64, C16, and C128 machines.  The PETSCII
   set used left-arrow and up-arrow (as in old-style ASCII) instead of
   underscore and caret, placed the unshifted alphabet at positions
   65--90, put the shifted alphabet at positions 193--218, and added
   graphics characters.

phase: 1. n. The phase of one's waking-sleeping schedule with
   respect to the standard 24-hour cycle.  This is a useful concept
   among people who often work at night and/or according to no fixed
   schedule.  It is not uncommon to change one's phase by as much as 6
   hours per day on a regular basis.  "What's your phase?"  "I've
   been getting in about 8 P.M. lately, but I'm going to {wrap
   around} to the day schedule by Friday."  A person who is roughly
   12 hours out of phase is sometimes said to be in `night mode'.
   (The term `day mode' is also (but less frequently) used, meaning
   you're working 9 to 5 (or, more likely, 10 to 6).)  The act of
   altering one's cycle is called `changing phase'; `phase
   shifting' has also been recently reported from Caltech.
   2. `change phase the hard way': To stay awake for a very long
   time in order to get into a different phase.  3. `change phase
   the easy way': To stay asleep, etc.  However, some claim that
   either staying awake longer or sleeping longer is easy, and that it
   is *shortening* your day or night that's hard (see {wrap
   around}).  The `jet lag' that afflicts travelers who cross many
   time-zone boundaries may be attributed to two distinct causes: the
   strain of travel per se, and the strain of changing phase.  Hackers
   who suddenly find that they must change phase drastically in a
   short period of time, particularly the hard way, experience
   something very like jet lag without traveling.

phase of the moon: n. Used humorously as a random parameter on which
   something is said to depend.  Sometimes implies unreliability of
   whatever is dependent, or that reliability seems to be dependent on
   conditions nobody has been able to determine.  "This feature
   depends on having the channel open in mumble mode, having the foo
   switch set, and on the phase of the moon."

   True story: Once upon a time there was a bug that really did depend
   on the phase of the moon.  There is a little subroutine that had
   traditionally been used in various programs at MIT to calculate an
   approximation to the moon's true phase.  GLS incorporated this
   routine into a LISP program that, when it wrote out a file, would
   print a timestamp line almost 80 characters long.  Very
   occasionally the first line of the message would be too long and
   would overflow onto the next line, and when the file was later read
   back in the program would {barf}.  The length of the first line
   depended on both the precise date and time and the length of the
   phase specification when the timestamp was printed, and so the bug
   literally depended on the phase of the moon!

   The first paper edition of the Jargon File (Steele-1983) included
   an example of one of the timestamp lines that exhibited this bug, but
   the typesetter `corrected' it.  This has since been described as
   the phase-of-the-moon-bug bug.

phreaking: [from `phone phreak'] n. 1. The art and science of
   cracking the phone network (so as, for example, to make free
   long-distance calls).  2. By extension, security-cracking in any
   other context (especially, but not exclusively, on communications
   networks).

   At one time phreaking was a semi-respectable activity among
   hackers; there was a gentleman's agreement that phreaking as an
   intellectual game and a form of exploration was OK, but serious
   theft of services was taboo.  There was significant crossover
   between the hacker community and the hard-core phone phreaks who
   ran semi-underground networks of their own through such media as
   the legendary `TAP Newsletter'.  This ethos began to break
   down in the mid-1980s as wider dissemination of the techniques put
   them in the hands of less responsible phreaks.  Around the same
   time, changes in the phone network made old-style technical
   ingenuity less effective as a way of hacking it, so phreaking came
   to depend more on overtly criminal acts such as stealing phone-card
   numbers.  The crimes and punishments of gangs like the `414 group'
   turned that game very ugly.  A few old-time hackers still phreak
   casually just to keep their hand in, but most these days have
   hardly even heard of `blue boxes' or any of the other
   paraphernalia of the great phreaks of yore.

pico-: [SI: a quantifier
   meaning * 10^-12]
   pref. Smaller than {nano-}; used in the same rather loose
   connotative way as {nano-} and {micro-}.  This usage is not yet
   common in the way {nano-} and {micro-} are, but should be
   instantly recognizable to any hacker.  See also {{quantifiers}},
   {micro-}.

pig, run like a: v. To run very slowly on given hardware, said of
   software.  Distinct from {hog}.

pilot error: [Sun: from aviation] n. A user's misconfiguration or
   misuse of a piece of software, producing apparently buglike results
   (compare {UBD}).  "Joe Luser reported a bug in sendmail that
   causes it to generate bogus headers."  "That's not a bug, that's
   pilot error.  His `sendmail.cf' is hosed."

ping: [from the TCP/IP acronym `Packet INternet Groper', prob.
   originally contrived to match the submariners' term for a sonar
   pulse] 1. n.  Slang term for a small network message (ICMP ECHO)
   sent by a computer to check for the presence and aliveness of
   another.  Occasionally used as a phone greeting.  See {ACK},
   also {ENQ}.  2. vt. To verify the presence of.  3. vt. To get
   the attention of.  From the UNIX command `ping(1)' that sends
   an ICMP ECHO packet to another host.  4. vt. To send a message to
   all members of a {mailing list} requesting an {ACK} (in order
   to verify that everybody's addresses are reachable).  "We haven't
   heard much of anything from Geoff, but he did respond with an ACK
   both times I pinged jargon-friends."

   The funniest use of `ping' to date was described in January 1991 by
   Steve Hayman on the USENET group comp.sys.next.  He was trying
   to isolate a faulty cable segment on a TCP/IP Ethernet hooked up to
   a NeXT machine, and got tired of having to run back to his console
   after each cabling tweak to see if the ping packets were getting
   through.  So he used the sound-recording feature on the NeXT, then
   wrote a script that repeatedly invoked `ping(8)', listened for
   an echo, and played back the recording on each returned packet.
   Result?  A program that caused the machine to repeat, over and
   over, "Ping ... ping ... ping ..." as long as the
   network was up.  He turned the volume to maximum, ferreted through
   the building with one ear cocked, and found a faulty tee connector
   in no time.

Pink-Shirt Book: `The Peter Norton Programmer's Guide to the IBM
   PC'.  The original cover featured a picture of Peter Norton with a
   silly smirk on his face, wearing a pink shirt.  Perhaps in
   recognition of this usage, the current edition has a different
   picture of Norton wearing a pink shirt.  See also {{book titles}}.

PIP: /pip/ [Peripheral Interchange Program] vt.,obs. To copy; from
   the program PIP on CP/M, RSX-11, RSTS/E, and OS/8 (derived from a
   utility on the PDP-6) that was used for file copying (and in OS/8
   and RT-11 for just about every other file operation you might want
   to do).  It is said that when the program was originated, during the
   development of the PDP-6 in 1963, it was called ATLATL (`Anything,
   Lord, to Anything, Lord').

pistol: [IBM] n. A tool that makes it all too easy for you to
   shoot yourself in the foot.  "UNIX `rm *' makes such a nice
   pistol!"

pizza box: [Sun] n. The largish thin box housing the electronics
   in (especially Sun) desktop workstations, so named because of its
   size and shape and the dimpled pattern that looks like air holes.

   Two meg single-platter removable disk packs used to be called pizzas,
   and the huge drive they were stuck into was referred to as a pizza
   oven.  It's an index of progress that in the old days just the disk
   was pizza-sized, while now the entire computer is.

pizza, ANSI standard: /an'see stan'd*rd peet'z*/ [CMU] Pepperoni
   and mushroom pizza.  Coined allegedly because most pizzas ordered
   by CMU hackers during some period leading up to mid-1990 were of
   that flavor.  See also {rotary debugger}; compare {tea, ISO
   standard cup of}.

plain-ASCII: /playn-as'kee/ Syn. {flat-ASCII}.

plan file: [UNIX] n. On systems that support {finger}, the
   `.plan' file in a user's home directory is displayed when the user
   is fingered.  This feature was originally intended to be used to
   keep potential fingerers apprised of one's location and near-future
   plans, but has been turned almost universally to humorous and
   self-expressive purposes (like a {sig block}).  See {Hacking X
   for Y}.

platinum-iridium: adj. Standard, against which all others of the
   same category are measured.  Usage: silly.  The notion is that one
   of whatever it is has actually been cast in platinum-iridium alloy
   and placed in the vault beside the Standard Kilogram at the
   International Bureau of Weights and Measures near Paris.  (From
   1889 to 1960, the meter was defined to be the distance between two
   scratches in a platinum-iridium bar kept in that vault --- this
   replaced an earlier definition as 10^7 times the distance
   between the North Pole and the Equator along a meridian through
   Paris; unfortunately, this had been based on an inexact value of
   the circumference of the Earth.  From 1960 to 1984 it was defined
   to be 1650763.73 wavelengths of the orange-red line of krypton-86
   propagating in a vacuum.  It is now defined as the length of the
   path traveled by light in a vacuum in the time interval of
   1/299,792,458 of a second.  The kilogram is now the only unit of
   measure officially defined in terms of a unique artifact.)  "This
   garbage-collection algorithm has been tested against the
   platinum-iridium cons cell in Paris."  Compare {golden}.

playpen: [IBM] n. A room where programmers work.  Compare {salt
   mines}.

playte: /playt/ 16 bits, by analogy with {nybble} and {{byte}}.  Usage:
   rare and extremely silly.  See also {dynner} and {crumb}.

plingnet: /pling'net/ n. Syn. {UUCPNET}.  Also see
   {{Commonwealth Hackish}}, which uses `pling' for {bang} (as in
   {bang path}).

plokta: /plok't*/ [Acronym for `Press Lots Of Keys To Abort']
   v.  To press random keys in an attempt to get some response from
   the system.  One might plokta when the abort procedure for a
   program is not known, or when trying to figure out if the system is
   just sluggish or really hung.  Plokta can also be used while trying
   to figure out any unknown key sequence for a particular operation.
   Someone going into `plokta mode' usually places both hands flat
   on the keyboard and presses down, hoping for some useful
   response.

plonk: [USENET: possibly influenced by British slang `plonk' for
   cheap booze] The sound a {newbie} makes as he falls to the bottom
   of a {kill file}.  Used almost exclusively in the {newsgroup}
   talk.bizarre, this term (usually written "*plonk*") is a
   form of public ridicule.

plugh: /ploogh/ [from the {ADVENT} game] v. See {xyzzy}.

plumbing: [UNIX] n. Term used for {shell} code, so called because
   of the prevalence of `pipelines' that feed the output of one
   program to the input of another.  Under UNIX, user utilities can
   often be implemented or at least prototyped by a suitable
   collection of pipelines and temp-file grinding encapsulated in a
   shell script; this is much less effort than writing C every time,
   and the capability is considered one of UNIX's major winning
   features.  Esp. used in the construction `hairy plumbing' (see
   {hairy}).  "You can kluge together a basic spell-checker out of
   `sort(1)', `comm(1)', and `tr(1)' with a little
   plumbing." See also {tee}.

PM: /P-M/ 1. v. (from `preventive maintenance') To bring
   down a machine for inspection or test purposes; see {scratch
   monkey}.  2. n. Abbrev. for `Presentation Manager', an
   {elephantine} OS/2 graphical user interface.  See also
   {provocative maintenance}.

pnambic: /p*-nam'bik/ [Acronym from the scene in the film
   version of `The Wizard of Oz' in which true nature of the
   wizard is first discovered: "Pay no attention to the man behind
   the curtain."]  1. A stage of development of a process or function
   that, owing to incomplete implementation or to the complexity of
   the system, requires human interaction to simulate or replace some
   or all of the actions, inputs, or outputs of the process or
   function.  2. Of or pertaining to a process or function whose
   apparent operations are wholly or partially falsified.  3. Requiring
   {prestidigitization}.

   The ultimate pnambic product was "Dan Bricklin's Demo", a program
   which supported flashy user-interface design prototyping.  There is
   a related maxim among hackers: "Any sufficiently advanced
   technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo."  See
   {magic}, sense 1, for illumination of this point.

pod: [allegedly from acronym POD for `Prince Of Darkness'] n. A
   Diablo 630 (or, latterly, any letter-quality impact printer).  From
   the DEC-10 PODTYPE program used to feed formatted text to it.
   See also {P.O.D.}

poke: n.,vt. See {peek}.

poll: v.,n. 1. [techspeak] The action of checking the status of an
   input line, sensor, or memory location to see if a particular
   external event has been registered.  2. To repeatedly call or check
   with someone: "I keep polling him, but he's not answering his
   phone; he must be swapped out."  3. To ask.  "Lunch?  I poll for
   a takeout order daily."

polygon pusher: n. A chip designer who spends most of his or her time at
   the physical layout level (which requires drawing *lots* of
   multi-colored polygons).  Also `rectangle slinger'.

POM: /P-O-M/ n. Common acronym for {phase of the moon}.  Usage:
   usually in the phrase `POM-dependent', which means {flaky}.

pop: [from the operation that removes the top of a stack, and the
   fact that procedure return addresses are saved on the stack] (also
   capitalized `POP' /pop/) 1. vt. To remove something from a
   {stack} or {pdl}.  If a person says he/she has popped
   something from his stack, that means he/she has finally finished
   working on it and can now remove it from the list of things hanging
   overhead.  2. When a discussion gets to too deep a level of detail
   so that the main point of the discussion is being lost, someone
   will shout "Pop!", meaning "Get back up to a higher level!"
   The shout is frequently accompanied by an upthrust arm with a
   finger pointing to the ceiling.

POPJ: /pop'J/ [from a {PDP-10} return-from-subroutine
   instruction] n.,v. To return from a digression.  By verb doubling,
   "Popj, popj" means roughly "Now let's see, where were we?"
   See {RTI}.

posing: n. On a {MUD}, the use of `:' or an equivalent
   command to announce to other players that one is taking a certain
   physical action that has no effect on the game (it may, however,
   serve as a social signal or propaganda device that induces other
   people to take game actions).  For example, if one's character name
   is Firechild, one might type `: looks delighted at the idea and
   begins hacking on the nearest terminal' to broadcast a message that
   says "Firechild looks delighted at the idea and begins hacking on
   the nearest terminal".  See {RL}.

post: v. To send a message to a {mailing list} or {newsgroup}.
   Distinguished in context from `mail'; one might ask, for
   example: "Are you going to post the patch or mail it to known
   users?"

posting: n. Noun corresp. to v. {post} (but note that
   {post} can be nouned).  Distinguished from a `letter' or ordinary
   {email} message by the fact that it is broadcast rather than
   point-to-point.  It is not clear whether messages sent to a small
   mailing list are postings or email; perhaps the best dividing line
   is that if you don't know the names of all the potential
   recipients, it is a posting.

postmaster: n. The email contact and maintenance person at a site
   connected to the Internet or UUCPNET.  Often, but not always, the
   same as the {admin}.  It is conventional for each machine to have
   a `postmaster' address that is aliased to this person.

pound on: vt.  Syn. {bang on}.

power cycle: vt. (also, `cycle power' or just `cycle') To
   power off a machine and then power it on immediately, with the
   intention of clearing some kind of {hung} or {gronk}ed state.
   Syn. {120 reset}; see also {Big Red Switch}.  Compare
   {Vulcan nerve pinch}, {bounce}, and {boot}, and see the
   AI Koan in appendix A about Tom Knight and the novice.

PPN: /P-P-N/, /pip'n/ [from `Project-Programmer Number'] n. A
   user-ID under {{TOPS-10}} and its various mutant progeny at SAIL,
   BBN, CompuServe, and elsewhere.  Old-time hackers from the PDP-10
   era sometimes use this to refer to user IDs on other systems as
   well.

precedence lossage: /pre's*-dens los'*j/ [C programmers] n. Coding
   error in an expression due to unexpected grouping of arithmetic or
   logical operators by the compiler.  Used esp. of certain common
   coding errors in C due to the nonintuitively low precedence levels
   of `&', `|', `^', `<<', and `>>' (for this
   reason, experienced C programmers deliberately forget the
   language's {baroque} precedence hierarchy and parenthesize
   defensively).  Can always be avoided by suitable use of
   parentheses.  {LISP} fans enjoy pointing out that this can't
   happen in *their* favorite language, which eschews precedence
   entirely, requiring one to use explicit parentheses everywhere.
   See {aliasing bug}, {memory leak}, {smash the stack},
   {fandango on core}, {overrun screw}.

prepend: /pree`pend'/ [by analogy with `append'] vt. To
   prefix.  As with `append' (but not `prefix' or `suffix' as a
   verb), the direct object is always the thing being added and not
   the original word (or character string, or whatever).  "If you
   prepend a semicolon to the line, the translation routine will pass
   it through unaltered."

prestidigitization: /pres`t*-di`j*-ti:-zay'sh*n/ n. 1. The act
   of putting something into digital notation via sleight of hand.
   2. Data entry through legerdemain.

pretty pictures: n. [scientific computation] The next step up from
   {numbers}.  Interesting graphical output from a program that may
   not have any sensible relationship to the system the program is
   intended to model.  Good for showing to {management}.

prettyprint: /prit'ee-print/ (alt. `pretty-print') v. 1. To
   generate `pretty' human-readable output from a {hairy} internal
   representation; esp. used for the process of {grind}ing (sense 2)
   LISP code.  2. To format in some particularly slick and
   nontrivial way.

pretzel key: [Mac users] n. See {command key}.

prime time: [from TV programming] n. Normal high-usage hours on a
   timesharing system; the day shift.  Avoidance of prime time is a
   major reason for {night mode} hacking.

priority interrupt: [from the hardware term] n. Describes any
   stimulus compelling enough to yank one right out of {hack mode}.
   Classically used to describe being dragged away by an {SO} for
   immediate sex, but may also refer to more mundane interruptions
   such as a fire alarm going off in the near vicinity.  Also called
   an {NMI} (non-maskable interrupt), especially in PC-land.

profile: n. 1. A control file for a program, esp. a text file
   automatically read from each user's home directory and intended to
   be easily modified by the user in order to customize the program's
   behavior.  Used to avoid {hardcoded} choices.  2. [techspeak] A
   report on the amounts of time spent in each routine of a program,
   used to find and {tune} away the {hot spot}s in it.  This sense
   is often verbed.  Some profiling modes report units other than time
   (such as call counts) and/or report at granularities other than
   per-routine, but the idea is similar.

proglet: /prog'let/ [UK] n. A short extempore program written
   to meet an immediate, transient need.  Often written in BASIC,
   rarely more than a dozen lines long, and contains no subroutines.
   The largest amount of code that can be written off the top of one's
   head, that does not need any editing, and that runs correctly the
   first time (this amount varies significantly according to the
   language one is using).  Compare {toy program}, {noddy},
   {one-liner wars}.

program: n. 1. A magic spell cast over a computer allowing it to
   turn one's input into error messages.  2. An exercise in
   experimental epistemology.  3. A form of art, ostensibly intended
   for the instruction of computers, which is nevertheless almost
   inevitably a failure if other programmers can't understand it.

Programmer's Cheer: "Shift to the left!  Shift to the right!  Pop
   up, push down!  Byte!  Byte!  Byte!"  A joke so old it has hair on
   it.

programming: n. 1. The art of debugging a blank sheet of paper (or,
   in these days of on-line editing, the art of debugging an empty
   file).  2. n. A pastime similar to banging one's head against a
   wall, but with fewer opportunities for reward.  3. n. The most fun
   you can have with your clothes on (although clothes are not
   mandatory).

propeller head: n. Used by hackers, this is syn. with {computer
   geek}.  Non-hackers sometimes use it to describe all techies.
   Prob. derives from SF fandom's tradition (originally invented by
   old-time fan Ray Faraday Nelson) of propeller beanies as fannish
   insignia (though nobody actually wears them except as a joke).

propeller key: [Mac users] n. See {command key}.

proprietary: adj. 1. In {marketroid}-speak, superior; implies a
   product imbued with exclusive magic by the unmatched brilliance of
   the company's hardware or software designers.  2. In the language
   of hackers and users, inferior; implies a product not conforming to
   open-systems standards, and thus one that puts the customer at the
   mercy of a vendor able to gouge freely on service and upgrade
   charges after the initial sale has locked the customer in (that's
   assuming it wasn't too expensive in the first place).

protocol: n. As used by hackers, this never refers to niceties
   about the proper form for addressing letters to the Papal Nuncio or
   the order in which one should use the forks in a Russian-style
   place setting; hackers don't care about such things.  It is used
   instead to describe any set of rules that allow different machines
   or pieces of software to coordinate with each other without
   ambiguity.  So, for example, it does include niceties about the
   proper form for addressing packets on a network or the order in
   which one should use the forks in the Dining Philosophers Problem.
   It implies that there is some common message format and an accepted set
   of primitives or commands that all parties involved understand, and
   that transactions among them follow predictable logical sequences.
   See also {handshaking}, {do protocol}.

provocative maintenance: [common ironic mutation of `preventive
   maintenance'] n. Actions performed upon a machine at regularly
   scheduled intervals to ensure that the system remains in a usable
   state.  So called because it is all too often performed by a
   {field servoid} who doesn't know what he is doing; this results
   in the machine's remaining in an *un*usable state for an
   indeterminate amount of time.  See also {scratch monkey}.

prowler: [UNIX] n. A {daemon} that is run periodically (typically
   once a week) to seek out and erase {core} files, truncate
   administrative logfiles, nuke `lost+found' directories, and
   otherwise clean up the {cruft} that tends to pile up in the
   corners of a file system.  See also {GFR}, {reaper},
   {skulker}.

pseudo: /soo'doh/ [USENET: truncation of `pseudonym'] n. 1. An
   electronic-mail or {USENET} persona adopted by a human for
   amusement value or as a means of avoiding negative repercussions of
   one's net.behavior; a `nom de USENET', often associated with
   forged postings designed to conceal message origins.  Perhaps the
   best-known and funniest hoax of this type is {BIFF}.
   2. Notionally, a {flamage}-generating AI program simulating a
   USENET user.  Many flamers have been accused of actually being such
   entities, despite the fact that no AI program of the required
   sophistication yet exists.  However, in 1989 there was a famous
   series of forged postings that used a phrase-frequency-based
   travesty generator to simulate the styles of several well-known
   flamers; it was based on large samples of their back postings
   (compare {Dissociated Press}).  A significant number of people
   were fooled by the forgeries, and the debate over their
   authenticity was settled only when the perpetrator came forward to
   publicly admit the hoax.

pseudoprime: n. A backgammon prime (six consecutive occupied
   points) with one point missing.  This term is an esoteric pun
   derived from a mathematical method that, rather than determining
   precisely whether a number is prime (has no divisors), uses a
   statistical technique to decide whether the number is `probably'
   prime.  A number that passes this test is called a pseudoprime.
   The hacker backgammon usage stems from the idea that a pseudoprime
   is almost as good as a prime: it does the job of a prime until
   proven otherwise, and that probably won't happen.

pseudosuit: /soo'doh-s[y]oot`/ n. A {suit} wannabee; a hacker
   who has decided that he wants to be in management or administration
   and begins wearing ties, sport coats, and (shudder!) suits
   voluntarily.  It's his funeral.  See also {lobotomy}.

psychedelicware: /si:`k*-del'-ik-weir/ [UK] n. Syn.
   {display hack}.  See also {smoking clover}.

psyton: /si:'ton/ [TMRC] n. The elementary particle carrying the
   sinister force.  The probability of a process losing is
   proportional to the number of psytons falling on it.  Psytons are
   generated by observers, which is why demos are more likely to fail
   when lots of people are watching.  [This term appears to have been
   largely superseded by {bogon}; see also {quantum bogodynamics}.
   --- ESR]

pubic directory: [NYU] (also `pube directory' /pyoob'
   d*-rek't*-ree/) n. The `pub' (public) directory on a machine that
   allows {FTP} access.  So called because it is the default
   location for {SEX} (sense 1).  "I'll have the source in the
   pube directory by Friday."

puff: vt. To decompress data that has been crunched by Huffman
   coding.  At least one widely distributed Huffman decoder program
   was actually *named* `PUFF', but these days it is usually
   packaged with the encoder.  Oppose {huff}.

punched card:: alt. `punch card' [techspeak] n.obs. The signature
   medium of computing's {Stone Age}, now obsolescent outside of
   some IBM shops.  The punched card actually predated computers
   considerably, originating in 1801 as a control device for
   mechanical looms.  The version patented by Hollerith and used with
   mechanical tabulating machines in the 1890 U.S. Census was a piece
   of cardboard about 90 mm by 215 mm, designed to fit exactly in the
   currency trays used for that era's larger dollar bills.

   IBM (which originated as a tabulating-machine manufacturer) married
   the punched card to computers, encoding binary information as
   patterns of small rectangular holes; one character per column,
   80 columns per card.  Other coding schemes, sizes of card, and
   hole shapes were tried at various times.

   The 80-column width of most character terminals is a legacy of the
   IBM punched card; so is the size of the quick-reference cards
   distributed with many varieties of computers even today.  See
   {chad}, {chad box}, {eighty-column mind}, {green card},
   {dusty deck}, {lace card}, {card walloper}.

punt: [from the punch line of an old joke referring to American
   football: "Drop back 15 yards and punt!"] v. 1. To give up,
   typically without any intention of retrying.  "Let's punt the
   movie tonight."  "I was going to hack all night to get this
   feature in, but I decided to punt" may mean that you've decided
   not to stay up all night, and may also mean you're not ever even
   going to put in the feature.  2. More specifically, to give up on
   figuring out what the {Right Thing} is and resort to an
   inefficient hack.  3. A design decision to defer solving a
   problem, typically because one cannot define what is desirable
   sufficiently well to frame an algorithmic solution.  "No way to
   know what the right form to dump the graph in is --- we'll punt
   that for now."  4. To hand a tricky implementation problem off
   to some other section of the design.  "It's too hard to get the
   compiler to do that; let's punt to the runtime system."

Purple Book: n. The `System V Interface Definition'.  The covers
   of the first editions were an amazingly nauseating shade of
   off-lavender.  See also {{book titles}}.

push: [from the operation that puts the current information on a
   stack, and the fact that procedure return addresses are saved on
   a stack] Also PUSH /push/ or PUSHJ /push'J/ (the latter based
   on the PDP-10 procedure call instruction).  1. To put something
   onto a {stack} or {pdl}.  If one says that something has been
   pushed onto one's stack, it means that the Damoclean list of things
   hanging over ones's head has grown longer and heavier yet.  This may
   also imply that one will deal with it *before* other pending
   items; otherwise one might say that the thing was `added to my queue'.
   2. vi. To enter upon a digression, to save the current discussion
   for later.  Antonym of {pop}; see also {stack}, {pdl}.

= Q =

quad: n. 1. Two bits; syn. for {quarter}, {crumb},
   {tayste}.  2. A four-pack of anything (compare {hex}, sense 2).
   3. The rectangle or box glyph used in the APL language for various
   arcane purposes mostly related to I/O.  Former Ivy-Leaguers and
   Oxbridge types are said to associate it with nostalgic memories of
   dear old University.

quadruple bucky: n., obs. 1. On an MIT {space-cadet keyboard},
   use of all four of the shifting keys (control, meta, hyper, and
   super) while typing a character key.  2. On a Stanford or MIT
   keyboard in {raw mode}, use of four shift keys while typing a
   fifth character, where the four shift keys are the control and meta
   keys on *both* sides of the keyboard.  This was very difficult
   to do!  One accepted technique was to press the left-control and
   left-meta keys with your left hand, the right-control and
   right-meta keys with your right hand, and the fifth key with your
   nose.

   Quadruple-bucky combinations were very seldom used in practice,
   because when one invented a new command one usually assigned it to
   some character that was easier to type.  If you want to imply that
   a program has ridiculously many commands or features, you can say
   something like: "Oh, the command that makes it spin the tapes while
   whistling Beethoven's Fifth Symphony is quadruple-bucky-cokebottle."
   See {double bucky}, {bucky bits}, {cokebottle}.

quantifiers:: In techspeak and jargon, the standard metric
   prefixes used in the SI (Syst`eme International) conventions for
   scientific measurement have dual uses.  With units of time or
   things that come in powers of 10, such as money, they retain their
   usual meanings of multiplication by powers of 1000 = 10^3.
   But when used with bytes or other things that naturally come in
   powers of 2, they usually denote multiplication by powers of
   1024 = 2^{10}.  Here are the magnifying prefixes in jargon
   use:

     prefix  decimal  binary
     kilo-   1000^1   1024^1 = 2^10 = 1,024
     mega-   1000^2   1024^2 = 2^20 = 1,048,576
     giga-   1000^3   1024^3 = 2^30 = 1,073,741,824
     tera-   1000^4   1024^4 = 2^40 = 1,099,511,627,776
     peta-   1000^5   1024^5 = 2^50 = 1,125,899,906,842,624
     exa-    1000^6   1024^6 = 2^60 = 1,152,921,504,606,846,976

   Here are the fractional prefixes:

     *prefix  decimal     jargon usage*
     milli-  1000^-1     (seldom used in jargon)
     micro-  1000^-2     small or human-scale (see {micro-})
     nano-   1000^-3     even smaller (see {nano-})
     pico-   1000^-4     even smaller yet (see {pico-})
     femto-  1000^-5     (not used in jargon---yet)
     atto-   1000^-6     (not used in jargon---yet)

   The binary peta- and exa- loadings are not in common use---yet,
   and the prefix milli-, denoting multiplication by 1000^{-1},
   has always been rare (there is, however, a standard joke about the
   `millihelen' --- notionally, the amount of beauty required to
   launch one ship).  See the entries on {micro-}, {pico-}, and
   {nano-} for more information on connotative jargon use of these
   terms.  `Femto' and `atto' (which, interestingly, derive not
   from Greek but from Danish) have not yet acquired jargon loadings,
   though it is easy to predict what those will be once computing
   technology enters the required realms of magnitude (however, see
   {attoparsec}).

   There are, of course, some standard unit prefixes for powers of
   10.  In the following table, the `prefix' column is the
   international standard suffix for the appropriate power of ten; the
   `binary' column lists jargon abbreviations and words for the
   corresponding power of 2.  The B-suffixed forms are commonly used
   for byte quantities; the words `meg' and `gig' are nouns which may
   (but do not always) pluralize with `s'.

     prefix   decimal   binary       pronunciation
     kilo-       k      K, KB,       /kay/
     mega-       M      M, MB, meg   /meg/
     giga-       G      G, GB, gig   /gig/,/jig/

   Confusingly, hackers often use K as though it were a suffix or
   numeric multiplier rather than a prefix; thus "2K dollars".  This
   is also true (though less commonly) of G and M.

   Note that the formal SI metric prefix for 1000 is `k'; some use
   this strictly, reserving `K' for multiplication by 1024 (KB is
   `kilobytes').

   K, M, and G used alone refer to quantities of bytes; thus, 64G is
   64 gigabytes and `a K' is a kilobyte (compare mainstream use of `a G'
   as short for `a grand', that is, $1000).  Whether one pronounces
   `gig' with hard or soft `g' depends on what one thinks the proper
   pronunciation of `giga-' is.

   Confusing 1000 and 1024 (or other powers of 2 and 10 close in
   magnitude) --- for example, describing a memory in units of
   500K or 524K instead of 512K --- is a sure sign of the
   {marketroid}.

quantum bogodynamics: /kwon'tm boh`goh-di:-nam'iks/ n. A theory
   that characterizes the universe in terms of bogon sources (such as
   politicians, used-car salesmen, TV evangelists, and {suit}s in
   general), bogon sinks (such as taxpayers and computers), and
   bogosity potential fields.  Bogon absorption, of course, causes
   human beings to behave mindlessly and machines to fail (and may
   also cause both to emit secondary bogons); however, the precise
   mechanics of the bogon-computron interaction are not yet understood
   and remain to be elucidated.  Quantum bogodynamics is most often
   invoked to explain the sharp increase in hardware and software
   failures in the presence of suits; the latter emit bogons, which
   the former absorb.  See {bogon}, {computron}, {suit},
   {psyton}.

quarter: n. Two bits.  This in turn comes from the `pieces of
   eight' famed in pirate movies --- Spanish gold pieces that could be
   broken into eight pie-slice-shaped `bits' to make change.  Early
   in American history the Spanish coin was considered equal to a
   dollar, so each of these `bits' was considered worth 12.5 cents.
   Syn.  {tayste}, {crumb}, {quad}.  Usage: rare.  See also
   {nickle}, {nybble}, {{byte}}, {dynner}.

ques: /kwes/ 1. n. The question mark character (`?', ASCII
   0111111).  2. interj.  What?  Also frequently verb-doubled as
   "Ques ques?"  See {wall}.

quick-and-dirty: adj. Describes a {crock} put together under time
   or user pressure.  Used esp. when you want to convey that you think
   the fast way might lead to trouble further down the road.  "I can
   have a quick-and-dirty fix in place tonight, but I'll have to
   rewrite the whole module to solve the underlying design problem."
   See also {kluge}.

quote chapter and verse: [by analogy with the mainstream phrase] v.
   To reproduce a relevant excerpt from an appropriate {bible}.
   "I don't care if `rn' gets it wrong; `Followup-To: poster' is 
   explicitly permitted by RFC-1036.  I'll quote chapter and
   verse if you don't believe me."

quotient: n. See {coefficient}.

quux: /kwuhks/ Mythically, from the Latin semi-deponent verb
   quuxo, quuxare, quuxandum iri; noun form variously `quux' (plural
   `quuces', anglicized to `quuxes') and `quuxu' (genitive
   plural is `quuxuum', for four u-letters out of seven in all,
   using up all the `u' letters in Scrabble).]  1. Originally, a
   metasyntactic variable like {foo} and {foobar}.  Invented by
   Guy Steele for precisely this purpose when he was young and na"ive
   and not yet interacting with the real computing community.  Many
   people invent such words; this one seems simply to have been lucky
   enough to have spread a little.  In an eloquent display of poetic
   justice, it has returned to the originator in the form of a
   nickname.  2. interj. See {foo}; however, denotes very little
   disgust, and is uttered mostly for the sake of the sound of it.
   3. Guy Steele in his persona as `The Great Quux', which is somewhat
   infamous for light verse and for the `Crunchly' cartoons.  4. In
   some circles, quux is used as a punning opposite of `crux'.
   "Ah, that's the quux of the matter!"  implies that the point is
   *not* crucial (compare {tip of the ice-cube}).  5. quuxy:
   adj. Of or pertaining to a quux.

qux: /kwuhks/ The fourth of the standard metasyntactic
   variables, after {baz} and before the quu(u...)x series.
   See {foo}, {bar}, {baz}, {quux}.  This appears to be a
   recent mutation from {quux}, and  many versions of the
   standard series just run {foo}, {bar}, {baz}, {quux},
   ....

QWERTY: /kwer'tee/ [from the keycaps at the upper left] adj.
   Pertaining to a standard English-language typewriter keyboard
   (sometimes called the Sholes keyboard after its inventor), as
   opposed to Dvorak or foreign-language layouts or a {space-cadet
   keyboard} or APL keyboard.

   Historical note: The QWERTY layout is a fine example of a {fossil}.
   It is sometimes said that it was designed to slow down the typist,
   but this is wrong; it was designed to allow *faster* typing
   --- under a constraint now long obsolete.  In early typewriters,
   fast typing using nearby type-bars jammed the mechanism.  So Sholes
   fiddled the layout to separate the letters of many common digraphs
   (he did a far from perfect job, though; `th', `tr', `ed', and `er',
   for example, each use two nearby keys).  Also, putting the letters
   of `typewriter' on one line allowed it to be typed with particular
   speed and accuracy for {demo}s.  The jamming problem was
   essentially solved soon afterward by a suitable use of springs, but
   the keyboard layout lives on.

= R =

rain dance: n. 1. Any ceremonial action taken to correct a hardware
   problem, with the expectation that nothing will be accomplished.
   This especially applies to reseating printed circuit boards,
   reconnecting cables, etc.  "I can't boot up the machine.  We'll
   have to wait for Greg to do his rain dance."  2. Any arcane
   sequence of actions performed with computers or software in order
   to achieve some goal; the term is usually restricted to rituals
   that include both an {incantation} or two and physical activity
   or motion.  Compare {magic}, {voodoo programming}, {black
   art}.

random: adj. 1. Unpredictable (closest to mathematical
   definition); weird.  "The system's been behaving pretty
   randomly."  2. Assorted; undistinguished.  "Who was at the
   conference?"  "Just a bunch of random business types."
   3. (pejorative) Frivolous; unproductive; undirected.  "He's just a
   random loser."  4. Incoherent or inelegant; poorly chosen; not
   well organized.  "The program has a random set of misfeatures."
   "That's a random name for that function."  "Well, all the names
   were chosen pretty randomly."  5. In no particular order, though
   deterministic.  "The I/O channels are in a pool, and when a file
   is opened one is chosen randomly."  6. Arbitrary.  "It generates
   a random name for the scratch file."  7. Gratuitously wrong, i.e.,
   poorly done and for no good apparent reason.  For example, a
   program that handles file name defaulting in a particularly useless
   way, or an assembler routine that could easily have been coded
   using only three registers, but redundantly uses seven for values with
   non-overlapping lifetimes, so that no one else can invoke it
   without first saving four extra registers.  What {randomness}!
   8. n. A random hacker; used particularly of high-school students
   who soak up computer time and generally get in the way.  9. n.
   Anyone who is not a hacker (or, sometimes, anyone not known to the
   hacker speaking); the noun form of sense 2.  "I went to the talk,
   but the audience was full of randoms asking bogus questions".
   10. n. (occasional MIT usage) One who lives at Random Hall.  See
   also {J. Random}, {some random X}.

random numbers:: n. When one wishes to specify a large but random
   number of things, and the context is inappropriate for {N}, certain
   numbers are preferred by hacker tradition (that is, easily
   recognized as placeholders).  These include the following:

     17
          Long described at MIT as `the least random number'; see 23.
     23
          Sacred number of Eris, Goddess of Discord (along with 17 and 5).
     42
          The Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and
          Everything. (Note that this answer is completely fortuitous. `:-)')
     69
          From the sexual act.  This one was favored in MIT's ITS culture.
     105
          69 hex = 105 decimal, and 69 decimal = 105 octal.
     666
          The Number of the Beast.

   For further enlightenment, consult the `Principia Discordia',
   `The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy', `The Joy of Sex',
   and the Christian Bible (Revelation 13:8).  See also
   {Discordianism} or consult your pineal gland.

   One common rhetorical maneuver uses any of the canonical random
   numbers as placeholders for variables.  "The max function takes
   42 arguments, for arbitrary values of 42." "There are 69 ways
   to leave your lover, for 69 = 50."  This is especially likely when
   the speaker has uttered a random number and realizes that it was
   not recognized as such, but even `non-random' numbers are
   occasionally used in this fashion.  A related joke is that pi
   equals 3 --- for small values of pi and large values of 3.

randomness: n. An inexplicable misfeature; gratuitous inelegance.
   Also, a {hack} or {crock} that depends on a complex
   combination of coincidences (or, possibly, the combination upon
   which the crock depends for its accidental failure to malfunction).
   "This hack can output characters 40--57 by putting the character
   in the four-bit accumulator field of an XCT and then extracting six bits
   --- the low 2 bits of the XCT opcode are the right thing." "What
   randomness!"

rape: vt. 1. To {screw} someone or something, violently; in
   particular, to destroy a program or information irrecoverably.
   Often used in describing file-system damage.  "So-and-so was
   running a program that did absolute disk I/O and ended up raping
   the master directory."  2. To strip a piece of hardware for parts.

rare mode: [UNIX] adj. CBREAK mode (character-by-character with
   interrupts enabled).  Distinguished from {raw mode} and `cooked
   mode'; the phrase "a sort of half-cooked (rare?) mode" is used
   in the V7/BSD manuals to describe the mode.  Usage: rare.

raster blaster: n. [Cambridge] Specialized hardware for
   {bitblt} operations (a {blitter}).  Allegedly inspired by
   `Rasta Blasta', British slang for the sort of portable stereo
   Americans call a `boom box' or `ghetto blaster'.

raster burn: n. Eyestrain brought on by too many hours of looking at
   low-res, poorly tuned, or glare-ridden monitors, esp. graphics
   monitors.  See {terminal illness}.

rat belt: n. A cable tie, esp. the sawtoothed, self-locking plastic
   kind that you can remove only by cutting (as opposed to a random
   twist of wire or a twist tie or one of those humongous metal clip
   frobs).  Small cable ties are `mouse belts'.

rave: [WPI] vi. 1. To persist in discussing a specific subject.
   2. To speak authoritatively on a subject about which one knows
   very little.  3. To complain to a person who is not in a position
   to correct the difficulty.  4. To purposely annoy another person
   verbally.  5. To evangelize.  See {flame}.  6. Also used to
   describe a less negative form of blather, such as friendly
   bullshitting.  `Rave' differs slightly from {flame} in that
   `rave' implies that it is the persistence or obliviousness of the
   person speaking that is annoying, while {flame} implies somewhat
   more strongly that the tone is offensive as well.

rave on!: imp. Sarcastic invitation to continue a {rave}, often by
   someone who wishes the raver would get a clue but realizes this is
   unlikely.

ravs: /ravz/, also `Chinese ravs' n. Jiao-zi (steamed or
   boiled) or Guo-tie (pan-fried).  A Chinese appetizer, known
   variously in the plural as dumplings, pot stickers (the literal
   translation of guo-tie), and (around Boston) `Peking Ravioli'.  The
   term `rav' is short for `ravioli', which among hackers always
   means the Chinese kind rather than the Italian kind.  Both consist
   of a filling in a pasta shell, but the Chinese kind includes no
   cheese, uses a thinner pasta, has a pork-vegetable filling (good
   ones include Chinese chives), and is cooked differently, either by
   steaming or frying.  A rav or dumpling can be cooked any way, but a
   potsticker is always the fried kind (so called because it sticks to
   the frying pot and has to be scraped off).  "Let's get
   hot-and-sour soup and three orders of ravs."  See also
   {{oriental food}}.

raw mode: n. A mode that allows a program to transfer bits directly
   to or from an I/O device without any processing, abstraction, or
   interpretation by the operating system.  Compare {rare}.  This is
   techspeak under UNIX, jargon elsewhere.

rc file: /R-C fi:l/ [UNIX: from the startup script
   `/etc/rc', but this is commonly believed to have been named
   after older scripts to `run commands'] n. Script file containing
   startup instructions for an application program (or an entire
   operating system), usually a text file containing commands of the
   sort that might have been invoked manually once the system was
   running but are to be executed automatically each time the system
   starts up.  See also {dot file}.

RE: /R-E/ n. Common spoken and written shorthand for {regexp}.

read-only user: n. Describes a {luser} who uses computers almost
   exclusively for reading USENET, bulletin boards, and/or email,
   rather than writing code or purveying useful information.  See
   {twink}, {terminal junkie}, {lurker}.

README file: n. By convention, the top-level directory of a UNIX
   source distribution always contains a file named `README' (or
   READ.ME, or rarely ReadMe or some other variant), which is a
   hacker's-eye introduction containing a pointer to more detailed
   documentation, credits, miscellaneous revision history notes, etc.
   When asked, hackers invariably relate this to the famous scene in
   Lewis Carroll's `Alice's Adventures In Wonderland' in which
   Alice confronts magic munchies labeled "Eat Me" and "Drink
   Me".

real estate: n. May be used for any critical resource measured in
   units of area.  Most frequently used of `chip real estate', the
   area available for logic on the surface of an integrated circuit
   (see also {nanoacre}).  May also be used of floor space in a
   {dinosaur pen}, or even space on a crowded desktop (whether
   physical or electronic).

real hack: n. A {crock}.  This is sometimes used affectionately;
   see {hack}.

real operating system: n. The sort the speaker is used to.  People
   from the academic community are likely to issue comments like
   "System V?  Why don't you use a *real* operating system?",
   people from the commercial/industrial UNIX sector are known to
   complain "BSD?  Why don't you use a *real* operating
   system?", and people from IBM object "UNIX?  Why don't
   you use a *real* operating system?"  See {holy wars},
   {religious issues}, {proprietary}, {Get a real computer!}

real programmer: [indirectly, from the book `Real Men Don't
   Eat Quiche'] n. A particular sub-variety of hacker: one possessed
   of a flippant attitude toward complexity that is arrogant even
   when justified by experience.  The archetypal `real programmer'
   likes to program on the {bare metal} and is very good at same,
   remembers the binary opcodes for every machine he has ever
   programmed, thinks that HLLs are sissy, and uses a debugger to edit
   his code because full-screen editors are for wimps.  Real
   Programmers aren't satisfied with code that hasn't been {bum}med
   into a state of {tense}ness just short of rupture.  Real
   Programmers never use comments or write documentation: "If it was
   hard to write", says the Real Programmer, "it should be hard to
   understand."  Real Programmers can make machines do things that
   were never in their spec sheets; in fact, they are seldom really
   happy unless doing so.  A Real Programmer's code can awe with its
   fiendish brilliance, even as its crockishness appalls.  Real
   Programmers live on junk food and coffee, hang line-printer art on
   their walls, and terrify the crap out of other programmers ---
   because someday, somebody else might have to try to understand
   their code in order to change it.  Their successors generally
   consider it a {Good Thing} that there aren't many Real
   Programmers around any more.  For a famous (and somewhat more
   positive) portrait of a Real Programmer, see "The Story of
   Mel" in appendix A.

Real Soon Now: [orig. from SF's fanzine community, popularized by
   Jerry Pournelle's column in `BYTE'] adv. 1. Supposed to be available
   (or fixed, or cheap, or whatever) real soon now according to
   somebody, but the speaker is quite skeptical.  2. When one's
   gods, fates, or other time commitments permit one to get to it (in other
   words, don't hold your breath).  Often abbreviated RSN.

real time: 1. [techspeak] adj. Describes an application which requires a
   program to respond to stimuli within some small upper limit of
   response time (typically milli- or microseconds).  Process control
   at a chemical plant is the classic example.  Such applications
   often require special operating systems (because everything else
   must take a back seat to response time) and speed-tuned hardware.
   2. adv. In jargon, refers to doing something while people are watching
   or waiting.  "I asked her how to find the calling procedure's
   program counter on the stack and she came up with an algorithm in
   real time."

real user: n. 1. A commercial user.  One who is paying *real*
   money for his computer usage.  2. A non-hacker.  Someone using the
   system for an explicit purpose (a research project, a course, etc.)
   other than pure exploration.  See {user}.  Hackers who are also
   students may also be real users.  "I need this fixed so I can do a
   problem set.  I'm not complaining out of randomness, but as a real
   user."  See also {luser}.

Real World: n. 1. Those institutions at which `programming' may
   be used in the same sentence as `FORTRAN', `{COBOL}',
   `RPG', `{IBM}', `DBASE', etc.  Places where programs do such
   commercially necessary but intellectually uninspiring things as
   generating payroll checks and invoices.  2. The location of
   non-programmers and activities not related to programming.  3. A
   bizarre dimension in which the standard dress is shirt and tie and
   in which a person's working hours are defined as 9 to 5 (see
   {code grinder}).  4. Anywhere outside a university.  "Poor
   fellow, he's left MIT and gone into the Real World."  Used
   pejoratively by those not in residence there.  In conversation,
   talking of someone who has entered the Real World is not unlike
   speaking of a deceased person.  See also {fear and loathing},
   {mundane}, and {uninteresting}.

reality check: n. 1. The simplest kind of test of software or
   hardware; doing the equivalent of asking it what 2 + 2 is
   and seeing if you get 4.  The software equivalent of a
   {smoke test}.  2. The act of letting a {real user} try out
   prototype software.  Compare {sanity check}.

reaper: n. A {prowler} that {GFR}s files.  A file removed in
   this way is said to have been `reaped'.

rectangle slinger: n. See {polygon pusher}.

recursion: n. See {recursion}.  See also {tail recursion}.

recursive acronym:: pl.n. A hackish (and especially MIT) tradition
   is to choose acronyms that refer humorously to themselves or to
   other acronyms.  The classic examples were two MIT editors called
   EINE ("EINE Is Not EMACS") and ZWEI ("ZWEI Was EINE
   Initially").  More recently, there is a Scheme compiler called
   LIAR (Liar Imitates Apply Recursively), and {GNU} (q.v.,
   sense 1) stands for "GNU's Not UNIX!" --- and a company with
   the name CYGNUS, which expands to "Cygnus, Your GNU Support".
   See also {mung}, {EMACS}.

Red Book: n. 1. Informal name for one of the three standard
   references on PostScript (`PostScript Language Reference
   Manual', Adobe Systems (Addison-Wesley, 1985; QA76.73.P67P67; ISBN
   0-201-10174-2); the others are known as the {Green Book} and
   the {Blue Book}.  2. Informal name for one of the 3 standard
   references on Smalltalk (`Smalltalk-80: The Interactive
   Programming Environment' by Adele Goldberg (Addison-Wesley, 1984;
   QA76.8.S635G638; ISBN 0-201-11372-4); this too is associated with
   blue and green books).  3. Any of the 1984 standards issued by the
   CCITT eighth plenary assembly.  Until now, these have changed color
   each review cycle (1988 was {Blue Book}, 1992 will be {Green
   Book}); however, it is rumored that this convention is going to be
   dropped before 1992.  These include, among other things, the
   X.400 email spec and the Group 1 through 4 fax standards.  4. The
   new version of the {Green Book} (sense 4) --- IEEE 1003.1-1990, a.k.a
   ISO 9945-1 --- is (because of the color and the fact that it is
   printed on A4 paper) known in the U.S.A. as "the Ugly Red Book
   That Won't Fit On The Shelf" and in Europe as "the Ugly Red Book
   That's A Sensible Size".  5. The NSA `Trusted Network
   Interpretation' companion to the {Orange Book}.  See also
   {{book titles}}.

regexp: /reg'eksp/ [UNIX] n. (alt. `regex' or `reg-ex')
   1. Common written and spoken abbreviation for `regular
   expression', one of the wildcard patterns used, e.g., by UNIX
   utilities such as `grep(1)', `sed(1)', and `awk(1)'.
   These use conventions similar to but more elaborate than those
   described under {glob}.  For purposes of this lexicon, it is
   sufficient to note that regexps also allow complemented character
   sets using `^'; thus, one can specify `any non-alphabetic
   character' with `[^A-Za-z]'.  2. Name of a well-known PD
   regexp-handling package in portable C, written by revered USENETter
   Henry Spencer (henry@zoo.toronto.edu).

reincarnation, cycle of: n. See {cycle of reincarnation}.

reinvent the wheel: v. To design or implement a tool equivalent to
   an existing one or part of one, with the implication that doing so
   is silly or a waste of time.  This is often a valid criticism.
   On the other hand, automobiles don't use wooden rollers, and some
   kinds of wheel have to be reinvented many times before you get them
   right.  On the third hand, people reinventing the wheel do tend to
   come up with the moral equivalent of a trapezoid with an offset
   axle.

religious issues: n. Questions which seemingly cannot be raised
   without touching off {holy wars}, such as "What is the best
   operating system (or editor, language, architecture, shell, mail
   reader, news reader)?", "What about that Heinlein guy, eh?",
   "What should we add to the new Jargon File?"  See {holy wars};
   see also {theology}, {bigot}.

   This term is an example of {ha ha only serious}.  People
   actually develop the most amazing and religiously intense
   attachments to their tools, even when the tools are intangible.
   The most constructive thing one can do when one stumbles into the
   crossfire is mumble {Get a life!} and leave --- unless, of course,
   one's *own* unassailably rational and obviously correct
   choices are being slammed.

replicator: n. Any construct that acts to produce copies of itself;
   this could be a living organism, an idea (see {meme}), a program
   (see {worm}, {wabbit}, and {virus}), a pattern in a cellular
   automaton (see {life}, sense 1), or (speculatively) a robot or
   {nanobot}.  It is even claimed by some that {{UNIX}} and {C}
   are the symbiotic halves of an extremely successful replicator; see
   {UNIX conspiracy}.

reply: n. See {followup}.

reset: [the MUD community] v. In AberMUD, to bring all dead mobiles
   to life and move items back to their initial starting places. New
   players who can't find anything shout "Reset! Reset!" quite a bit.
   Higher-level players shout back "No way!" since they know where
   points are to be found.  Used in {RL}, it means to put things back
   to the way they were when you found them.

restriction: n. A {bug} or design error that limits a program's
   capabilities, and which is sufficiently egregious that nobody can
   quite work up enough nerve to describe it as a {feature}.  Often
   used (esp. by {marketroid} types) to make it sound as though
   some crippling bogosity had been intended by the designers all
   along, or was forced upon them by arcane technical constraints of a
   nature no mere user could possibly comprehend (these claims are
   almost invariably false).

   Old-time hacker Joseph M. Newcomer advises that whenever choosing a
   quantifiable but arbitrary restriction, you should make it either a
   power of 2 or a power of 2 minus 1.  If you impose a limit of
   17 items in a list, everyone will know it is a random number --- on
   the other hand, a limit of 15 or 16 suggests some deep reason
   (involving 0- or 1-based indexing in binary) and you will get less
   {flamage} for it.  Limits which are round numbers in base 10 are
   always especially suspect.

retcon: /ret'kon/ [`retroactive continuity', from the USENET
   newsgroup rec.arts.comics] 1. n. The common situation in pulp
   fiction (esp. comics or soap operas) where a new story `reveals'
   things about events in previous stories, usually leaving the
   `facts' the same (thus preserving continuity) while completely
   changing their interpretation.  E.g., revealing that a whole season
   of "Dallas" was a dream was a retcon.  2. vt. To write such a
   story about a character or fictitious object.  "Byrne has
   retconned Superman's cape so that it is no longer unbreakable."
   "Marvelman's old adventures were retconned into synthetic
   dreams."  "Swamp Thing was retconned from a transformed person
   into a sentient vegetable."

   [This is included because it is a good example of hackish linguistic
   innovation in a field completely unrelated to computers.  The word
   `retcon' will probably spread through comics fandom and lose its
   association with hackerdom within a couple of years; for the
   record, it started here. --- ESR]

RETI: v. Syn. {RTI}

retrocomputing: /ret'-roh-k*m-pyoo'ting/ n. Refers to emulations
   of way-behind-the-state-of-the-art hardware or software, or
   implementations of never-was-state-of-the-art; esp. if such
   implementations are elaborate practical jokes and/or parodies of
   more `serious' designs.  Perhaps the most widely distributed
   retrocomputing utility was the `pnch(6)' or `bcd(6)'
   program on V7 and other early UNIX versions, which would accept up
   to 80 characters of text argument and display the corresponding
   pattern in {{punched card}} code.  Other well-known retrocomputing
   hacks have included the programming language {INTERCAL}, a
   {JCL}-emulating shell for UNIX, the card-punch-emulating editor
   named 029, and various elaborate PDP-11 hardware emulators and RT-11
   OS emulators written just to keep an old, sourceless {Zork} binary
   running.

RFC: /R-F-C/ [Request For Comment] n. One of a long-established
   series of numbered Internet standards widely followed by commercial
   and PD software in the Internet and UNIX communities.  Perhaps the
   single most influential one has been RFC-822 (the Internet
   mail-format standard).  The RFCs are unusual in that they are
   floated by technical experts acting on their own initiative and
   reviewed by the Internet at large, rather than formally promulgated
   through an institution such as ANSI.  For this reason, they remain
   known as RFCs even once adopted.

RFE: /R-F-E/ n. 1. [techspeak] Request For Enhancement.  2. [from
   `Radio Free Europe', Bellcore and Sun] Radio Free Ethernet, a system
   (originated by Peter Langston) for broadcasting audio among Sun
   SPARCstations over the ethernet.

rib site: [by analogy with {backbone site}] n. A machine that
   has an on-demand high-speed link to a {backbone site} and serves
   as a regional distribution point for lots of third-party traffic in
   email and USENET news.  Compare {leaf site}, {backbone site}.

rice box: [from ham radio slang] n. Any Asian-made commodity
   computer, esp. an 80x86-based machine built to IBM PC-compatible
   ISA or EISA-bus standards.

Right Thing: n. That which is {compellingly} the correct or
   appropriate thing to use, do, say, etc.  Often capitalized, always
   emphasized in speech as though capitalized.  Use of this term often
   implies that in fact reasonable people may disagree.  "What's the
   right thing for LISP to do when it sees `(mod a 0)'?  Should
   it return `a', or give a divide-by-0 error?"  Oppose
   {Wrong Thing}.

RL: // [MUD community] n. Real Life.  "Firiss laughs in RL"
   means that Firiss's player is laughing.  Oppose {VR}.

roach: [Bell Labs] vt. To destroy, esp. of a data structure.  Hardware
   gets {toast}ed or {fried}, software gets roached.

robust: adj. Said of a system that has demonstrated an ability to
   recover gracefully from the whole range of exceptional inputs and
   situations in a given environment.  One step below {bulletproof}.
   Carries the additional connotation of elegance in addition to just
   careful attention to detail.  Compare {smart}, oppose
   {brittle}.

rococo: adj. {Baroque} in the extreme.  Used to imply that a
   program has become so encrusted with the software equivalent of
   gold leaf and curlicues that they have completely swamped the
   underlying design.  Called after the later and more extreme forms
   of Baroque architecture and decoration prevalent during the
   mid-1700s in Europe.  Fred Brooks (the man who coined
   {second-system effect}) said: "Every program eventually becomes
   rococo, and then rubble."

rogue: [UNIX] n. A Dungeons-and-Dragons-like game using character
   graphics, written under BSD UNIX and subsequently ported to other
   UNIX systems.  The original BSD `curses(3)' screen-handling
   package was hacked together by Ken Arnold to support
   `rogue(6)' and has since become one of UNIX's most important
   and heavily used application libraries.  Nethack, Omega, Larn, and
   an entire subgenre of computer dungeon games all took off from the
   inspiration provided by `rogue(6)'.  See {nethack}.

room-temperature IQ: [IBM] quant. 80 or below.  Used in describing the
   expected intelligence range of the {luser}.  "Well, but
   how's this interface going to play with the room-temperature IQ
   crowd?"  See {drool-proof paper}.  This is a much more insulting
   phrase in countries that use Celsius thermometers.

root: [UNIX] n. 1. The {superuser} account that ignores
   permission bits, user number 0 on a UNIX system.  This account
   has the user name `root'.  The term {avatar} is also used.
   2. The top node of the system directory structure (home directory
   of the root user).  3. By extension, the privileged
   system-maintenance login on any OS.  See {root mode}, {go root}.

root mode: n. Syn. with {wizard mode} or `wheel mode'.  Like
   these, it is often generalized to describe privileged states in
   systems other than OSes.

rot13: /rot ther'teen/ [USENET: from `rotate alphabet
   13 places'] n., v. The simple Caesar-cypher encryption that replaces
   each English letter with the one 13 places forward or back along
   the alphabet, so that "The butler did it!" becomes "Gur ohgyre
   qvq vg!"  Most USENET news reading and posting programs include a
   rot13 feature.  It is used to enclose the text in a sealed wrapper
   that the reader must choose to open --- e.g., for posting things
   that might offend some readers, or answers to puzzles.  A major
   advantage of rot13 over rot(N) for other N is that it
   is self-inverse, so the same code can be used for encoding and
   decoding.

rotary debugger: [Commodore] n. Essential equipment for those
   late-night or early-morning debugging sessions.  Mainly used as
   sustenance for the hacker.  Comes in many decorator colors, such as
   Sausage, Pepperoni, and Garbage.  See {pizza, ANSI standard}.

RSN: // adj. See {Real Soon Now}.

RTFAQ: /R-T-F-A-Q/ [USENET: primarily written, by analogy with
   {RTFM}] imp. Abbrev. for `Read the FAQ!', an exhortation that
   the person addressed ought to read the newsgroup's {FAQ list}
   before posting questions.

RTFM: /R-T-F-M/ [UNIX] imp. Acronym for `Read The Fucking
   Manual'.  1. Used by {guru}s to brush off questions they
   consider trivial or annoying.  Compare {Don't do that, then!}
   2. Used when reporting a problem to indicate that you aren't just
   asking out of {randomness}.  "No, I can't figure out how to
   interface UNIX to my toaster, and yes, I have RTFM."  Unlike
   sense 1, this use is considered polite.  See also
   {RTFAQ}, {RTM}.  The variant RTFS, where S = `Standard',
   has also been reported.  Compare {UTSL}.

RTI: /R-T-I/ interj. The mnemonic for the `return from
   interrupt' instruction on many computers including the 6502 and
   6800.  The variant `RETI' is found among former Z80 hackers (almost
   nobody programs these things in assembler anymore).  Equivalent to
   "Now, where was I?" or used to end a conversational digression.
   See {pop}; see also {POPJ}.

RTM: /R-T-M/ [USENET: acronym for `Read The Manual']
   1. Politer variant of {RTFM}.  2. Robert T. Morris, perpetrator
   of the great Internet worm of 1988; villain to many, na"ive hacker
   gone wrong to a few.  Morris claimed that the worm that brought
   the Internet to its knees was a benign experiment that got out of
   control as the result of a coding error.  After the storm of negative
   publicity that followed this blunder, Morris's name on ITS was
   hacked from RTM to {RTFM}.

rude: [WPI] adj. 1. (of a program) Badly written.  2. Functionally
   poor, e.g., a program that is very difficult to use because of
   gratuitously poor (random?) design decisions.  See {cuspy}.

runes: pl.n. 1. Anything that requires {heavy wizardry} or
   {black art} to {parse}: core dumps, JCL commands, APL, or code
   in a language you haven't a clue how to read.  Compare {casting
   the runes}, {Great Runes}.  2. Special display characters (for
   example, the high-half graphics on an IBM PC).

runic: adj. Syn. {obscure}.  VMS fans sometimes refer to UNIX as
   `Runix'; UNIX fans return the compliment by expanding VMS to `Very
   Messy Syntax' or `Vachement Mauvais Syst`eme' (French; lit.
   "Cowlike Bad System", idiomatically "Bitchy Bad System").

rusty iron: n. Syn. {tired iron}.  It has been claimed that this
   is the inevitable fate of {water MIPS}.

rusty memory: n. Mass-storage that uses iron-oxide-based magnetic
   media (esp. tape and the pre-Winchester removable disk packs used
   in {washing machine}s).  Compare {donuts}.

= S =

S/N ratio: // n. (also `s/n ratio', `s:n ratio').  Syn.
   {signal-to-noise ratio}.  Often abbreviated `SNR'.

sacred: adj. Reserved for the exclusive use of something (an
   extension of the standard meaning).  Often means that anyone may
   look at the sacred object, but clobbering it will screw whatever it
   is sacred to.  The comment "Register 7 is sacred to the interrupt
   handler" appearing in a program would be interpreted by a hacker
   to mean that if any *other* part of the program changes the
   contents of register 7, dire consequences are likely to ensue.

saga: [WPI] n. A cuspy but bogus raving story about N random
   broken people.

   Here is a classic example of the saga form, as told by Guy L. Steele:

        Jon L. White (login name JONL) and I (GLS) were office mates at MIT
        for many years.  One April, we both flew from Boston to California
        for a week on research business, to consult face-to-face with some
        people at Stanford, particularly our mutual friend Richard P.
        Gabriel (RPG; see {Gabriel}).

        RPG picked us up at the San Francisco airport and drove us back to
        Palo Alto (going {logical} south on route 101, parallel to
        {El Camino Bignum}).  Palo Alto is adjacent to Stanford University and
        about 40 miles south of San Francisco.  We ate at The Good
        Earth, a `health food' restaurant, very popular, the sort whose
        milkshakes all contain honey and protein powder.  JONL ordered such
        a shake --- the waitress claimed the flavor of the day was
        "lalaberry".  I still have no idea what that might be, but it
        became a running joke.  It was the color of raspberry, and JONL
        said it tasted rather bitter.  I ate a better tostada there than I
        have ever had in a Mexican restaurant.

        After this we went to the local Uncle Gaylord's Old Fashioned Ice
        Cream Parlor.  They make ice cream fresh daily, in a variety of
        intriguing flavors.  It's a chain, and they have a slogan: "If you
        don't live near an Uncle Gaylord's --- MOVE!"  Also, Uncle
        Gaylord (a real person) wages a constant battle to force big-name
        ice cream makers to print their ingredients on the package (like
        air and plastic and other non-natural garbage).  JONL and I had
        first discovered Uncle Gaylord's the previous August, when we had
        flown to a computer-science conference in Berkeley, California, the
        first time either of us had been on the West Coast.  When not in
        the conference sessions, we had spent our time wandering the length
        of Telegraph Street, which (like Harvard Square in Cambridge) was
        lined with picturesque street vendors and interesting little shops.
        On that street we discovered Uncle Gaylord's Berkeley store.  The
        ice cream there was very good.  During that August visit JONL went
        absolutely bananas (so to speak) over one particular flavor, ginger
        honey.

        Therefore, after eating at The Good Earth --- indeed, after every
        lunch and dinner and before bed during our April visit --- a trip
        to Uncle Gaylord's (the one in Palo Alto) was mandatory.  We had
        arrived on a Wednesday, and by Thursday evening we had been there
        at least four times.  Each time, JONL would get ginger honey ice
        cream, and proclaim to all bystanders that "Ginger was the spice
        that drove the Europeans mad!  That's why they sought a route to
        the East!  They used it to preserve their otherwise off-taste
        meat."  After the third or fourth repetition RPG and I were
        getting a little tired of this spiel, and began to paraphrase him:
        "Wow!  Ginger!  The spice that makes rotten meat taste good!"
        "Say!  Why don't we find some dog that's been run over and sat in
        the sun for a week and put some *ginger* on it for dinner?!"
        "Right!  With a lalaberry shake!"  And so on.  This failed to
        faze JONL; he took it in good humor, as long as we kept returning
        to Uncle Gaylord's.  He loves ginger honey ice cream.

        Now RPG and his then-wife KBT (Kathy Tracy) were putting us up
        (putting up with us?) in their home for our visit, so to thank them
        JONL and I took them out to a nice French restaurant of their
        choosing.  I unadventurously chose the filet mignon, and KBT had
        je ne sais quoi du jour, but RPG and JONL had lapin
        (rabbit).  (Waitress: "Oui, we have fresh rabbit, fresh
        today."  RPG: "Well, JONL, I guess we won't need any
        *ginger*!")

        We finished the meal late, about 11 P.M., which is 2 A.M
        Boston time, so JONL and I were rather droopy.  But it wasn't yet
        midnight.  Off to Uncle Gaylord's!

        Now the French restaurant was in Redwood City, north of Palo Alto.
        In leaving Redwood City, we somehow got onto route 101 going north
        instead of south.  JONL and I wouldn't have known the difference
        had RPG not mentioned it.  We still knew very little of the local
        geography.  I did figure out, however, that we were headed in the
        direction of Berkeley, and half-jokingly suggested that we continue
        north and go to Uncle Gaylord's in Berkeley.

        RPG said "Fine!" and we drove on for a while and talked.  I was
        drowsy, and JONL actually dropped off to sleep for 5 minutes.
        When he awoke, RPG said, "Gee, JONL, you must have slept all the
        way over the bridge!", referring to the one spanning San Francisco
        Bay.  Just then we came to a sign that said "University Avenue".
        I mumbled something about working our way over to Telegraph Street;
        RPG said "Right!" and maneuvered some more.  Eventually we pulled
        up in front of an Uncle Gaylord's.

        Now, I hadn't really been paying attention because I was so sleepy,
        and I didn't really understand what was happening until RPG let me
        in on it a few moments later, but I was just alert enough to notice
        that we had somehow come to the Palo Alto Uncle Gaylord's after
        all.

        JONL noticed the resemblance to the Palo Alto store, but hadn't
        caught on.  (The place is lit with red and yellow lights at night,
        and looks much different from the way it does in daylight.)  He
        said, "This isn't the Uncle Gaylord's I went to in Berkeley!  It
        looked like a barn!  But this place looks *just like* the one
        back in Palo Alto!"

        RPG deadpanned, "Well, this is the one *I* always come to
        when I'm in Berkeley.  They've got two in San Francisco, too.
        Remember, they're a chain."

        JONL accepted this bit of wisdom.  And he was not totally ignorant
        --- he knew perfectly well that University Avenue was in Berkeley,
        not far from Telegraph Street.  What he didn't know was that there
        is a completely different University Avenue in Palo Alto.

        JONL went up to the counter and asked for ginger honey.  The guy at
        the counter asked whether JONL would like to taste it first,
        evidently their standard procedure with that flavor, as not too
        many people like it.

        JONL said, "I'm sure I like it.  Just give me a cone."  The guy
        behind the counter insisted that JONL try just a taste first.
        "Some people think it tastes like soap."  JONL insisted, "Look,
        I *love* ginger.  I eat Chinese food.  I eat raw ginger roots.  I
        already went through this hassle with the guy back in Palo Alto.  I
        *know* I like that flavor!"

        At the words "back in Palo Alto" the guy behind the counter got a
        very strange look on his face, but said nothing.  KBT caught his
        eye and winked.  Through my stupor I still hadn't quite grasped
        what was going on, and thought RPG was rolling on the floor
        laughing and clutching his stomach just because JONL had launched
        into his spiel ("makes rotten meat a dish for princes") for the
        forty-third time.  At this point, RPG clued me in fully.

        RPG, KBT, and I retreated to a table, trying to stifle our
        chuckles.  JONL remained at the counter, talking about ice cream
        with the guy b.t.c., comparing Uncle Gaylord's to other ice cream
        shops and generally having a good old time.

        At length the g.b.t.c. said, "How's the ginger honey?"  JONL
        said, "Fine!  I wonder what exactly is in it?"  Now Uncle Gaylord
        publishes all his recipes and even teaches classes on how to make
        his ice cream at home.  So the g.b.t.c. got out the recipe, and he
        and JONL pored over it for a while.  But the g.b.t.c. could
        contain his curiosity no longer, and asked again, "You really like
        that stuff, huh?"  JONL said, "Yeah, I've been eating it
        constantly back in Palo Alto for the past two days.  In fact, I
        think this batch is about as good as the cones I got back in Palo
        Alto!"

        G.b.t.c. looked him straight in the eye and said, "You're
        *in* Palo Alto!"

        JONL turned slowly around, and saw the three of us collapse in a
        fit of giggles.  He clapped a hand to his forehead and exclaimed,
        "I've been hacked!"

sagan: /say'gn/ [from Carl Sagan's TV series "Cosmos"; think
   "billions and billions"] n. A large quantity of anything.
   "There's a sagan different ways to tweak EMACS."  "The
   U.S. Government spends sagans on bombs and welfare --- hard to say which
   is more destructive."

SAIL:: /sayl/, not /S-A-I-L/ n. 1. Stanford Artificial
   Intelligence Lab.  An important site in the early development of
   LISP; with the MIT AI Lab, BBN, CMU, and the UNIX community, one of
   the major wellsprings of technical innovation and hacker-culture
   traditions (see the {{WAITS}} entry for details).  The SAIL
   machines were officially shut down in late May 1990, scant weeks
   after the MIT AI Lab's ITS cluster was officially decommissioned.
   2. The Stanford Artificial Intelligence Language used at SAIL
   (sense 1).  It was an Algol-60 derivative with a coroutining
   facility and some new data types intended for building search trees
   and association lists.

salescritter: /sayls'kri`tr/ n. Pejorative hackerism for a computer
   salesperson.  Hackers tell the following joke:

     Q. What's the difference between a used-car dealer and a
        computer salesman?
     A. The used-car dealer knows he's lying.

   This reflects the widespread hacker belief that salescritters are
   self-selected for stupidity (after all, if they had brains and the
   inclination to use them, they'd be in programming).  The terms
   `salesthing' and `salesdroid' are also common.  Compare
   {marketroid}, {suit}, {droid}.

salsman: /salz'm*n/ v. To flood a mailing list or newsgroup with
   huge amounts of useless, trivial or redundant information.  From
   the name of a hacker who has frequently done this on some widely
   distributed mailing lists.

salt mines: n. Dense quarters housing large numbers of programmers
   working long hours on grungy projects, with some hope of seeing the
   end of the tunnel in N years.  Noted for their absence of sunshine.
   Compare {playpen}, {sandbox}.

salt substrate: [MIT] n. Collective noun used to refer to potato
   chips, pretzels, saltines, or any other form of snack food
   designed primarily as a carrier for sodium chloride.  From the
   technical term `chip substrate', used to refer to the silicon on the
   top of which the active parts of integrated circuits are deposited.

same-day service: n. Ironic term used to describe long response
   time, particularly with respect to {{MS-DOS}} system calls (which
   ought to require only a tiny fraction of a second to execute).
   Such response time is a major incentive for programmers to write
   programs that are not {well-behaved}.  See also {PC-ism}.

sandbender: [IBM] n. A person involved with silicon lithography and
   the physical design of chips.  Compare {ironmonger}, {polygon
   pusher}.

sandbox: n. (or `sandbox, the') Common term for the
   R&D department at many software and computer companies (where hackers
   in commercial environments are likely to be found).  Half-derisive,
   but reflects the truth that research is a form of creative play.
   Compare {playpen}.

sanity check: n. 1. The act of checking a piece of code (or
   anything else, e.g., a USENET posting) for completely stupid mistakes.
   Implies that the check is to make sure the author was sane when it
   was written; e.g., if a piece of scientific software relied on a
   particular formula and was giving unexpected results, one might
   first look at the nesting of parentheses or the coding of the
   formula, as a {sanity check}, before looking at the more complex
   I/O or data structure manipulation routines, much less the
   algorithm itself.  Compare {reality check}.  2. A run-time test,
   either validating input or ensuring that the program hasn't screwed
   up internally (producing an inconsistent value or state).

Saturday night special: [from police slang for a cheap handgun] n.
   A program or feature kluged together during off hours, under a
   deadline, and in response to pressure from a {salescritter}.
   Such hacks are dangerously unreliable, but all too often sneak into
   a production release after insufficient review.

say: vt. 1. To type to a terminal.  "To list a directory
   verbosely, you have to say `ls -l'."  Tends to imply a
   {newline}-terminated command (a `sentence').  2. A computer
   may also be said to `say' things to you, even if it doesn't have
   a speech synthesizer, by displaying them on a terminal in response
   to your commands.  Hackers find it odd that this usage confuses
   {mundane}s.

science-fiction fandom:: n. Another voluntary subculture having a
   very heavy overlap with hackerdom; most hackers read SF and/or
   fantasy fiction avidly, and many go to `cons' (SF conventions) or
   are involved in fandom-connected activities such as the Society for
   Creative Anachronism.  Some hacker jargon originated in SF fandom;
   see {defenestration}, {great-wall}, {cyberpunk}, {h}, {ha ha
   only serious}, {IMHO}, {mundane}, {neep-neep}, {Real
   Soon Now}.  Additionally, the jargon terms {cowboy},
   {cyberspace}, {de-rezz}, {go flatline}, {ice}, {virus},
   {wetware}, {wirehead}, and {worm} originated in SF
   stories.

scram switch: [from the nuclear power industry] n. An
   emergency-power-off switch (see {Big Red Switch}), esp. one
   positioned to be easily hit by evacuating personnel.  In general,
   this is *not* something you {frob} lightly; these often
   initiate expensive events (such as Halon dumps) and are installed
   in a {dinosaur pen} for use in case of electrical fire or in
   case some luckless {field servoid} should put 120 volts across
   himself while {Easter egging}.

scratch: 1. [from `scratchpad'] adj. Describes a data
   structure or recording medium attached to a machine for testing or
   temporary-use purposes; one that can be {scribble}d on without
   loss.  Usually in the combining forms `scratch memory',
   `scratch register', `scratch disk', `scratch tape',
   `scratch volume'.  See {scratch monkey}.  2. [primarily
   IBM] vt. To delete (as in a file).

scratch monkey: n. As in "Before testing or reconfiguring, always
   mount a {scratch monkey}", a proverb used to advise caution when
   dealing with irreplaceable data or devices.  Used to refer to any
   scratch volume hooked to a computer during any risky operation as a
   replacement for some precious resource or data that might otherwise get
   trashed.

   This term preserves the memory of Mabel, the Swimming Wonder
   Monkey, star of a biological research program at the University of
   Toronto ca. 1986.  Mabel was not (so the legend goes) your ordinary
   monkey; the university had spent years teaching her how to swim,
   breathing through a regulator, in order to study the effects of
   different gas mixtures on her physiology.  Mabel suffered an
   untimely demise one day when DEC {PM}ed the PDP-11 controlling
   her regulator (see also {provocative maintainance}).

   It is recorded that, after calming down an understandably irate
   customer sufficiently to ascertain the facts of the matter, a DEC
   troubleshooter called up the {field circus} manager responsible
   and asked him sweetly, "Can you swim?"

   Not all the consequences to humans were so amusing; the sysop of
   the machine in question was nearly thrown in jail at the behest of
   certain clueless droids at the local `humane' society.  The moral
   is clear: When in doubt, always mount a scratch monkey.

screw: [MIT] n. A {lose}, usually in software.  Especially used for
   user-visible misbehavior caused by a bug or misfeature.  This use
   has become quite widespread outside MIT.

screwage: /skroo'*j/ n. Like {lossage} but connotes that the
   failure is due to a designed-in misfeature rather than a simple
   inadequacy or a mere bug.

scribble: n. To modify a data structure in a random and
   unintentionally destructive way.  "Bletch! Somebody's
   disk-compactor program went berserk and scribbled on the i-node
   table."  "It was working fine until one of the allocation routines
   scribbled on low core."  Synonymous with {trash}; compare {mung},
   which conveys a bit more intention, and {mangle}, which is more
   violent and final.

scrog: /skrog/ [Bell Labs] vt. To damage, trash, or corrupt a
   data structure.  "The list header got scrogged."  Also reported
   as `skrog', and ascribed to the comic strip "The Wizard of
   Id".  Equivalent to {scribble} or {mangle}.

scrool: /skrool/ [from the pioneering Roundtable chat system in
   Houston ca. 1984; prob. originated as a typo for `scroll'] n. The
   log of old messages, available for later perusal or to help one get
   back in synch with the conversation. It was originally called the
   `scrool monster', because an early version of the roundtable
   software had a bug where it would dump all 8K of scrool on a user's
   terminal.

scrozzle: /skroz'l/ vt. Used when a self-modifying code segment runs
   incorrectly and corrupts the running program or vital data.  "The
   damn compiler scrozzled itself again!"

SCSI: [Small Computer System Interface] n. A bus-independent
   standard for system-level interfacing between a computer and
   intelligent devices.  Typically annotated in literature with `sexy'
   (/sek'see/), `sissy' (/sis'ee/), and `scuzzy' (/skuh'zee/) as
   pronunciation guides --- the last being the overwhelmingly
   predominant form, much to the dismay of the designers and their
   marketing people.  One can usually assume that a person who
   pronounces it /S-C-S-I/ is clueless.

search-and-destroy mode: n. Hackerism for the search-and-replace
   facility in an editor, so called because an incautiously chosen
   match pattern can cause {infinite} damage.

second-system effect: n. (sometimes, more euphoniously,
   `second-system syndrome') When one is designing the successor to
   a relatively small, elegant, and successful system, there is a
   tendency to become grandiose in one's success and design an
   {elephantine} feature-laden monstrosity.  The term was first
   used by Fred Brooks in his classic `The Mythical Man-Month:
   Essays on Software Engineering' (Addison-Wesley, 1975; ISBN
   0-201-00650-2).  It described the jump from a set of nice, simple
   operating systems on the IBM 70xx series to OS/360 on the
   360 series.  A similar effect can also happen in an evolving
   system; see {Brooks's Law}, {creeping elegance}, {creeping
   featurism}.  See also {{Multics}}, {OS/2}, {X}, {software
   bloat}.

   This version of the jargon lexicon has been described (with
   altogether too much truth for comfort) as an example of
   second-system effect run amok on jargon-1....

secondary damage: n. When a fatal error occurs (esp. a
   {segfault}) the immediate cause may be that a pointer has been
   trashed due to a previous {fandango on core}.  However, this
   fandango may have been due to an *earlier* fandango, so no
   amount of analysis will reveal (directly) how the damage occurred.
   "The data structure was clobbered, but it was secondary damage."

   By extension, the corruption resulting from N cascaded
   fandangoes on core is `Nth-level damage'.  There is at least
   one case on record in which 17 hours of {grovel}ling with
   `adb' actually dug up the underlying bug behind an instance of
   seventh-level damage!  The hacker who accomplished this
   near-superhuman feat was presented with an award by his fellows.

security through obscurity: n. A name applied by hackers to most OS
   vendors' favorite way of coping with security holes --- namely,
   ignoring them and not documenting them and trusting that nobody
   will find out about them and that people who do find out about them
   won't exploit them.  This never works for long and occasionally
   sets the world up for debacles like the {RTM} worm of 1988, but once
   the brief moments of panic created by such events subside most
   vendors are all too willing to turn over and go back to sleep.
   After all, actually fixing the bugs would siphon off the resources
   needed to implement the next user-interface frill on marketing's
   wish list --- and besides, if they started fixing security bugs
   customers might begin to *expect* it and imagine that their
   warranties of merchantability gave them some sort of *right*
   to a system with fewer holes in it than a shotgunned Swiss cheese,
   and then where would we be?

   Historical note: It is claimed (with dissent from {{ITS}} fans who
   say they used to use `security through obscurity' in a positive
   sense) that this term was first used in the USENET newsgroup in
   comp.sys.apollo during a campaign to get HP/Apollo to fix
   security problems in its UNIX-{clone} Aegis/DomainOS.  They
   didn't change a thing.

SED: [TMRC, from `Light-Emitting Diode'] /S-E-D/ n.
   Smoke-emitting diode.  A {friode} that lost the war. See
   {LER}.

segfault: n.,vi. Syn. {segment}, {seggie}.

seggie: /seg'ee/ [UNIX] n. Shorthand for {segmentation fault}
   reported from Britain.

segment: /seg'ment/ vi. To experience a {segmentation fault}.
   Confusingly, this is often pronounced more like the noun `segment'
   than like mainstream v. segment; this is because it is actually a
   noun shorthand that has been verbed.

segmentation fault: n. [UNIX] 1. An error in which a running program
   attempts to access memory not allocated to it and {core dump}s
   with a segmentation violation error.  2. To lose a train of
   thought or a line of reasoning.  Also uttered as an exclamation at
   the point of befuddlement.

segv: /seg'vee/ n.,vi. Yet another synonym for {segmentation
   fault} (actually, in this case, `segmentation violation').

self-reference: n. See {self-reference}.

selvage: /sel'v*j/ [from sewing] n. See {chad} (sense 1).

semi: /se'mee/ or /se'mi:/ 1. n. Abbreviation for
   `semicolon', when speaking.  "Commands to {grind} are
   prefixed by semi-semi-star" means that the prefix is `;;*',
   not 1/4 of a star.  2. A prefix used with words such as
   `immediately' as a qualifier.  "When is the system coming up?"
   "Semi-immediately." (That is, maybe not for an hour.)  "We did
   consider that possibility semi-seriously."  See also
   {infinite}.

semi-infinite: n. See {infinite}.

senior bit: [IBM] n. Syn. {meta bit}.

server: n. A kind of {daemon} that performs a service for the
   requester and which often runs on a computer other than the one on
   which the server runs.  A particularly common term on the Internet,
   which is rife with `name servers', `domain servers', `news
   servers', `finger servers', and the like.

SEX: /seks/ [Sun Users' Group & elsewhere] n. 1. Software
   EXchange.  A technique invented by the blue-green algae hundreds of
   millions of years ago to speed up their evolution, which had been
   terribly slow up until then.  Today, SEX parties are popular among
   hackers and others (of course, these are no longer limited to
   exchanges of genetic software).  In general, SEX parties are a
   {Good Thing}, but unprotected SEX can propagate a {virus}.
   See also {pubic directory}.  2. The rather Freudian mnemonic
   often used for Sign EXtend, a machine instruction found in the
   PDP-11 and many other architectures.

   DEC's engineers nearly got a PDP-11 assembler that used the
   `SEX' mnemonic out the door at one time, but (for once)
   marketing wasn't asleep and forced a change.  That wasn't the last
   time this happened, either.  The author of `The Intel 8086
   Primer', who was one of the original designers of the 8086, noted
   that there was originally a `SEX' instruction on that
   processor, too.  He says that Intel management got cold feet and
   decreed that it be changed, and thus the instruction was renamed
   `CBW' and `CWD' (depending on what was being extended).
   Amusingly, the Intel 8048 (the microcontroller used in IBM PC
   keyboards) is also missing straight `SEX' but has logical-or
   and logical-and instructions `ORL' and `ANL'.

   The Motorola 6809, used in the U.K.'s `Dragon 32' personal
   computer, actually had an official `SEX' instruction; the 6502
   in the Apple II it competed with did not.  British hackers thought
   this made perfect mythic sense; after all, it was commonly
   observed, you could have sex with a dragon, but you can't have sex
   with an apple.

sex changer: n. Syn. {gender mender}.

shareware: /sheir'weir/ n. {Freeware} (sense 1) for which the
   author requests some payment, usually in the accompanying
   documentation files or in an announcement made by the software
   itself.  Such payment may or may not buy additional support or
   functionality.  See {guiltware}, {crippleware}.

shelfware: /shelfweir/ n. Software purchased on a whim (by an
   individual user) or in accordance with policy (by a corporation or
   government agency), but not actually required for any particular use.
   Therefore, it often ends up on some shelf.

shell: [orig. {{Multics}} techspeak, widely propagated via UNIX] n.
   1. [techspeak] The command interpreter used to pass commands to an
   operating system; so called because it is the part of the operating
   system that interfaces with the outside world.  2. More generally,
   any interface program that mediates access to a special resource
   or {server} for convenience, efficiency, or security reasons; for
   this meaning, the usage is usually `a shell around' whatever.
   This sort of program is also called a `wrapper'.

shell out: [UNIX] n. To spawn an interactive {subshell} from
   within a program (e.g., a mailer or editor).  "Bang foo runs foo in
   a subshell, while bang alone shells out."

shift left (or right) logical: [from any of various machines'
   instruction sets] 1. vi. To move oneself to the left (right).  To
   move out of the way.  2. imper. "Get out of that (my) seat!  You
   can shift to that empty one to the left (right)."  Often
   used without the `logical', or as `left shift' instead of
   `shift left'.  Sometimes heard as LSH /lish/, from the {PDP-10}
   instruction set.  See {Programmer's Cheer}.

shitogram: /shit'oh-gram/ n. A *really* nasty piece of email.
   Compare {nastygram}, {flame}.

short card: n. A half-length IBM PC expansion card or adapter that
   will fit in one of the two short slots located towards the right
   rear of a standard chassis (tucked behind the floppy disk drives).
   See also {tall card}.

shotgun debugging: n. The software equivalent of {Easter egging};
   the making of relatively undirected changes to software in the hope
   that a bug will be perturbed out of existence.  This almost never
   works, and usually introduces more bugs.

showstopper: n. A hardware or (especially) software bug that makes
   an implementation effectively unusable; one that absolutely has to
   be fixed before development can go on.  Opposite in connotation
   from its original theatrical use, which refers to something
   stunningly *good*.

shriek: n. See {excl}.  Occasional CMU usage, also in common use
   among APL fans and mathematicians, especially category theorists.

Shub-Internet: /shuhb in't*r-net/ [MUD: from H. P. Lovecraft's
   evil fictional deity `Shub-Niggurath', the Black Goat with a
   Thousand Young] n.  The harsh personification of the Internet,
   Beast of a Thousand Processes, Eater of Characters, Avatar of Line
   Noise, and Imp of Call Waiting; the hideous multi-tendriled entity
   formed of all the manifold connections of the net.  A sect of
   MUDders worships Shub-Internet, sacrificing objects and praying for
   good connections.  To no avail --- its purpose is malign and evil,
   and is the cause of all network slowdown.  Often heard as in
   "Freela casts a tac nuke at Shub-Internet for slowing her down."
   (A forged response often follows along the lines of: "Shub-Internet
   gulps down the tac nuke and burps happily.")  Also cursed by users
   of {FTP} and {telnet} when the system slows down.  The dread
   name of Shub-Internet is seldom spoken aloud, as it is said that
   repeating it three times will cause the being to wake, deep within its
   lair beneath the Pentagon.

sidecar: n. 1. Syn. {slap on the side}.  Esp. used of add-ons
   for the late and unlamented IBM PCjr.  2. The IBM PC compatibility
   box that could be bolted onto the side of an Amiga.  Designed and
   produced by Commodore, it broke all of the company's own rules.
   If it worked with any other peripherals, it was by {magic}.

sig block: /sig blok/ [UNIX: often written `.sig' there] n.
   Short for `signature', used specifically to refer to the
   electronic signature block that most UNIX mail- and news-posting
   software will {automagically} append to outgoing mail and news.
   The composition of one's sig can be quite an art form, including an
   ASCII logo or one's choice of witty sayings (see {sig quote},
   {fool file}); but many consider large sigs a waste of
   {bandwidth}, and it has been observed that the size of one's sig
   block is usually inversely proportional to one's longevity and
   level of prestige on the net.

sig quote: /sig kwoht/ [USENET] n. A maxim, quote, proverb, joke,
   or slogan embedded in one's {sig block} and intended to convey
   something of one's philosophical stance, pet peeves, or sense of
   humor. "Calm down, it's only ones and zeroes."

signal-to-noise ratio: [from analog electronics] n. Used by hackers
   in a generalization of its technical meaning.  `Signal' refers to
   useful information conveyed by some communications medium, and
   `noise' to anything else on that medium.  Hence a low ratio implies
   that it is not worth paying attention to the medium in question.
   Figures for such metaphorical ratios are never given.  The term is
   most often applied to {USENET} newsgroups during {flame war}s.
   Compare {bandwidth}.  See also {coefficient of X}, {lost in
   the noise}.

silicon: n. Hardware, esp. ICs or microprocessor-based computer
   systems (compare {iron}).  Contrasted with software.  See also
   {sandbender}.

silicon foundry: n. A company that {fab}s chips to the designs of
   others.  As of the late 1980s, the combination of silicon foundries
   and good computer-aided design software made it much easier for
   hardware-designing startup companies to come into being.  The
   downside of using a silicon foundry is that the distance from the
   actual chip-fabrication processes reduces designers' control of detail.
   This is somewhat analogous to the use of {HLL}s versus coding in
   assembler.

silly walk: [from Monty Python's Flying Circus] vi. 1. A ridiculous
   procedure required to accomplish a task.  Like {grovel}, but more
   {random} and humorous.  "I had to silly-walk through half the
   /usr directories to find the maps file."  2. Syn. {fandango on
   core}.

silo: n. The FIFO input-character buffer in an RS-232 line card.  So
   called from DEC terminology used on DH and DZ line cards for the
   VAX and PDP-11, presumably because it was a storage space for
   fungible stuff that you put in the top and took out the bottom.

Silver Book: n. Jensen and Wirth's infamous `Pascal User Manual
   and Report', so called because of the silver cover of the
   widely distributed Springer-Verlag second edition of 1978 (ISBN
   0-387-90144-2).  See {{book titles}}, {Pascal}.

since time T equals minus infinity: adj. A long time ago; for as
   long as anyone can remember; at the time that some particular frob
   was first designed.  Usually the word `time' is omitted.  See also
   {time T}.

sitename: /si:t'naym/ [UNIX/Internet] n. The unique electronic
   name of a computer system, used to identify it in UUCP mail,
   USENET, or other forms of electronic information interchange.  The
   folklore interest of sitenames stems from the creativity and humor
   they often display.  Interpreting a sitename is not unlike
   interpreting a vanity license plate; one has to mentally unpack it,
   allowing for mono-case and length restrictions and the lack of
   whitespace.  Hacker tradition deprecates dull,
   institutional-sounding names in favor of punchy, humorous, and
   clever coinages (except that it is considered appropriate for the
   official public gateway machine of an organization to bear the
   organization's name or acronym).  Mythological references, cartoon
   characters, animal names, and allusions to SF or fantasy literature
   are probably the most popular sources for sitenames (in roughly
   descending order).  The obligatory comment when discussing these is
   Harris's Lament: "All the good ones are taken!"  See also
   {network address}.

skrog: v. Syn. {scrog}.

skulker: n. Syn. {prowler}.

slap on the side: n. (also called a {sidecar}, or abbreviated
   `SOTS'.)  A type of external expansion hardware marketed by
   computer manufacturers (e.g., Commodore for the Amiga 500/1000
   series and IBM for the hideous failure called `PCjr').  Various
   SOTS boxes provided necessities such as memory, hard drive
   controllers, and conventional expansion slots.

slash: n. Common name for the slant (`/', ASCII 0101111)
   character.  See {ASCII} for other synonyms.

sleep: vi. 1. [techspeak] On a timesharing system, a process that
   relinquishes its claim on the scheduler until some given event
   occurs or a specified time delay elapses is said to `go to
   sleep'.  2. In jargon, used very similarly to v. {block}; also
   in `sleep on', syn. with `block on'.  Often used to
   indicate that the speaker has relinquished a demand for resources
   until some (possibly unspecified) external event: "They can't get
   the fix I've been asking for into the next release, so I'm going to
   sleep on it until the release, then start hassling them again."

slim: n. A small, derivative change (e.g., to code).

slop: n. 1. A one-sided {fudge factor}, that is, an allowance for
   error but in only one of two directions.  For example, if you need
   a piece of wire 10 feet long and have to guess when you cut it,
   you make very sure to cut it too long, by a large amount if
   necessary, rather than too short by even a little bit, because you
   can always cut off the slop but you can't paste it back on again.
   When discrete quantities are involved, slop is often introduced to
   avoid the possibility of being on the losing side of a {fencepost
   error}.  2. The percentage of `extra' code generated by a compiler
   over the size of equivalent assembler code produced by
   {hand-hacking}; i.e., the space (or maybe time) you lose because
   you didn't do it yourself.  This number is often used as a measure
   of the goodness of a compiler; slop below 5% is very good, and
   10% is usually acceptable.  With modern compiler technology, esp.
   on RISC machines, the compiler's slop may actually be
   *negative*; that is, humans may be unable to generate code as
   good.  This is one of the reasons assembler programming is no
   longer common.

slopsucker: /slop'suhk-r/ n. A lowest-priority task that must
   wait around until everything else has `had its fill' of machine
   resources.  Only when the machine would otherwise be idle is the
   task allowed to `suck up the slop'.  Also called a {hungry
   puppy}.  One common variety of slopsucker hunts for large prime
   numbers.  Compare {background}.

slurp: vt. To read a large data file entirely into {core} before
   working on it.  This may be contrasted with the strategy of reading
   a small piece at a time, processing it, and then reading the next
   piece.  "This program slurps in a 1K-by-1K matrix and does
   an FFT."  See also {sponge}.

smart: adj. Said of a program that does the {Right Thing} in a
   wide variety of complicated circumstances.  There is a difference
   between calling a program smart and calling it intelligent; in
   particular, there do not exist any intelligent programs (yet ---
   see {AI-complete}).  Compare {robust} (smart programs can be
   {brittle}).

smart terminal: n. A terminal that has enough computing capability
   to render graphics or to offload some kind of front-end processing
   from the computer it talks to.  The development of workstations and
   personal computers has made this term and the product it describes
   semi-obsolescent, but one may still hear variants of the phrase
   `act like a smart terminal' used to describe the behavior of
   workstations or PCs with respect to programs that execute almost
   entirely out of a remote {server}'s storage, using said devices
   as displays.  Compare {glass tty}.

   There is a classic quote from Rob Pike (inventor of the {blit}
   terminal): "A smart terminal is not a smart*ass* terminal,
   but rather a terminal you can educate."  This illustrates a common
   design problem: The attempt to make peripherals (or anything else)
   intelligent sometimes results in finicky, rigid `special
   features' that become just so much dead weight if you try to use
   the device in any way the designer didn't anticipate.  Flexibility
   and programmability, on the other hand, are *really* smart.
   Compare {hook}.

smash case: vi. To lose or obliterate the uppercase/lowercase
   distinction in text input.  "MS-DOS will automatically smash case
   in the names of all the files you create."  Compare {fold case}.

smash the stack: [C programming] n. On many C implementations it is
   possible to corrupt the execution stack by writing past the end of
   an array declared `auto' in a routine.  Code that does this is
   said to `smash the stack', and can cause return from the routine
   to jump to a random address.  This can produce some of the most
   insidious data-dependent bugs known to mankind.  Variants include
   `trash' the stack, {scribble} the stack, {mangle} the stack;
   the term *{mung} the stack is not used, as this is never done
   intentionally.  See {spam}; see also {aliasing bug},
   {fandango on core}, {memory leak}, {precedence lossage},
   {overrun screw}.

smiley: n. See {emoticon}.

smoke test: n. 1. A rudimentary form of testing applied to
   electronic equipment following repair or reconfiguration, in which
   power is applied and the tester checks for sparks, smoke, or other
   dramatic signs of fundamental failure.  See {magic smoke}.  2. By
   extension, the first run of a piece of software after construction
   or a critical change.  See and compare {reality check}.

   There is an interesting semi-parallel to this term among
   typographers and printers: When new typefaces are being punch-cut by
   hand, a `smoke test' (hold the letter in candle smoke, then press
   it onto paper) is used to check out new dies.

smoking clover: [ITS] n. A {display hack} originally due to
   Bill Gosper.  Many convergent lines are drawn on a color monitor in
   {AOS} mode (so that every pixel struck has its color
   incremented).  The lines all have one endpoint in the middle of the
   screen; the other endpoints are spaced one pixel apart around the
   perimeter of a large square.  The color map is then repeatedly
   rotated.  This results in a striking, rainbow-hued, shimmering
   four-leaf clover.  Gosper joked about keeping it hidden from the
   FDA (the U.S.'s Food and Drug Administration) lest its
   hallucinogenic properties cause it to be banned.

SMOP: /S-M-O-P/ [Simple (or Small) Matter of Programming] n.
   1. A piece of code, not yet written, whose anticipated length is
   significantly greater than its complexity.  Used to refer to a
   program that could obviously be written, but is not worth the
   trouble.  Also used ironically to imply that a difficult problem
   can be easily solved because a program can be written to do it; the
   irony is that it is very clear that writing such a program will be
   a great deal of work.  "It's easy to enhance a FORTRAN compiler to
   compile COBOL as well; it's just a SMOP."  2. Often used
   ironically by the intended victim when a suggestion for a program
   is made which seems easy to the suggester, but is obviously (to the
   victim) a lot of work.

SNAFU principle: /sna'foo prin'si-pl/ [from WWII Army acronym
   for `Situation Normal, All Fucked Up'] n. "True communication is
   possible only between equals, because inferiors are more
   consistently rewarded for telling their superiors pleasant lies
   than for telling the truth." --- a central tenet of
   {Discordianism}, often invoked by hackers to explain why
   authoritarian hierarchies screw up so reliably and systematically.
   The effect of the SNAFU principle is a progressive disconnection of
   decision-makers from reality.  This lightly adapted version of a
   fable dating back to the early 1960s illustrates the phenomenon
   perfectly:

     In the beginning was the plan,
            and then the specification;
     And the plan was without form,
            and the specification was void.

     And darkness
            was on the faces of the implementors thereof;
     And they spake unto their leader,
            saying:
     "It is a crock of shit,
            and smells as of a sewer."

     And the leader took pity on them,
            and spoke to the project leader:
     "It is a crock of excrement,
            and none may abide the odor thereof."

     And the project leader
            spake unto his section head, saying:
     "It is a container of excrement,
            and it is very strong, such that none may abide it."

     The section head then hurried to his department manager,
            and informed him thus:
     "It is a vessel of fertilizer,
            and none may abide its strength."

     The department manager carried these words
           to his general manager,
     and spoke unto him
           saying:
     "It containeth that which aideth the growth of plants,
           and it is very strong."

     And so it was that the general manager rejoiced
           and delivered the good news unto the Vice President.
     "It promoteth growth,
           and it is very powerful."

     The Vice President rushed to the President's side,
           and joyously exclaimed:
     "This powerful new software product
           will promote the growth of the company!"

     And the President looked upon the product,
           and saw that it was very good.

   After the subsequent disaster, the {suit}s protect themselves by
   saying "I was misinformed!", and the implementors are demoted or
   fired.

snail: vt. To {snail-mail} something. "Snail me a copy of those
   graphics, will you?"

snail-mail: n. Paper mail, as opposed to electronic.  Sometimes
   written as the single word `SnailMail'.  One's postal address is,
   correspondingly, a `snail address'.  Derives from earlier coinage
   `USnail' (from `U.S. Mail'), for which there have been
   parody posters and stamps made.  Oppose {email}.

snap: v. To replace a pointer to a pointer with a direct pointer;
   to replace an old address with the forwarding address found there.
   If you telephone the main number for an institution and ask for a
   particular person by name, the operator may tell you that person's
   extension before connecting you, in the hopes that you will `snap
   your pointer' and dial direct next time.  The underlying metaphor
   may be that of a rubber band stretched through a number of
   intermediate points; if you remove all the thumbtacks in the
   middle, it snaps into a straight line from first to last.  See
   {chase pointers}.

   Often, the behavior of a {trampoline} is to perform an error
   check once and then snap the pointer that invoked it so as henceforth
   to bypass the trampoline (and its one-shot error check).  In this
   context one also speaks of `snapping links'.  For example, in a
   Lisp implementation, a function interface trampoline might check to
   make sure that the caller is passing the correct number of arguments;
   if it is, and if the caller and the callee are both compiled, then
   snapping the link allows that particular path to use a direct
   procedure-call instruction with no further overhead.

snarf: /snarf/ vt. 1. To grab, esp. to grab a large document
   or file for the purpose of using it with or without the author's
   permission.  See also {BLT}.  2. [in the UNIX community] To
   fetch a file or set of files across a network.  See also
   {blast}.  This term was mainstream in the late 1960s, meaning
   `to eat piggishly'.  It may still have this connotation in context.
   "He's in the snarfing phase of hacking --- {FTP}ing megs of
   stuff a day."  3. To acquire, with little concern for legal forms
   or politesse (but not quite by stealing).  "They were giving
   away samples, so I snarfed a bunch of them."  4. Syn. for
   {slurp}.  "This program starts by snarfing the entire database
   into core, then...."

snarf & barf: /snarf'n-barf`/ n. Under a {WIMP environment},
   the act of grabbing a region of text and then stuffing the contents
   of that region into another region (or the same one) to avoid
   retyping a command line.  In the late 1960s, this was a mainstream
   expression for an `eat now, regret it later' cheap-restaurant
   expedition.

snarf down: v. To {snarf}, with the connotation of absorbing,
   processing, or understanding.  "I'll  snarf down the latest
   version of the {nethack} user's guide --- It's been a while
   since I played last and I don't know what's changed recently."

snark: [Lewis Carroll, via the Michigan Terminal System] n. 1. A
   system failure.  When a user's process bombed, the operator would
   get the message "Help, Help, Snark in MTS!"  2. More generally,
   any kind of unexplained or threatening event on a computer
   (especially if it might be a boojum).  Often used to refer to an
   event or a log file entry that might indicate an attempted security
   violation.  See {snivitz}.  3. UUCP name of
   snark.thyrsus.com, home site of the Jargon File 2.*.* versions
   (i.e., this lexicon).

sneakernet: /snee'ker-net/ n. Term used (generally with ironic
   intent) for transfer of electronic information by physically
   carrying tape, disks, or some other media from one machine to
   another.  "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon
   filled with magtape, or a 747 filled with CD-ROMs."  Also called
   `Tennis-Net', `Armpit-Net', `Floppy-Net'.

sniff: v.,n. Synonym for {poll}.

snivitz: /sniv'itz/ n. A hiccup in hardware or software; a small,
   transient problem of unknown origin (less serious than a
   {snark}).  Compare {glitch}.

SO: /S-O/ n. 1. (also `S.O.') Abbrev. for Significant
   Other, almost invariably written abbreviated and pronounced
   /S-O/ by hackers.  Used to refer to one's primary
   relationship, esp. a live-in to whom one is not married.  See
   {MOTAS}, {MOTOS}, {MOTSS}.  2. The Shift Out control
   character in ASCII (Control-N, 0001110).

social science number: [IBM] n. A statistic that is
   {content-free}, or nearly so.  A measure derived via methods of
   questionable validity from data of a dubious and vague nature.
   Predictively, having a social science number in hand is seldom much
   better than nothing, and can be considerably worse.  {Management}
   loves them.  See also {numbers}, {math-out}, {pretty
   pictures}.

soft boot: n. See {boot}.

softcopy: /soft'ko-pee/ n. [by analogy with `hardcopy'] A
   machine-readable form of corresponding hardcopy.  See {bits},
   {machinable}.

software bloat: n. The results of {second-system effect} or
   {creeping featuritis}.  Commonly cited examples include
   `ls(1)', {X}, {BSD}, {Missed'em-five}, and {OS/2}.

software rot: n. Term used to describe the tendency of software
   that has not been used in a while to {lose}; such failure may be
   semi-humorously ascribed to {bit rot}.  More commonly,
   `software rot' strikes when a program's assumptions become out
   of date.  If the design was insufficiently {robust}, this may
   cause it to fail in mysterious ways.

   For example, owing to endemic shortsightedness in the design of
   COBOL programs, most will succumb to software rot when their
   2-digit year counters {wrap around} at the beginning of the
   year 2000.  Actually, related lossages often afflict centenarians
   who have to deal with computer software designed by unimaginative
   clods.  One such incident became the focus of a minor public flap
   in 1990, when a gentleman born in 1889 applied for a driver's
   license renewal in Raleigh, North Carolina.  The new system
   refused to issue the card, probably because with 2-digit years the
   ages 101 and 1 cannot be distinguished.

   Historical note: Software rot in an even funnier sense than the
   mythical one was a real problem on early research computers (e.g.,
   the R1; see {grind crank}).  If a program that depended on a
   peculiar instruction hadn't been run in quite a while, the user
   might discover that the opcodes no longer did the same things they
   once did.  ("Hey, so-and-so needs an instruction to do
   such-and-such.  We can {snarf} this opcode, right?  No one uses
   it.")

   Another classic example of this sprang from the time an MIT hacker
   found a simple way to double the speed of the unconditional jump
   instruction on a PDP-6, so he patched the hardware.  Unfortunately,
   this broke some fragile timing software in a music-playing program,
   throwing its output out of tune.  This was fixed by adding a
   defensive initialization routine to compare the speed of a timing
   loop with the real-time clock; in other words, it figured out how
   fast the PDP-6 was that day, and corrected appropriately.

   Compare {bit rot}.

softwarily: /soft-weir'i-lee/ adv. In a way pertaining to software.
   "The system is softwarily unreliable."  The adjective
   `softwary' is *not* used.  See {hardwarily}.

softy: [IBM] n. Hardware hackers' term for a software expert who
   is largely ignorant of the mysteries of hardware.

some random X: adj. Used to indicate a member of class X, with the
   implication that Xs are interchangeable.  "I think some random
   cracker tripped over the guest timeout last night."  See also
   {J. Random}.

sorcerer's apprentice mode: [from the film "Fantasia"] n. A bug in a
   protocol where, under some circumstances, the receipt of a message
   causes multiple messages to be sent, each of which, when
   received, triggers the same bug.  Used esp. of such behavior
   caused by {bounce message} loops in {email} software.  Compare
   {broadcast storm}, {network meltdown}.

SOS: n.,obs. /S-O-S/ 1. An infamously {losing} text editor.
   Once, back in the 1960s, when a text editor was needed for the
   PDP-6, a hacker crufted together a {quick-and-dirty} `stopgap
   editor' to be used until a better one was written.  Unfortunately,
   the old one was never really discarded when new ones (in
   particular, {TECO}) came along.  SOS is a descendant (`Son of
   Stopgap') of that editor, and many PDP-10 users gained the dubious
   pleasure of its acquaintance.  Since then other programs similar in
   style to SOS have been written, notably the early font editor BILOS
   /bye'lohs/, the Brother-In-Law Of Stopgap (the alternate expansion
   `Bastard Issue, Loins of Stopgap' has been proposed).  2. /sos/
   n. To decrease; inverse of {AOS}, from the PDP-10 instruction
   set.

source of all good bits: n. A person from whom (or a place from
   which) useful information may be obtained.  If you need to know
   about a program, a {guru} might be the source of all good bits.
   The title is often applied to a particularly competent secretary.

space-cadet keyboard: n. The Knight keyboard, a now-legendary device
   used on MIT LISP machines, which inspired several still-current
   jargon terms and influenced the design of {EMACS}.  It was inspired
   by the Stanford keyboard and equipped with no fewer than
   *seven* shift keys: four keys for {bucky bits} (`control',
   `meta', `hyper', and `super') and three like regular shift keys,
   called `shift', `top', and `front'.  Many keys had three symbols
   on them: a letter and a symbol on the top, and a Greek letter on
   the front.  For example, the `L' key had an `L' and a two-way
   arrow on the top, and the Greek letter lambda on the front.  If you
   press this key with the right hand while playing an appropriate
   `chord' with the left hand on the shift keys, you can get the
   following results:

     L
              
          lowercase l

     shift-L
        
          uppercase L

     front-L
        
          lowercase lambda

     front-shift-L
  
          uppercase lambda

     top-L
          
          two-way arrow
          (front and shift are ignored)

   And of course each of these might also be typed with any
   combination of the control, meta, hyper, and super keys.  On this
   keyboard, you could type over 8000 different characters!  This
   allowed the user to type very complicated mathematical text, and
   also to have thousands of single-character commands at his
   disposal.  Many hackers were actually willing to memorize the
   command meanings of that many characters if it reduced typing time
   (this attitude obviously shaped the interface of EMACS).  Other
   hackers, however, thought having that many bucky bits was overkill,
   and objected that such a keyboard can require three or four hands
   to operate.  See {bucky bits}, {cokebottle}, {double bucky},
   {meta bit}, {quadruple bucky}.

SPACEWAR: n. A space-combat simulation game, inspired by
   E. E. "Doc" Smith's "Lensman" books, in which two spaceships
   duel around a central sun, shooting torpedoes at each other and
   jumping through hyperspace.  This game was first implemented on the
   PDP-1 at MIT in 1960--61.  SPACEWAR aficionados formed the core of
   the early hacker culture at MIT.  Nine years later, a descendant
   of the game motivated Ken Thompson to build, in his spare time on a
   scavenged PDP-7, the operating system that became {{UNIX}}.  Less
   than 9 years after that, SPACEWAR was commercialized as one of
   the first video games; descendants are still {feep}ing in video
   arcades everywhere.

spaghetti code: n. Code with a complex and tangled control
   structure, esp. one using many GOTOs, exceptions, or other
   `unstructured' branching constructs.  Pejorative.  The synonym
   `kangaroo code' has been reported, doubtless because such code
   has many jumps in it.

spaghetti inheritance: n. [encountered among users of object-oriented
   languages that use inheritance, such as Smalltalk] A convoluted
   class-subclass graph, often resulting from carelessly deriving
   subclasses from other classes just for the sake of reusing their
   code.  Coined in a (successful) attempt to discourage such
   practice, through guilt-by-association with {spaghetti code}.

spam: [from the {MUD} community] vt. To crash a program by overrunning
   a fixed-size buffer with excessively large input data.  See also
   {buffer overflow}, {overrun screw}, {smash the stack}.

special-case: vt. To write unique code to handle input to or
   situations arising in program that are somehow distinguished from
   normal processing.  This would be used for processing of mode
   switches or interrupt characters in an interactive interface (as
   opposed, say, to text entry or normal commands), or for processing
   of {hidden flag}s in the input of a batch program or {filter}.

speedometer: n. A pattern of lights displayed on a linear set of
   LEDs (today) or nixie tubes (yesterday, on ancient mainframes).  The
   pattern is shifted left every N times the software goes
   through its main loop.  A swiftly moving pattern indicates that the
   system is mostly idle; the speedometer slows down as the system
   becomes overloaded.  The speedometer on Sun Microsystems hardware
   bounces back and forth like the eyes on one of the Cylons from the
   wretched "Battlestar Galactica" TV series.

   Historical note: One computer, the Honeywell 6000 (later GE 600)
   actually had an *analog* speedometer on the front panel,
   calibrated in instructions executed per second.

spell: n. Syn. {incantation}.

spiffy: /spi'fee/ adj. 1. Said of programs having a pretty,
   clever, or exceptionally well-designed interface. "Have you seen
   the spiffy {X} version of {empire} yet?"  2. Said
   sarcastically of a program that is perceived to have little more
   than a flashy interface going for it.  Which meaning should be
   drawn depends delicately on tone of voice and context.  This word
   was common mainstream slang during the 1940s, in a sense close to #1.

spin: vi. Equivalent to {buzz}.  More common among C and UNIX
   programmers.

spl: /S-P-L/ [abbrev, from Set Priority Level] The way
   traditional UNIX kernels implement mutual exclusion by running code
   at high interrupt levels.  Used in jargon to describe the act of
   tuning in or tuning out ordinary communication.  Classically, spl
   levels run from 1 to 7; "Fred's at spl 6 today." would mean
   that he is very hard to interrupt.  "Wait till I finish this; I'll
   spl down then."  See also {interrupts locked out}.

splat: n. 1. Name used in many places (DEC, IBM, and others) for
   the asterisk (`*') character (ASCII 0101010).  This may derive
   from the `squashed-bug' appearance of the asterisk on many early
   line printers.  2. [MIT] Name used by some people for the
   `#' character (ASCII 0100011).  3. [Rochester Institute of
   Technology] The {command key} on a Mac (same as {ALT},
   sense 2).  4. [Stanford] Name used by some people for the
   Stanford/ITS extended ASCII
   circle-x
   character.  This character is also called `blobby' and `frob',
   among other names; it is sometimes used by mathematicians as a
   notation for `tensor product'.  5. [Stanford] Name for the
   semi-mythical extended ASCII
   circle-plus

   character.  6. Canonical name for an output routine that outputs
   whatever the local interpretation of `splat' is.

   With ITS and WAITS gone, senses 4--6 are now nearly obsolete.  See
   also {{ASCII}}.

sponge: [UNIX] n. A special case of a {filter} that reads its
   entire input before writing any output; the canonical example is a
   sort utility.  Unlike most filters, a sponge can conveniently
   overwrite the input file with the output data stream.  If your file
   system has versioning (as ITS did and VMS does now) the
   sponge/filter distinction loses its usefulness, because directing
   filter output would just write a new version.  See also {slurp}.

spooge: /spooj/ 1. n. Inexplicable or arcane code, or random
   and probably incorrect output from a computer program.  2. vi. To
   generate spooge (sense 1).

spool: [from early IBM `Simultaneous Peripheral Operation Off-Line',
   but this acronym is widely thought to have been contrived for
   effect] vt. To send files to some device or program (a `spooler')
   that queues them up and does something useful with them later.  The
   spooler usually understood is the `print spooler' controlling
   output of jobs to a printer, but the term has been used in
   connection with other peripherals (especially plotters and graphics
   devices).  See also {demon}.

stack: n. A person's stack is the set of things he or she has to do
   in the future.  One speaks of the next project to be attacked as
   having risen to the top of the stack.  "I'm afraid I've got real
   work to do, so this'll have to be pushed way down on my stack."
   "I haven't done it yet because every time I pop my stack something
   new gets pushed."  If you are interrupted several times in the
   middle of a conversation, "My stack overflowed" means "I
   forget what we were talking about."  The implication is that more
   items were pushed onto the stack than could be remembered, so the
   least recent items were lost.  The usual physical example of a
   stack is to be found in a cafeteria: a pile of plates or trays
   sitting on a spring in a well, so that when you put one on the top
   they all sink down, and when you take one off the top the rest
   spring up a bit.  See also {push} and {pop}.

   At MIT, {pdl} used to be a more common synonym for {stack} in
   all these contexts, and this may still be true.  Everywhere else
   {stack} seems to be the preferred term.  {Knuth}
   (`The Art of Computer Programming', second edition, vol. 1,
   p. 236) says:

        Many people who realized the importance of stacks and queues
        independently have given other names to these structures:
        stacks have been called push-down lists, reversion storages,
        cellars, nesting stores, piles, last-in-first-out ("LIFO")
        lists, and even yo-yo lists!

stack puke: n. Some processor architectures are said to `puke their
   guts onto the stack' to save their internal state during exception
   processing.  The Motorola 68020, for example, regurgitates up to
   92 bytes on a bus fault.  On a pipelined machine, this can take a
   while.

stale pointer bug: n. Synonym for {aliasing bug} used esp. among
   microcomputer hackers.

state: n. 1. Condition, situation.  "What's the state of your
   latest hack?"  "It's winning away."  "The system tried to read
   and write the disk simultaneously and got into a totally wedged
   state."  The standard question "What's your state?"  means
   "What are you doing?" or "What are you about to do?"  Typical
   answers are "about to gronk out", or "hungry".  Another
   standard question is "What's the state of the world?", meaning
   "What's new?" or "What's going on?".  The more terse and
   humorous way of asking these questions would be "State-p?".
   Another way of phrasing the first question under sense 1 would be
   "state-p latest hack?".  2. Information being maintained in
   non-permanent memory (electronic or human).

steam-powered: adj. Old-fashioned or underpowered; archaic.  This
   term does not have a strong negative loading and may even be used
   semi-affectionately for something that clanks and wheezes a lot
   but hangs in there doing the job.

stiffy: [University of Lowell,  Massachusetts.] n. 3.5-inch
   {microfloppies}, so called because their jackets are more firm
   than those of the 5.25-inch and the 8-inch floppy.  Elsewhere this might be
   called a `firmy'.

stir-fried random: alt. `stir-fried mumble' n. Term used for the 
   best dish of many of those hackers who can cook.  Consists of
   random fresh veggies and meat wokked with random spices.  Tasty and
   economical.  See {random}, {great-wall}, {ravs}, {{laser
   chicken}}, {{oriental food}}; see also {mumble}.

stomp on: vt. To inadvertently overwrite something important, usually
   automatically.  "All the work I did this weekend got
   stomped on last night by the nightly server script."  Compare
   {scribble}, {mangle}, {trash}, {scrog}, {roach}.

Stone Age: n., adj. 1. In computer folklore, an ill-defined period
   from ENIAC (ca. 1943) to the mid-1950s; the great age of
   electromechanical {dinosaur}s.  Sometimes used for the entire
   period up to 1960--61 (see {Iron Age}); however, it is funnier
   and more descriptive to characterize the latter period in terms of
   a `Bronze Age' era of transistor-logic, pre-ferrite-{core}
   machines with drum or CRT mass storage (as opposed to just mercury
   delay lines and/or relays).  See also {Iron Age}.  2. More
   generally, a pejorative for any crufty, ancient piece of hardware
   or software technology.  Note that this is used even by people who
   were there for the {Stone Age} (sense 1).

stoppage: /sto'p*j/ n. Extreme {lossage} that renders
   something (usually something vital) completely unusable.  "The
   recent system stoppage was caused by a {fried} transformer."

store: [prob. from techspeak `main store'] n. Preferred Commonwealth
   synonym for {core}.  Thus, `bringing a program into store' means
   not that one is returning shrink-wrapped software but that a
   program is being {swap}ped in.

stroke: n. Common name for the slant (`/', ASCII 0101111)
   character.  See {ASCII} for other synonyms.

strudel: n. Common (spoken) name for the circumflex (`', ASCII
   1000000) character.  See {ASCII} for other synonyms.

stubroutine: /stuhb'roo-teen/ [contraction of `stub routine']
   n.  Tiny, often vacuous placeholder for a subroutine that is to be
   written or fleshed out later.

studlycaps: /stuhd'lee-kaps/ n. A hackish form of silliness
   similar to {BiCapitalization} for trademarks, but applied
   randomly and to arbitrary text rather than to trademarks.  ThE
   oRigiN and SigNificaNce of thIs pRacTicE iS oBscuRe.

stunning: adj. Mind-bogglingly stupid.  Usually used in sarcasm.
   "You want to code *what* in ADA?  That's ... a stunning
   idea!"

stupid-sort: n. Syn. {bogo-sort}.

subshell: /suhb'shel/ [UNIX, MS-DOS] n. An OS command interpreter
   (see {shell}) spawned from within a program, such that exit from
   the command interpreter returns one to the parent program in a
   state that allows it to continue execution.  Compare {shell out};
   oppose {chain}.

sucking mud: [Applied Data Research] adj. (also `pumping
   mud') Crashed or wedged.  Usually said of a machine that provides
   some service to a network, such as a file server.  This Dallas
   regionalism derives from the East Texas oilfield lament, "Shut
   'er down, Ma, she's a-suckin' mud".  Often used as a query.  "We
   are going to reconfigure the network, are you ready to suck mud?"

sufficiently small: adj. Syn. {suitably small}.

suit: n. 1. Ugly and uncomfortable `business clothing' often worn
   by non-hackers.  Invariably worn with a `tie', a strangulation
   device that partially cuts off the blood supply to the brain.  It
   is thought that this explains much about the behavior of
   suit-wearers.  Compare {droid}.  2. A person who habitually wears
   suits, as distinct from a techie or hacker.  See {loser},
   {burble}, {management}, and {brain-damaged}.  English, by the
   way, is relatively kind; our Soviet correspondent informs us that
   the corresponding idiom in Russian hacker jargon is `sovok', lit.
   a tool for grabbing garbage.

suitable win: n. See {win}.

suitably small: [perverted from mathematical jargon] adj. An
   expression used ironically to characterize unquantifiable
   behavior that differs from expected or required behavior.  For
   example, suppose a newly created program came up with a correct
   full-screen display, and one publicly exclaimed: "It works!"
   Then, if the program dumps core on the first mouse click, one might
   add: "Well, for suitably small values of `works'."  Compare
   the characterization of pi under {{random numbers}}.

sun-stools: n. Unflattering hackerism for SunTools, a pre-X
   windowing environment notorious in its day for size, slowness, and
   misfeatures.  {X}, however, is larger and slower; see
   {second-system effect}.

sunspots: n. 1. Notional cause of an odd error.  "Why did the
   program suddenly turn the screen blue?"  "Sunspots, I guess."
   2. Also the cause of {bit rot} --- from the myth that sunspots
   will increase {cosmic rays}, which can flip single bits in memory.
   See {cosmic rays}, {phase of the moon}.

superprogrammer: n. A prolific programmer; one who can code
   exceedingly well and quickly.  Not all hackers are
   superprogrammers, but many are.  (Productivity can vary from one
   programmer to another by three orders of magnitude.  For example,
   one programmer might be able to write an average of 3 lines of
   working code in one day, while another, with the proper tools,
   might be able to write 3,000.  This range is astonishing; it is
   matched in very few other areas of human endeavor.)  The term
   `superprogrammer' is more commonly used within such places as IBM
   than in the hacker community.  It tends to stress na"ive measures
   of productivity and to underweight creativity, ingenuity, and
   getting the job *done* --- and to sidestep the question of
   whether the 3,000 lines of code do more or less useful work than
   three lines that do the {Right Thing}.  Hackers tend to prefer
   the terms {hacker} and {wizard}.

superuser: [UNIX] n. Syn. {root}, {avatar}.  This usage has
   spread to non-UNIX environments; the superuser is any account with
   all {wheel} bits on.  A more specific term than {wheel}.

support: n. After-sale handholding; something many software
   vendors promise but few deliver.  To hackers, most support people
   are useless --- because by the time a hacker calls support he or
   she will usually know the relevant manuals better than the support
   people (sadly, this is *not* a joke or exaggeration).  A
   hacker's idea of `support' is a t^ete-`a-t^ete with the
   software's designer.

Suzie COBOL: /soo'zee koh'bol/ 1. [IBM: prob. from Frank Zappa's
   `Suzy Creamcheese'] n. A coder straight out of training school who
   knows everything except the value of comments in plain English.
   Also (fashionable among personkind wishing to avoid accusations of
   sexism) `Sammy Cobol' or (in some non-IBM circles) `Cobol Charlie'.
   2. [proposed] Meta-name for any {code grinder}, analogous to
   {J. Random Hacker}.

swab: /swob/ [From the mnemonic for the PDP-11 `SWAp Byte'
   instruction, as immortalized in the `dd(1)' option `conv=swab'
   (see {dd})] 1. vt. To solve the {NUXI problem} by swapping
   bytes in a file.  2. n. The program in V7 UNIX used to perform this
   action, or anything functionally equivalent to it.  See also
   {big-endian}, {little-endian}, {middle-endian},
   {bytesexual}.

swap: vt. 1. [techspeak] To move information from a fast-access
   memory to a slow-access memory (`swap out'), or vice versa
   (`swap in').  Often refers specifically to the use of disks as
   `virtual memory'.  As pieces of data or program are needed, they
   are swapped into {core} for processing; when they are no longer
   needed they may be swapped out again.  2. The jargon use of these
   terms analogizes people's short-term memories with core.  Cramming
   for an exam might be spoken of as swapping in.  If you temporarily
   forget someone's name, but then remember it, your excuse is that it
   was swapped out.  To `keep something swapped in' means to keep it
   fresh in your memory: "I reread the TECO manual every few months
   to keep it swapped in."  If someone interrupts you just as you got
   a good idea, you might say "Wait a moment while I swap this
   out", implying that the piece of paper is your extra-somatic
   memory and if you don't swap the info out by writing it down it
   will get overwritten and lost as you talk.  Compare {page in},
   {page out}.

swap space: n. Storage space, especially temporary storage space
   used during a move or reconfiguration.  "I'm just using that corner
   of the machine room for swap space."

swapped in: n. See {swap}.  See also {page in}.

swapped out: n. See {swap}.  See also {page out}.

swizzle: v. To convert external names, array indices, or references
   within a data structure into address pointers when the data
   structure is brought into main memory from external storage (also
   called `pointer swizzling'); this may be done for speed in
   chasing references or to simplify code (e.g., by turning lots of
   name lookups into pointer dereferences).  The converse operation is
   sometimes termed `unswizzling'.  See also {snap}.

sync: /sink/ (var. `synch') n., vi. 1. To synchronize, to
   bring into synchronization.  2. [techspeak] To force all pending
   I/O to the disk; see {flush}, sense 2.  3. More generally, to
   force a number of competing processes or agents to a state that
   would be `safe' if the system were to crash; thus, to checkpoint
   (in the database-theory sense).

syntactic sugar: [coined by Peter Landin] n. Features added to a
   language or other formalism to make it `sweeter' for humans,
   that do not affect the expressiveness of the formalism (compare
   {chrome}).  Used esp. when there is an obvious and trivial
   translation of the `sugar' feature into other constructs already
   present in the notation.  C's `a[i]' notation is syntactic
   sugar for `*(a + i)'.  "Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the
   semicolon."  --- Alan Perlis

   The variant `syntactic saccharine' is also recorded.  This
   denotes something even more gratuitous, in that syntactic sugar
   serves a purpose (making something more acceptable to humans) but
   syntactic saccharine serves no purpose at all.

sys-frog: /sis'frog/ [the PLATO system] n. Playful variant of
   `sysprog', which is in turn short for `systems programmer'.

sysadmin: /sis'ad-min/ n. Common contraction of `system
   admin'; see {admin}.

sysop: /sis'op/ n. [esp. in the BBS world] The operator (and
   usually the owner) of a bulletin-board system.  A common neophyte
   mistake on {FidoNet} is to address a message to `sysop' in an
   international {echo}, thus sending it to hundreds of sysops
   around the world.

system: n. 1. The supervisor program or OS on a computer.  2. The
   entire computer system, including input/output devices, the
   supervisor program or OS, and possibly other software.  3. Any
   large-scale program.  4. Any method or algorithm.  5. `System
   hacker': one who hacks the system (in senses 1 and 2 only; for
   sense 3 one mentions the particular program: e.g., `LISP
   hacker')

systems jock: n. See {jock}, (sense 2).

SysVile: /sis-vi:l'/ n. See {Missed'em-five}.

system mangler: n. Humorous synonym for `system manager', poss.
   from the fact that one major IBM OS had a {root} account called
   SYSMANGR.  Refers specifically to a systems programmer in charge of
   administration, software maintenance, and updates at some site.
   Unlike {admin}, this term emphasizes the technical end of the
   skills involved.

= T =

T: /T/ 1. [from LISP terminology for `true'] Yes.  Used in
   reply to a question (particularly one asked using the `-P'
   convention).  In LISP, the constant T means `true', among other
   things.  Some hackers use `T' and `NIL' instead of `Yes' and `No'
   almost reflexively.  This sometimes causes misunderstandings.  When
   a waiter or flight attendant asks whether a hacker wants coffee, he
   may well respond `T', meaning that he wants coffee; but of course
   he will be brought a cup of tea instead.  As it happens, most
   hackers (particularly those who frequent Chinese restaurants) like
   tea at least as well as coffee --- so it is not that big a problem.
   2. See {time T} (also {since time T equals minus infinity}).
   3. [techspeak] In transaction-processing circles, an abbreviation
   for the noun `transaction'.  4. [Purdue] Alternate spelling of
   {tee}.

tail recursion: n. If you aren't sick of it already, see {tail
   recursion}.

talk mode: n. A feature supported by UNIX, ITS, and some other
   OSes that allows two or more logged-in users to set up a real-time
   on-line conversation.  It combines the immediacy of talking with
   all the precision (and verbosity) that written language entails.
   It is difficult to communicate inflection, though conventions have
   arisen for some of these (see the section on writing style in the
   Prependices for details).

   Talk mode has a special set of jargon words, used to save typing,
   which are not used orally.  Some of these are identical to (and
   probably derived from) Morse-code jargon used by ham-radio amateurs
   since the 1920s.

     `BCNU'
   
          be seeing you
     `BTW'
          by the way
     `BYE?'
          are you ready to unlink?  (this is the standard way to end a talk-mode
          conversation; the other person types `BYE' to confirm, or else continues
          the conversation)
     `CUL'
    
          see you later
     `ENQ?'
          are you busy?  (expects `ACK' or `NAK' in return)
     `FOO?'
          are you there? (often used on unexpected links,
          meaning also "Sorry if I butted in ..." (linker) or "What's
          up?" (linkee))
     `FYI'
    
          for your information
     `FYA'
    
          for your amusement
     `GA'
          go ahead  (used when two people have tried to type simultaneously; this
          cedes the right to type to the other)
     `GRMBL'
  
          grumble (expresses disquiet or disagreement)
     `HELLOP'
          hello? (an instance of the `-P' convention)
     `JAM'
          just a minute (equivalent to `SEC....')
     `MIN'
    
          same as `JAM'
     `NIL'
    
          no (see {NIL})
     `O'
          over to you
     `OO'
     
          over and out
     `/'
          another form of "over to you" (from x/y as "x over y")
     `\'
          lambda (used in discussing LISPy things)
     `OBTW'
 
          oh, by the way
     `R U THERE?'
          are you there?
     `SEC'
    
          wait a second (sometimes written `SEC...')
     `T'
          yes (see the main entry for {T})
     `TNX'
    
          thanks
     `TNX 1.0E6'
          thanks a million (humorous)
     `TNXE6'
          another for of "thanks a million"
     `WRT'
    
          with regard to, or with respect to.
     `WTF'
          the universal interrogative particle; WTF knows what it means?
     `WTH'
    
          what the hell?
     `<double newline>'
          When the typing party has finished, he/she types two newlines to
          signal that he/she is done; this leaves a blank line between
          `speeches' in the conversation, making it easier to reread the
          preceding text.
     `<name>:'
          When three or more terminals are linked, it is conventional for each
          typist to {prepend} his/her login name or handle and a colon
          (or a hyphen) to each line to indicate who is typing (some
          conferencing facilities do this automatically).  The login name
          is often shortened to a unique prefix (possibly a single letter)
          during a very long conversation.
     `/\/\/\'
          A giggle or chuckle.  On a MUD, this usually means `earthquake fault'.

   Most of the above sub-jargon is used at both Stanford and MIT.
   Several of these expressions are also common in {email}, esp.
   FYI, FYA, BTW, BCNU, WTF, and CUL.  A few other abbreviations have
   been reported from commercial networks, such as GEnie and CompuServe,
   where on-line `live' chat including more than two people is
   common and usually involves a more `social' context, notably the
   following:

     `<g>'
          grin
     `<gr&d>'
          grinning, running, and ducking
     `BBL'
          be back later
     `BRB'
          be right back
     `HHOJ'
          ha ha only joking
     `HHOK'
          ha ha only kidding
     `HHOS'
          {ha ha only serious}
     `IMHO'
          in my humble opinion (see {IMHO})
     `LOL'
          laughing out loud
     `ROTF'
          rolling on the floor
     `ROTFL'
          rolling on the floor laughing
     `AFK'
          away from keyboard
     `b4'
          before
     `CU l8tr'
          see you later
     `MORF'
          male or female?
     `TTFN'
          ta-ta for now
     `OIC'
          oh, I see
     `rehi'
          hello again

   Most of these are not used at universities or in the UNIX world,
   though ROTF and TTFN have gained some currency there and IMHO is
   common; conversely, most of the people who know these are
   unfamiliar with FOO?, BCNU, HELLOP, {NIL}, and {T}.

   The {MUD} community uses a mixture of USENET/Internet emoticons, a
   few of the more natural of the old-style talk-mode abbrevs, and
   some of the `social' list above; specifically, MUD respondents
   report use of BBL, BRB, LOL, b4, BTW, WTF, TTFN, and WTH.  The use of
   `rehi' is also common; in fact, mudders are fond of re- compounds and
   will frequently `rehug' or `rebonk' (see {bonk/oif}) people.  The
   word `re' by itself is taken as `regreet'.  In general, though,
   MUDders express a preference for typing things out in full rather
   than using abbreviations; this may be due to the relative youth of
   the MUD cultures, which tend to include many touch typists and
   to assume high-speed links.  The following uses specific to MUDs are
   reported:

     `UOK?'
          are you OK?
     `THX'
          thanks (mutant of `TNX'; clearly this comes in batches of 1138 (the
          Lucasian K)).
     `CU l8er'
          see you later (mutant of `CU l8tr')
     `OTT'
          over the top (excessive, uncalled for)

   Some {BIFF}isms (notably the variant spelling `d00d')
   appear to be passing into wider use among some subgroups of
   MUDders.

   One final note on talk mode style: neophytes, when in talk mode,
   often seem to think they must produce letter-perfect prose because
   they are typing rather than speaking.  This is not the best
   approach.  It can be very frustrating to wait while your partner
   pauses to think of a word, or repeatedly makes the same spelling
   error and backs up to fix it.  It is usually best just to leave
   typographical errors behind and plunge forward, unless severe
   confusion may result; in that case it is often fastest just to type
   "xxx" and start over from before the mistake.

   See also {hakspek}, {emoticon}, {bonk/oif}.

talker system: n. British hackerism for software that enables
   real-time chat or {talk mode}.

tall card: n. A PC/AT-size expansion card (these can be larger
   than IBM PC or XT cards because the AT case is bigger).  See also
   {short card}.  When IBM introduced the PS/2 model 30 (its last
   gasp at supporting the ISA) they made the case lower and many
   industry-standard tall cards wouldn't fit; this was felt to be a
   reincarnation of the {connector conspiracy}, done with less
   style.

tanked: adj. Same as {down}, used primarily by UNIX hackers.  See
   also {hosed}.  Popularized as a synonym for `drunk' by Steve
   Dallas in the late lamented "Bloom County" comic strip.

tar and feather: [from UNIX `tar(1)'] vt. To create a
   transportable archive from a group of files by first sticking them
   together with `tar(1)' (the Tape ARchiver) and then
   compressing the result (see {compress}).  The latter action is
   dubbed `feathering' by analogy to what you do with an airplane
   propeller to decrease wind resistance, or with an oar to reduce
   water resistance; smaller files, after all, slip through comm links
   more easily.

taste: [primarily MIT] n. 1. The quality in a program that tends
   to be inversely proportional to the number of features, hacks, and
   kluges programmed into it.  Also `tasty', `tasteful',
   `tastefulness'.  "This feature comes in N tasty flavors."
   Although `tasteful' and `flavorful' are essentially
   synonyms, `taste' and {flavor} are not.  Taste refers to
   sound judgment on the part of the creator; a program or feature
   can *exhibit* taste but cannot {have} taste.  On the other
   hand, a feature can have {flavor}.  Also, {flavor} has the
   additional meaning of `kind' or `variety' not shared by
   `taste'.  {Flavor} is a more popular word than `taste',
   though both are used.  See also {elegant}.  2. Alt. sp. of
   {tayste}.

tayste: /tayst/ n. Two bits; also as {taste}.  Syn. {crumb},
   {quarter}.  Compare {{byte}}, {dynner}, {playte},
   {nybble}, {quad}.

TCB: /T-C-B/ [IBM] n. 1. Trouble Came Back.  An intermittent or
   difficult-to-reproduce problem that has failed to respond to
   neglect.  Compare {heisenbug}.  Not to be confused with:
   2. Trusted Computing Base, an `official' jargon term from the
   {Orange Book}.

tea, ISO standard cup of: [South Africa] n. A cup of tea with milk
   and one teaspoon of sugar, where the milk is poured into the cup
   before the tea.  Variations are ISO 0, with no sugar; ISO 2, with
   two spoons of sugar; and so on.

   Like many ISO standards, this one has a faintly alien ring in North
   America, where hackers generally shun the decadent British practice
   of adulterating perfectly good tea with dairy products and
   prefer instead to add a wedge of lemon, if anything.  If one were
   feeling extremely silly, one might hypothesize an analogous `ANSI
   standard cup of tea' and wind up with a political situation
   distressingly similar to several that arise in much more serious
   technical contexts.  Milk and lemon don't mix very well.

TechRef: /tek'ref/ [MS-DOS] n. The original `IBM PC
   Technical Reference Manual', including the BIOS listing and
   complete schematics for the PC.  The only PC documentation in the
   issue package that's considered serious by real hackers.

TECO: /tee'koh/ obs. 1. vt. Originally, to edit using the TECO
   editor in one of its infinite variations (see below).  2. vt.,obs.
   To edit even when TECO is *not* the editor being used!  This
   usage is rare and now primarily historical.  2. [originally an
   acronym for `[paper] Tape Editor and COrrector'; later, `Text
   Editor and COrrector'] n. A text editor developed at MIT and
   modified by just about everybody.  With all the dialects included,
   TECO might have been the most prolific editor in use before
   {EMACS}, to which it was directly ancestral.  Noted for its
   powerful programming-language-like features and its unspeakably
   hairy syntax.  It is literally the case that every string of
   characters is a valid TECO program (though probably not a useful
   one); one common hacker game used to be mentally working out what
   the TECO commands corresponding to human names did.  As an example
   of TECO's obscurity, here is a TECO program that takes a list of
   names such as:

     Loser, J. Random
     Quux, The Great
     Dick, Moby

   sorts them alphabetically according to surname, and then puts the
   surname last, removing the comma, to produce the following:

     Moby Dick
     J. Random Loser
     The Great Quux

   The program is

     [1 J^P$L$$
     J <.-Z; .,(S,$ -D .)FX1 @F^B $K :L I $ G1 L>$$

   (where ^B means `Control-B' (ASCII 0000010) and $ is actually
   an {ALT} or escape (ASCII 0011011) character).

   In fact, this very program was used to produce the second, sorted
   list from the first list.  The first hack at it had a {bug}: GLS
   (the author) had accidentally omitted the `@' in front
   of `F^B', which as anyone can see is clearly the {Wrong Thing}.  It
   worked fine the second time.  There is no space to describe all the
   features of TECO, but it may be of interest that `^P' means
   `sort' and `J<.-Z; ... L>' is an idiomatic series of commands
   for `do once for every line'.

   In mid-1991, TECO is pretty much one with the dust of history,
   having been replaced in the affections of hackerdom by {EMACS}.
   Descendants of an early (and somewhat lobotomized) version adopted
   by DEC can still be found lurking on VMS and a couple of crufty
   PDP-11 operating systems, however, and ports of the more advanced
   MIT versions remain the focus of some antiquarian interest.  See
   also {retrocomputing}, {write-only language}.

tee: n.,vt. [Purdue] A carbon copy of an electronic transmission.
   "Oh, you're sending him the {bits} to that?  Slap on a tee for
   me."  From the UNIX command `tee(1)', itself named after a
   pipe fitting (see {plumbing}).  Can also mean `save one for me',
   as in "Tee a slice for me!"  Also spelled `T'.

Telerat: /tel'*-rat/ n. Unflattering hackerism for `Teleray', a
   line of extremely losing terminals.  See also {terminak},
   {sun-stools}, {HP-SUX}.

TELNET: /tel'net/ vt. To communicate with another Internet host
   using the {TELNET} program.  TOPS-10 people used the word
   IMPCOM, since that was the program name for them.  Sometimes
   abbreviated to TN /T-N/.  "I usually TN over to SAIL just to
   read the AP News."

ten-finger interface: n. The interface between two networks that
   cannot be directly connected for security reasons; refers to the
   practice of placing two terminals side by side and having an
   operator read from one and type into the other.

tense: adj. Of programs, very clever and efficient.  A tense piece
   of code often got that way because it was highly {bum}med, but
   sometimes it was just based on a great idea.  A comment in a clever
   routine by Mike Kazar, once a grad-student hacker at CMU: "This
   routine is so tense it will bring tears to your eyes."  A tense
   programmer is one who produces tense code.

tenured graduate student: n. One who has been in graduate school
   for 10 years (the usual maximum is 5 or 6): a `ten-yeared'
   student (get it?).  Actually, this term may be used of any grad
   student beginning in his seventh year.  Students don't really get
   tenure, of course, the way professors do, but a tenth-year graduate
   student has probably been around the university longer than any
   untenured professor.

tera-: /te'r*/ [SI] pref. See {{quantifiers}}.

teraflop club: /te'r*-flop kluhb/ [FLOP = Floating Point
   Operation] n. A mythical association of people who consume outrageous
   amounts of computer time in order to produce a few simple pictures
   of glass balls with intricate ray-tracing techniques.  Caltech
   professor James Kajiya is said to have been the founder.

terminak: /ter'mi-nak`/ [Caltech, ca. 1979] n. Any malfunctioning
   computer terminal.  A common failure mode of Lear-Siegler ADM 3a
   terminals caused the `L' key to produce the `K' code instead;
   complaints about this tended to look like "Terminak #3 has a bad
   keyboard.  Pkease fix."  See {sun-stools}, {Telerat},
   {HP-SUX}.

terminal brain death: n. The extreme form of {terminal illness}
   (sense 1).  What someone who has obviously been hacking
   continuously for far too long is said to be suffering from.

terminal illness: n. 1. Syn. {raster burn}.  2. The `burn-in'
   condition your CRT tends to get if you don't have a screen saver.

terminal junkie: [UK] n. A {wannabee} or early
   {larval stage} hacker who spends most of his or her time wandering
   the directory tree and writing {noddy} programs just to get
   a fix of computer time.  Variants include `terminal
   jockey', `console junkie', and {console jockey}.  The term
   `console jockey' seems to imply more expertise than the other
   three (possibly because of the exalted status of the {{console}}
   relative to an ordinary terminal).  See also {twink},
   {read-only user}.

terpri: /ter'pree/ [from LISP 1.5 (and later, MacLISP)] vi. To
   output a {newline}.  Now rare as jargon, though still used as
   techspeak in Common LISP.  It is a contraction of `TERminate PRInt
   line', named for the fact that, on early OSes, no characters would be
   printed until a complete line was formed, so this operation
   terminated the line and emitted the output.

test: n. 1. Real users bashing on a prototype long enough to get
   thoroughly acquainted with it, with careful monitoring and followup
   of the results.  2. Some bored random user trying a couple of the
   simpler features with a developer looking over his or her shoulder,
   ready to pounce on mistakes.  Judging by the quality of most
   software, the second definition is far more prevalent.  See also
   {demo}.

TeX: /tekh/ n. An extremely powerful {macro}-based
   text formatter written by Donald E. Knuth, very popular in the
   computer-science community (it is good enough to have displaced
   UNIX `troff(1)', the other favored formatter, even at many
   UNIX installations).  TeX fans insist on the correct (guttural)
   pronunciation, and the correct spelling (all caps, squished
   together, with the E depressed below the baseline; the
   mixed-case `TeX' is considered an acceptable kluge on ASCII-only
   devices).  Fans like to proliferate names from the word `TeX'
   --- such as TeXnician (TeX user), TeXhacker (TeX
   programmer), TeXmaster (competent TeX programmer), TeXhax,
   and TeXnique.

   Knuth began TeX because he had become annoyed at the declining
   quality of the typesetting in volumes I--III of his monumental
   `Art of Computer Programming' (see {bible}).  In a
   manifestation of the typical hackish urge to solve the problem at
   hand once and for all, he began to design his own typesetting
   language.  He thought he would finish it on his sabbatical in 1978;
   he was wrong by only about 8 years.  The language was finally
   frozen around 1985, but volume IV of `The Art of Computer
   Programming' has yet to appear as of mid-1991.  The impact and
   influence of TeX's design has been such that nobody minds this
   very much.  Many grand hackish projects have started as a bit of
   tool-building on the way to something else; Knuth's diversion was
   simply on a grander scale than most.

text: n. 1. [techspeak] Executable code, esp. a `pure code'
   portion shared between multiple instances of a program running in a
   multitasking OS (compare {English}).  2. Textual material in the
   mainstream sense; data in ordinary {{ASCII}} or {{EBCDIC}}
   representation (see {flat-ASCII}).  "Those are text files;
   you can review them using the editor."  These two contradictory
   senses confuse hackers, too.

thanks in advance: [USENET] Conventional net.politeness ending a
   posted request for information or assistance.  Sometimes written
   `advTHANKSance' or `aTdHvAaNnKcSe' or abbreviated `TIA'.  See
   {net.-}, {netiquette}.

the X that can be Y is not the true X: Yet another instance of
   hackerdom's peculiar attraction to mystical references --- a common
   humorous way of making exclusive statements about a class of
   things.  The template is from the `Tao te Ching': "The
   Tao which can be spoken of is not the true Tao."  The implication
   is often that the X is a mystery accessible only to the
   enlightened.  See the {trampoline} entry for an example, and
   compare {has the X nature}.

theology: n. 1. Ironically or humorously used to refer to
   {religious issues}.  2. Technical fine points of an abstruse
   nature, esp. those where the resolution is of theoretical
   interest but is relatively {marginal} with respect to actual use of
   a design or system.  Used esp. around software issues with a
   heavy AI or language-design component, such as the smart-data vs.
   smart-programs dispute in AI.

theory: n. The consensus, idea, plan, story, or set of rules that
   is currently being used to inform a behavior.  This is a
   generalization and abuse of the technical meaning.  "What's the
   theory on fixing this TECO loss?"  "What's the theory on dinner
   tonight?"  ("Chinatown, I guess.")  "What's the current theory
   on letting lusers on during the day?"  "The theory behind this
   change is to fix the following well-known screw...."

thinko: /thing'koh/ [by analogy with `typo'] n. A momentary,
   correctable glitch in mental processing, especially one involving
   recall of information learned by rote; a bubble in the stream of
   consciousness.  Syn. {braino}.  Compare {mouso}.

This time, for sure!: excl. Ritual affirmation frequently uttered
   during protracted debugging sessions involving numerous small
   obstacles (e.g., attempts to bring up a UUCP connection).  For the
   proper effect, this must be uttered in a fruity imitation of
   Bullwinkle J. Moose.  Also heard: "Hey, Rocky!  Watch me pull a
   rabbit out of my hat!"  The {canonical} response is, of course,
   "But that trick *never* works!"  See {{Humor, Hacker}}.

thrash: vi. To move wildly or violently, without accomplishing
   anything useful.  Paging or swapping systems that are overloaded
   waste most of their time moving data into and out of core (rather
   than performing useful computation) and are therefore said to
   thrash.  Someone who keeps changing his mind (esp. about what to
   work on next) is said to be thrashing.  A person frantically trying
   to execute too many tasks at once (and not spending enough time on
   any single task) may also be described as thrashing.  Compare
   {multitask}.

thread: n. [USENET, GEnie, CompuServe] Common abbreviation of
   `topic thread', a more or less continuous chain of postings on a
   single topic.

three-finger salute: n. Syn. {Vulcan nerve pinch}.

thud: n. 1. Yet another meta-syntactic variable (see {foo}).
   It is reported that at CMU from the mid-1970s the canonical series of
   these was `foo', `bar', `thud', `blat'.  2. Rare term
   for the hash character, `#' (ASCII 0100011).  See {ASCII} for
   other synonyms.

thunk: /thuhnk/ n. 1. "A piece of coding which provides an
   address", according to P. Z. Ingerman, who invented thunks
   in 1961 as a way of binding actual parameters to their formal
   definitions in Algol-60 procedure calls.  If a procedure is called
   with an expression in the place of a formal parameter, the compiler
   generates a {thunk} to compute the expression and leave the
   address of the result in some standard location.  2. Later
   generalized into: an expression, frozen together with its
   environment, for later evaluation if and when needed (similar to
   what in techspeak is called a `closure').  The process of
   unfreezing these thunks is called `forcing'.  3. A
   {stubroutine}, in an overlay programming environment, that loads
   and jumps to the correct overlay.  Compare {trampoline}.
   4. People and activities scheduled in a thunklike manner.  "It
   occurred to me the other day that I am rather accurately modeled by
   a thunk --- I frequently need to be forced to completion." ---
   paraphrased from a {plan file}.

   Historical note: There are a couple of onomatopoeic myths
   circulating about the origin of this term.  The most common is that
   it is the sound made by data hitting the stack; another holds that
   the sound is that of the data hitting an accumulator.  Yet another
   holds that it is the sound of the expression being unfrozen at
   argument-evaluation time.  In fact, according to the inventors, it
   was coined after they realized (in the wee hours after hours of
   discussion) that the type of an argument in Algol-60 could be
   figured out in advance with a little compile-time thought,
   simplifying the evaluation machinery.  In other words, it had
   `already been thought of'; thus it was christened a `thunk',
   which is "the past tense of `think' at two in the morning".

tick: n. 1. A {jiffy} (sense 1).  2. In simulations, the
   discrete unit of time that passes between iterations of the
   simulation mechanism.  In AI applications, this amount of time is
   often left unspecified, since the only constraint of interest is
   the ordering of events.  This sort of AI simulation is often
   pejoratively referred to as `tick-tick-tick' simulation,
   especially when the issue of simultaneity of events with long,
   independent chains of causes is {handwave}d. 3. In the FORTH
   language, a single quote character.

tick-list features: [Acorn Computers] n. Features in software or
   hardware that customers insist on but never use (calculators in
   desktop TSRs and that sort of thing).  The American equivalent
   would be `checklist features', but this jargon sense of the
   phrase has not been reported.

tickle a bug: vt. To cause a normally hidden bug to manifest
   through some known series of inputs or operations.  "You can
   tickle the bug in the Paradise VGA card's highlight handling by
   trying to set bright yellow reverse video."

tiger team: [U.S. military jargon] n. A team whose purpose is to
   penetrate security, and thus test security measures.  These people
   are paid professionals who do hacker-type tricks, e.g., leave
   cardboard signs saying "bomb" in critical defense installations,
   hand-lettered notes saying "Your codebooks have been stolen"
   (they usually haven't been) inside safes, etc.  After a successful
   penetration, some high-ranking security type shows up the next
   morning for a `security review' and finds the sign, note, etc.,
   and all hell breaks loose.  Serious successes of tiger teams
   sometimes lead to early retirement for base commanders and security
   officers (see the {patch} entry for an example).

   A subset of tiger teams are professional {cracker}s, testing the
   security of military computer installations by attempting remote
   attacks via networks or supposedly `secure' comm channels.  Some of
   their escapades, if declassified, would probably rank among the
   greatest hacks of all times.  The term has been adopted in
   commercial computer-security circles in this more specific sense.

time sink: [poss. by analogy with `heat sink' or `current sink'] n.
   A project that consumes unbounded amounts of time.

time T: /ti:m T/ n. 1. An unspecified but usually well-understood
   time, often used in conjunction with a later time T+1.
   "We'll meet on campus at time T or at Louie's at
   time T+1" means, in the context of going out for dinner:
   "We can meet on campus and go to Louie's, or we can meet at Louie's
   itself a bit later."  (Louie's is a Chinese restaurant in Palo Alto
   that is a favorite with hackers.)  Had the number 30 been used instead
   of the number 1, it would have implied that the travel time from
   campus to Louie's is 30 minutes; whatever time T is (and
   that hasn't been decided on yet), you can meet half an hour later at
   Louie's than you could on campus and end up eating at the same time.
   See also {since time T equals minus infinity}.

times-or-divided-by: [by analogy with `plus-or-minus'] quant. Term
   occasionally used when describing the uncertainty associated with a
   scheduling estimate, for either humorous or brutally honest effect.
   For a software project, the factor is usually at least 2.

tinycrud: /ti:'nee-kruhd/ n. A pejorative used by habitues of older
   game-oriented {MUD} versions for TinyMUDs and other
   user-extensible {MUD} variants; esp. common among users of the
   rather violent and competitive AberMUD and MIST systems.  These
   people justify the slur on the basis of how (allegedly)
   inconsistent and lacking in genuine atmosphere the scenarios
   generated in user extensible MUDs can be.  Other common knocks on
   them are that they feature little overall plot, bad game topology,
   little competitive interaction, etc. --- not to mention the alleged
   horrors of the TinyMUD code itself.  This dispute is one of the MUD
   world's hardiest perennial {holy wars}.

tip of the ice-cube: [IBM] n. The visible part of something small and
   insignificant.  Used as an ironic comment in situations where `tip
   of the iceberg' might be appropriate if the subject were actually
   nontrivial.

tired iron: [IBM] n. Hardware that is perfectly functional but
   far enough behind the state of the art to have been superseded by new
   products, presumably with sufficient improvement in bang-per-buck that
   the old stuff is starting to look a bit like a {dinosaur}.

tits on a keyboard: n. Small bumps on certain keycaps to keep
   touch-typists registered (usually on the `5' of a numeric keypad,
   and on the `F' and `J' of a QWERTY keyboard).

TLA: /T-L-A/ [Three-Letter Acronym] n. 1. Self-describing
   acronym for a species with which computing terminology is infested.
   2. Any confusing acronym.  Examples include MCA, FTP, SNA, CPU,
   MMU, SCCS, DMU, FPU, NNTP, TLA.  People who like this looser usage
   argue that not all TLAs have three letters, just as not all four-letter
   words have four letters.  One also hears of `ETLA' (Extended
   Three-Letter Acronym, pronounced /ee tee el ay/) being used to
   describe four-letter acronyms.  The term `SFLA' (Stupid Four-Letter
   Acronym) has also been reported.  See also {YABA}.

   The self-effacing phrase "TDM TLA" (Too Damn Many...) is
   often used to bemoan the plethora of TLAs in use.  In 1989, a
   random of the journalistic persuasion asked hacker Paul Boutin
   "What do you think will be the biggest problem in computing in
   the 90s?"  Paul's straight-faced response: "There are only
   17,000 three-letter acronyms." (To be exact, there are 26^3
   = 17,576.)

TMRC: /tmerk'/ n. The Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT, one of
   the wellsprings of hacker culture.  The 1959 `Dictionary of
   the TMRC Language' compiled by Peter Samson included several terms
   which became basics of the hackish vocabulary (see esp. {foo}
   and {frob}).

   By 1962, TMRC's legendary layout was already a marvel of
   complexity.  The control system alone featured about 1200 relays.
   There were {scram switch}es located at numerous places around
   the room that could be pressed if something undesirable was about
   to occur, such as a train going full-bore at an obstruction.
   Another feature of the system was a digital clock on the dispatch
   board.  Normally it ran at some multiple of real time, but if
   someone hit a scram switch the clock stopped and the display was
   replaced with the word `FOO'.

   Steven Levy, in his book `Hackers' (see the Bibliography), gives a
   stimulating account of those early years.  TMRC's Power and Signals
   group included most of the early PDP-1 hackers and the people who
   later bacame the core of the MIT AI Lab staff.  Thirty years later
   that connection is still very much alive, and this lexicon
   accordingly includes a number of entries from a recent revision of
   the TMRC Dictionary.

to a first approximation: 1. [techspeak] When one is doing certain
   numerical computations, an approximate solution may be computed by
   any of several heuristic methods, then refined to a final value.
   By using the starting point of a first approximation of the answer,
   one can write an algorithm that converges more quickly to the
   correct result.  2. In jargon, a preface to any comment that
   indicates that the comment is only approximately true.  The remark
   "To a first approximation, I feel good" might indicate that
   deeper questioning would reveal that not all is perfect (e.g., a
   nagging cough still remains after an illness).

to a zeroth approximation: [from `to a first approximation'] A
   *really* sloppy approximation; a wild guess.  Compare
   {social science number}.

toast: 1. n. Any completely inoperable system or component, esp.
   one that has just crashed and burned: "Uh, oh ... I think the
   serial board is toast."  2. vt. To cause a system to crash
   accidentally, especially in a manner that requires manual
   rebooting.  "Rick just toasted the {firewall machine} again."

toaster: n. 1. The archetypal really stupid application for an
   embedded microprocessor controller; often used in comments that
   imply that a scheme is inappropriate technology (but see
   {elevator controller}).  "{DWIM} for an assembler?  That'd be
   as silly as running UNIX on your toaster!"  2. A very, very dumb
   computer. "You could run this program on any dumb toaster."  See
   {bitty box}, {Get a real computer!}, {toy}, {beige toaster}.
   3. A Macintosh, esp. the Classic Mac.  Some hold that this is
   implied by sense 2.  4. A peripheral device.  "I bought my box
   without toasters, but since then I've added two boards and a second
   disk drive."

toeprint: n. A {footprint} of especially small size.

toggle: vt. To change a {bit} from whatever state it is in to the
   other state; to change from 1 to 0 or from 0 to 1.  This comes from
   `toggle switches', such as standard light switches, though the
   word `toggle' actually refers to the mechanism that keeps the
   switch in the position to which it is flipped rather than to the
   fact that the switch has two positions.  There are four things you
   can do to a bit: set it (force it to be 1), clear (or zero) it,
   leave it alone, or toggle it.  (Mathematically, one would say that
   there are four distinct boolean-valued functions of one boolean
   argument, but saying that is much less fun than talking about
   toggling bits.)

tool: 1. n. A program used primarily to create, manipulate, modify,
   or analyze other programs, such as a compiler or an editor or a
   cross-referencing program.  Oppose {app}, {operating system}.
   2. [UNIX] An application program with a simple, `transparent'
   (typically text-stream) interface designed specifically to be used
   in programmed combination with other tools (see {filter}).
   3. [MIT: general to students there] vi. To work; to study (connotes
   tedium).  The TMRC Dictionary defined this as "to set one's brain
   to the grindstone".  See {hack}.  4. [MIT] n. A student who
   studies too much and hacks too little.  (MIT's student humor
   magazine rejoices in the name `Tool and Die'.)

toolsmith: n. The software equivalent of a tool-and-die specialist;
   one who specializes in making the {tool}s with which other
   programmers create applications.  See also {uninteresting}.

topic drift: n. Term used on GEnie, USENET and other electronic
   fora to describe the tendency of a {thread} to drift away from
   the original subject of discussion (and thus, from the Subject
   header of the originating message), or the results of that
   tendency.  Often used in gentle reminders that the discussion has
   strayed off any useful track.  "I think we started with a question
   about Niven's last book, but we've ended up discussing the sexual
   habits of the common marmoset.  Now *that's* topic drift!"

topic group: n. Syn. {forum}.

TOPS-10:: /tops-ten/ n. DEC's proprietary OS for the fabled {PDP-10}
   machines, long a favorite of hackers but now effectively extinct.
   A fountain of hacker folklore; see appendix A.  See also {{ITS}},
   {{TOPS-20}}, {{TWENEX}}, {VMS}, {operating system}.  TOPS-10 was
   sometimes called BOTS-10 (from `bottoms-ten') as a comment on the
   inappropriateness of describing it as the top of anything.

TOPS-20:: /tops-twen'tee/ n. See {{TWENEX}}.

toto: /toh'toh/ n. This is reported to be the default scratch
   file name among French-speaking programmers --- in other words, a
   francophone {foo}.

tourist: [ITS] n. A guest on the system, especially one who
   generally logs in over a network from a remote location for {comm
   mode}, email, games, and other trivial purposes.  One step below
   {luser}.  Hackers often spell this {turist}, perhaps by
   some sort of tenuous analogy with {luser} (this also expresses the
   ITS culture's penchant for six-letterisms).  Compare {twink},
   {read-only user}.

tourist information: n. Information in an on-line display that is
   not immediately useful, but contributes to a viewer's gestalt of
   what's going on with the software or hardware behind it.  Whether a
   given piece of info falls in this category depends partly on what
   the user is looking for at any given time.  The `bytes free'
   information at the bottom of an MS-DOS `dir' display is
   tourist information; so (most of the time) is the TIME information
   in a UNIX `ps(1)' display.

touristic: adj. Having the quality of a {tourist}.  Often used
   as a pejorative, as in `losing touristic scum'.  Often spelled
   `turistic' or `turistik', so that phrase might be more properly
   rendered `lusing turistic scum'.

toy: n. A computer system; always used with qualifiers.
   1. `nice toy': One that supports the speaker's hacking style
   adequately.  2. `just a toy': A machine that yields
   insufficient {computron}s for the speaker's preferred uses.  This
   is not condemnatory, as is {bitty box}; toys can at least be fun.
   It is also strongly conditioned by one's expectations; Cray XMP
   users sometimes consider the Cray-1 a `toy', and certainly all RISC
   boxes and mainframes are toys by their standards.  See also {Get
   a real computer!}.

toy language: n. A language useful for instructional purposes or
   as a proof-of-concept for some aspect of computer-science theory,
   but inadequate for general-purpose programming.  {Bad Thing}s
   can result when a toy language is promoted as a general purpose
   solution for programming (see {bondage-and-discipline
   language}); the classic example is {{Pascal}}.  Several moderately
   well-known formalisms for conceptual tasks such as programming Turing
   machines also qualify as toy languages in a less negative sense.
   See also {MFTL}.

toy problem: [AI] n. A deliberately oversimplified case of a
   challenging problem used to investigate, prototype, or test
   algorithms for a real problem.  Sometimes used pejoratively.  See
   also {gedanken}, {toy program}.

toy program: n. 1. One that can be readily comprehended; hence, a
   trivial program (compare {noddy}).  2. One for which the effort
   of initial coding dominates the costs through its life cycle.
   See also {noddy}.

trampoline: n. An incredibly {hairy} technique, found in some
   {HLL} and program-overlay implementations (e.g., on the
   Macintosh), that involves on-the-fly generation of small executable
   (and, likely as not, self-modifying) code objects to do indirection
   between code sections.  These pieces of {live data} are called
   `trampolines'.  Trampolines are notoriously difficult to understand
   in action; in fact, it is said by those who use this term that the
   trampoline that doesn't bend your brain is not the true
   trampoline.  See also {snap}.

trap: 1. n. A program interrupt, usually an interrupt caused by
   some exceptional situation in the user program.  In most cases, the
   OS performs some action, then returns control to the program.
   2. vi. To cause a trap.  "These instructions trap to the
   monitor."  Also used transitively to indicate the cause of the
   trap.  "The monitor traps all input/output instructions."

   This term is associated with assembler programming (`interrupt'
   or `exception' is more common among {HLL} programmers) and
   appears to be fading into history among programmers as the role of
   assembler continues to shrink.  However, it is still important to
   computer architects and systems hackers (see {system},
   sense 1), who use it to distinguish deterministically repeatable
   exceptions from timing-dependent ones (such as I/O interrupts).

trap door: alt. `trapdoor' n. 1. Syn. {back door}.
   2. [techspeak] A `trap-door function' is one which is easy to
   compute but very difficult to compute the inverse of.  Such
   functions have important applications in cryptography, specifically
   in the construction of public-key cryptosystems.

trash: vt. To destroy the contents of (said of a data structure).
   The most common of the family of near-synonyms including {mung},
   {mangle}, and {scribble}.

tree-killer: [Sun] n. 1. A printer.  2. A person who wastes paper.
   This should be interpreted in a broad sense; `wasting paper'
   includes the production of {spiffy} but {content-free} documents.
   Thus, most {suit}s are tree-killers.

trit: /trit/ [by analogy with `bit'] n. One base-3 digit; the
   amount of information conveyed by a selection among one of three
   equally likely outcomes (see also {bit}).  These arise, for
   example, in the context of a {flag} that should actually be able
   to assume *three* values --- such as yes, no, or unknown.  Trits are
   sometimes jokingly called `3-state bits'.  A trit may be
   semi-seriously referred to as `a bit and a half', although it is
   linearly equivalent to 1.5849625 bits (that is,
   log2(3)
   bits).

trivial: adj. 1. Too simple to bother detailing.  2. Not worth the
   speaker's time.  3. Complex, but solvable by methods so well known
   that anyone not utterly {cretinous} would have thought of them
   already.  4. Any problem one has already solved (some claim that
   hackish `trivial' usually evaluates to `I've seen it before').
   Hackers' notions of triviality may be quite at variance with those
   of non-hackers.  See {nontrivial}, {uninteresting}.

troglodyte: [Commodore] n. 1. A hacker who never leaves his
   cubicle.  The term `Gnoll' (from Dungeons & Dragons) is also
   reported.  2. A curmudgeon attached to an obsolescent computing
   environment.  The combination `ITS troglodyte' was flung around
   some during the USENET and email wringle-wrangle attending the
   2.x.x revision of the Jargon File; at least one of the people it
   was intended to describe adopted it with pride.

troglodyte mode: [Rice University] n. Programming with the lights
   turned off, sunglasses on, and the terminal inverted (black on
   white) because you've been up for so many days straight that your
   eyes hurt (see {raster burn}).  Loud music blaring from a stereo
   stacked in the corner is optional but recommended.  See {larval
   stage}, {hack mode}.

Trojan horse: [coined by MIT-hacker-turned-NSA-spook Dan Edwards]
   n. A program designed to break security or damage a system that is
   disguised as something else benign, such as a directory lister,
   archiver, a game, or (in one notorious 1990 case on the Mac) a
   program to find and destroy viruses!  See {back door}, {virus},
   {worm}.

true-hacker: [analogy with `trufan' from SF fandom] n. One who
   exemplifies the primary values of hacker culture, esp. competence
   and helpfulness to other hackers.  A high compliment.  "He spent
   6 hours helping me bring up UUCP and netnews on my FOOBAR 4000
   last week --- manifestly the act of a true-hacker."  Compare
   {demigod}, oppose {munchkin}.

tty: /T-T-Y/ [UNIX], /tit'ee/ [ITS, but some UNIX people say it
   this way as well; this pronunciation is not considered to have
   sexual undertones] n. 1. A terminal of the teletype variety,
   characterized by a noisy mechanical printer, a very limited
   character set, and poor print quality.  Usage: antiquated (like the
   TTYs themselves).  See also {bit-paired keyboard}.
   2. [especially UNIX] Any terminal at all; sometimes used to refer
   to the particular terminal controlling a given job.

tube: 1. n. A CRT terminal.  Never used in the mainstream sense of
   TV; real hackers don't watch TV, except for Loony Toons, Rocky &
   Bullwinkle, Trek Classic, the Simpsons, and the occasional cheesy
   old swashbuckler movie (see appendix B).  2. [IBM] To send a copy
   of something to someone else's terminal.  "Tube me that
   note?"

tube time: n. Time spent at a terminal or console.  More inclusive
   than hacking time; commonly used in discussions of what parts of
   one's environment one uses most heavily.  "I find I'm spending too
   much of my tube time reading mail since I started this revision."

tunafish: n. In hackish lore, refers to the mutated punchline of
   an age-old joke to be found at the bottom of the manual pages of
   `tunefs(8)' in the original {BSD} 4.2 distribution.  The
   joke was removed in later releases once commercial sites started
   developing in 4.2.  Tunefs relates to the `tuning' of
   file-system parameters for optimum performance, and at the bottom
   of a few pages of wizardly inscriptions was a `BUGS' section
   consisting of the line "You can tune a file system, but you can't
   tunafish".  Variants of this can be seen in other BSD versions,
   though it has been excised from some versions by humorless
   management {droid}s.  The [nt]roff source for SunOS 4.1.1
   contains a comment apparently designed to prevent this: "Take this
   out and a Unix Demon will dog your steps from now until the
   `time_t''s wrap around."

tune: [from automotive or musical usage] vt. To optimize a program
   or system for a particular environment, esp. by adjusting numerical
   parameters designed as {hook}s for tuning, e.g., by changing
   `#define' lines in C.  One may `tune for time' (fastest
   execution), `tune for space' (least memory use), or
   `tune for configuration' (most efficient use of hardware).  See
   {bum}, {hot spot}, {hand-hacking}.

turbo nerd: n. See {computer geek}.

turist: /too'rist/ n. Var. sp. of {tourist}, q.v.  Also in
   adjectival form, `turistic'.  Poss. influenced by {luser} and
   `Turing'.

tweak: vt. 1. To change slightly, usually in reference to a value.
   Also used synonymously with {twiddle}.  If a program is almost
   correct, rather than figure out the precise problem you might
   just keep tweaking it until it works.  See {frobnicate} and
   {fudge factor}; also see {shotgun debugging}.  2. To {tune}
   or {bum} a program; preferred usage in the U.K.

TWENEX:: /twe'neks/ n. The TOPS-20 operating system by DEC ---
   the second proprietary OS for the PDP-10 --- preferred by most
   PDP-10 hackers over TOPS-10 (that is, by those who were not
   {{ITS}} or {{WAITS}} partisans).  TOPS-20 began in 1969 as Bolt,
   Beranek & Newman's TENEX operating system using special paging
   hardware.  By the early 1970s, almost all of the systems on the
   ARPANET ran TENEX.  DEC purchased the rights to TENEX from BBN and
   began work to make it their own.  The first in-house code name for
   the operating system was VIROS (VIRtual memory Operating System);
   when customers started asking questions, the name was changed to
   SNARK so DEC could truthfully deny that there was any project
   called VIROS.  When the name SNARK became known, the name was
   briefly reversed to become KRANS; this was quickly abandoned when
   it was discovered that `krans' meant `funeral shroud' in
   Swedish.  Ultimately DEC picked TOPS-20 as the name of the
   operating system, and it was as TOPS-20 that it was marketed.  The
   hacker community, mindful of its origins, quickly dubbed it
   {{TWENEX}} (a contraction of `twenty TENEX'), even though by this
   point very little of the original TENEX code remained (analogously
   to the differences between AT&T V6 UNIX and BSD).  DEC people
   cringed when they heard "TWENEX", but the term caught on
   nevertheless (the written abbreviation `20x' was also used).
   TWENEX was successful and very popular; in fact, there was a period
   in the early 1980s when it commanded as fervent a culture of
   partisans as UNIX or ITS --- but DEC's decision to scrap all the
   internal rivals to the VAX architecture and its relatively stodgy
   VMS OS killed the DEC-20 and put a sad end to TWENEX's brief day in
   the sun.  DEC attempted to convince TOPS-20 hackers to convert to
   {VMS}, but instead, by the late 1980s, most of the TOPS-20
   hackers had migrated to UNIX.

twiddle: n. 1. Tilde (ASCII 1111110, `~').  Also
   called `squiggle', `sqiggle' (sic --- pronounced /skig'l/),
   and `twaddle', but twiddle is the most common term.  2. A small
   and insignificant change to a program.  Usually fixes one bug and
   generates several new ones.  3. vt. To change something in a small
   way.  Bits, for example, are often twiddled.  Twiddling a switch or
   knob implies much less sense of purpose than toggling or tweaking
   it; see {frobnicate}.  To speak of twiddling a bit connotes
   aimlessness, and at best doesn't specify what you're doing to the
   bit; `toggling a bit' has a more specific meaning (see {bit
   twiddling}, {toggle}).

twink: /twink/ [UCSC] n. Equivalent to {read-only user}.  Also
   reported on the USENET group soc.motss; may derive from gay
   slang for a cute young thing with nothing upstairs.

two pi: quant. The number of years it takes to finish one's
   thesis.  Occurs in stories in the following form: "He started on
   his thesis; 2 pi years later..."

two-to-the-N: quant. An amount much larger than {N} but smaller
   than {infinity}.  "I have 2-to-the-N things to do before I can
   go out for lunch" means you probably won't show up.

twonkie: /twon'kee/ n. The software equivalent of a Twinkie (a
   variety of sugar-loaded junk food, or (in gay slang) the male
   equivalent of `chick'); a useless `feature' added to look sexy
   and placate a {marketroid} (compare {Saturday-night
   special}).  This may also be related to "The Twonky", title menace
   of a classic SF short story by Lewis Padgett (Henry Kuttner and
   C. L. Moore), first published in the September 1942
   `Astounding Science Fiction' and subsequently much
   anthologized.

= U =

UBD: /U-B-D/ [abbreviation for `User Brain Damage'] An
   abbreviation used to close out trouble reports obviously due to
   utter cluelessness on the user's part.  Compare {pilot error};
   oppose {PBD}; see also {brain-damaged}.

UN*X: n. Used to refer to the UNIX operating system (a trademark of
   AT&T) in writing, but avoiding the need for the ugly
   {(TM)} typography.
   Also used to refer to any or all varieties of Unixoid operating
   systems.  Ironically, lawyers now say (1990) that the requirement
   for the TM-postfix has no legal force, but the asterisk usage
   is entrenched anyhow.  It has been suggested that there may be a
   psychological connection to practice in certain religions
   (especially Judaism) in which the name of the deity is never
   written out in full, e.g., `YHWH' or `G--d' is used.  See also
   {glob}.

undefined external reference: excl. [UNIX] A message from UNIX's
   linker.  Used in speech to flag loose ends or dangling references
   in an argument or discussion.

under the hood: prep. [hot-rodder talk] 1. Used to introduce the
   underlying implementation of a product (hardware, software, or
   idea).  Implies that the implementation is not intuitively obvious
   from the appearance, but the speaker is about to enable the
   listener to {grok} it.  "Let's now look under the hood to see
   how ...." 2. Can also imply that the implementation is much
   simpler than the appearance would indicate: "Under the hood, we
   are just fork/execing the shell."  3. Inside a chassis, as in
   "Under the hood, this baby has a 40MHz 68030!"

undocumented feature: n. See {feature}.

uninteresting: adj. 1. Said of a problem that, although
   {nontrivial}, can be solved simply by throwing sufficient
   resources at it.  2. Also said of problems for which a solution
   would neither advance the state of the art nor be fun to design and
   code.

   Hackers regard uninteresting problems as intolerable wastes of
   time, to be solved (if at all) by lesser mortals.  *Real*
   hackers (see {toolsmith}) generalize uninteresting problems
   enough to make them interesting and solve them --- thus solving the
   original problem as a special case.  See {WOMBAT}, {SMOP};
   compare {toy problem}, oppose {interesting}.

UNIX:: /yoo'niks/ [In the authors' words, "A weak pun on
   Multics"] n. (also `Unix') An interactive time-sharing system
   originally invented in 1969 by Ken Thompson after Bell Labs left
   the Multics project, originally so he could play games on his
   scavenged PDP-7.  Dennis Ritchie, the inventor of C, is considered
   a co-author of the system.  The turning point in UNIX's history
   came when it was reimplemented almost entirely in C during
   1972--1974, making it the first source-portable OS.  UNIX
   subsequently underwent mutations and expansions at the hands of
   many different people, resulting in a uniquely flexible and
   developer-friendly environment.  In 1991, UNIX is the most widely
   used multiuser general-purpose operating system in the world.  Many
   people consider this the most important victory yet of hackerdom
   over industry opposition (but see {UNIX weenie} and {UNIX
   conspiracy} for an opposing point of view).  See {Version 7},
   {BSD}, {USG UNIX}.

UNIX brain damage: n. Something that has to be done to break a  
   network program (typically a mailer) on a non-UNIX system so that
   it will interoperate with UNIX systems. The hack may qualify as
   `UNIX brain damage' if the program conforms to published standards
   and the UNIX program in question does not.  UNIX brain damage
   happens because it is much easier for other (minority) systems to
   change their ways to match non-conforming behavior than it is to
   change all the hundreds of thousands of UNIX systems out there.

   An example of UNIX brain damage is a {kluge} in a mail server to 
   recognize bare line feed (the UNIX newline) as an equivalent form
   to the Internet standard newline, which is a carriage return
   followed by a line feed.  Such things can make even a hardened
   {jock} weep.

UNIX conspiracy: [ITS] n. According to a conspiracy theory long
   popular among {{ITS}} and {{TOPS-20}} fans, UNIX's growth is the
   result of a plot, hatched during the 1970s at Bell Labs, whose
   intent was to hobble AT&T's competitors by making them dependent
   upon a system whose future evolution was to be under AT&T's
   control.  This would be accomplished by disseminating an operating
   system that is apparently inexpensive and easily portable, but also
   relatively unreliable and insecure (so as to require continuing
   upgrades from AT&T).  This theory was lent a substantial impetus
   in 1984 by the paper referenced in the {back door} entry.

   In this view, UNIX was designed to be one of the first computer
   viruses (see {virus}) --- but a virus spread to computers indirectly
   by people and market forces, rather than directly through disks and
   networks.  Adherents of this `UNIX virus' theory like to cite the
   fact that the well-known quotation "UNIX is snake oil" was
   uttered by DEC president Kenneth Olsen shortly before DEC began
   actively promoting its own family of UNIX workstations.  (Olsen now
   claims to have been misquoted.)

UNIX weenie: [ITS] n. 1. A derogatory play on `UNIX wizard', common
   among hackers who use UNIX by necessity but would prefer
   alternatives.  The implication is that although the person in question
   may consider mastery of UNIX arcana to be a wizardly skill, the
   only real skill involved is the ability to tolerate (and the bad
   taste to wallow in) the incoherence and needless complexity that is
   alleged to infest many UNIX programs.  "This shell script tries to
   parse its arguments in 69 bletcherous ways.  It must have been
   written by a real UNIX weenie."  2. A derogatory term for anyone
   who engages in uncritical praise of UNIX.  Often appearing in the
   context "stupid UNIX weenie".  See {Weenix}, {UNIX
   conspiracy}.  See also {weenie}.

unixism: n. A piece of code or a coding technique that depends on the
   protected multi-tasking environment with relatively low
   process-spawn overhead that exists on virtual-memory UNIX systems.
   Common {unixism}s include: gratuitous use of `fork(2)'; the
   assumption that certain undocumented but well-known features of
   UNIX libraries such as `stdio(3)' are supported elsewhere;
   reliance on {obscure} side-effects of system calls (use of
   `sleep(2)' with a 0 argument to clue the scheduler that
   you're willing to give up your time-slice, for example); the
   assumption that freshly allocated memory is zeroed; and the assumption
   that fragmentation problems won't arise from never `free()'ing
   memory.  Compare {vaxocentrism}; see also {New Jersey}.

unswizzle: v. See {swizzle}.

unwind the stack: vi. 1. [techspeak] During the execution of a
   procedural language, one is said to `unwind the stack' from a
   called procedure up to a caller when one discards the stack frame
   and any number of frames above it, popping back up to the level of
   the given caller.  In C this is done with
   `longjmp'/`setjmp', in LISP with `throw/catch'.
   See also {smash the stack}.  2. People can unwind the stack as
   well, by quickly dealing with a bunch of problems: "Oh heck, let's
   do lunch.  Just a second while I unwind my stack."

unwind-protect: [MIT: from the name of a LISP operator] n. A task you
   must remember to perform before you leave a place or finish a
   project.  "I have an unwind-protect to call my advisor."

up: adj. 1. Working, in order.  "The down escalator is up."
   Oppose {down}.  2. `bring up': vt. To create a working
   version and start it.  "They brought up a down system." 
   3. `come up' vi. To become ready for production use.

upload: /uhp'lohd/ v. 1. [techspeak] To transfer programs or data
   over a digital communications link from a smaller or peripheral
   `client' system to a larger or central `host' one.  A transfer in
   the other direction is, of course, called a {download} (but see
   the note about ground-to-space comm under that entry).
   2. [speculatively] To move the essential patterns and algorithms
   that make up one's mind from one's brain into a computer.  Only
   those who are convinced that such patterns and algorithms capture
   the complete essence of the self view this prospect with
   gusto.

upthread: adv. Earlier in the discussion (see {thread}), i.e.,
   `above'. "As Joe pointed out upthread, ..."  See also
   {followup}.

urchin: n. See {munchkin}.

USENET: /yoos'net/ or /yooz'net/ [from `Users' Network'] n.
   A distributed {bboard} (bulletin board) system supported mainly
   by UNIX machines.  Originally implemented in 1979-1980 by Steve
   Bellovin, Jim Ellis, Tom Truscott, and Steve Daniel at Duke
   University, it has swiftly grown to become international in scope
   and is now probably the largest decentralized information utility
   in existence.  As of early 1991, it hosts well over
   700 {newsgroup}s and an average of 16 megabytes (the equivalent
   of several thousand paper pages) of new technical articles, news,
   discussion, chatter, and {flamage} every day.

user: n. 1. Someone doing `real work' with the computer, using
   it as a means rather than an end.  Someone who pays to use a
   computer.  See {real user}.  2. A programmer who will believe
   anything you tell him.  One who asks silly questions.  [GLS
   observes: This is slightly unfair.  It is true that users ask
   questions (of necessity).  Sometimes they are thoughtful or deep.
   Very often they are annoying or downright stupid, apparently
   because the user failed to think for two seconds or look in the
   documentation before bothering the maintainer.]  See {luser}.
   3. Someone who uses a program from the outside, however skillfully,
   without getting into the internals of the program.  One who reports
   bugs instead of just going ahead and fixing them.

   The general theory behind this term is that there are two classes
   of people who work with a program: there are implementors (hackers)
   and {luser}s.  The users are looked down on by hackers to a mild
   degree because they don't understand the full ramifications of the
   system in all its glory.  (The few users who do are known as
   `real winners'.)  The term is a relative one: a skilled hacker
   may be a user with respect to some program he himself does not
   hack.  A LISP hacker might be one who maintains LISP or one who
   uses LISP (but with the skill of a hacker).  A LISP user is one who
   uses LISP, whether skillfully or not.  Thus there is some overlap
   between the two terms; the subtle distinctions must be resolved by
   context.

user-friendly: adj. Programmer-hostile.  Generally used by hackers in
   a critical tone, to describe systems that hold the user's hand so
   obsessively that they make it painful for the more experienced and
   knowledgeable to get any work done.  See {menuitis}, {drool-proof
   paper}, {Macintrash}, {user-obsequious}.

user-obsequious: adj. Emphatic form of {user-friendly}.  Connotes
   a system so verbose, inflexible, and determinedly simple-minded
   that it is nearly unusable.  "Design a system any fool can use and
   only a fool will want to use it."  See {WIMP environment},
   {Macintrash}.

USG UNIX: /U-S-G yoo'niks/ n. Refers to AT&T UNIX
   commercial versions after {Version 7}, especially System III and
   System V releases 1, 2, and 3.  So called because during most of
   the life-span of those versions AT&T's support crew was called the
   `UNIX Support Group'.  See {BSD}, {{UNIX}}.

UTSL: // [UNIX] n. On-line acronym for `Use the Source, Luke' (a
   pun on Obi-Wan Kenobi's "Use the Force, Luke!" in `Star
   Wars') --- analogous to {RTFM} but more polite.  This is a
   common way of suggesting that someone would be best off reading the
   source code that supports whatever feature is causing confusion,
   rather than making yet another futile pass through the manuals or
   broadcasting questions that haven't attracted {wizard}s to
   answer them.  In theory, this is appropriately directed only at
   associates of some outfit with a UNIX source license; in practice,
   bootlegs of UNIX source code (made precisely for reference
   purposes) are so ubiquitous that one may utter this at almost
   anyone on {the network} without concern.  In the near future
   (this written in 1991) source licenses may become even less
   important; after the recent release of the Mach 3.0 microkernal,
   given the continuing efforts of the {GNU} project, and with the
   4.4BSD release on the horizon, complete free source code for
   UNIX-clone toolsets and kernels should soon be widely available.

UUCPNET: n. The store-and-forward network consisting of all the
   world's connected UNIX machines (and others running some clone of
   the UUCP (UNIX-to-UNIX CoPy) software).  Any machine reachable only
   via a {bang path} is on UUCPNET.  See {network address}.

= V =

vadding: /vad'ing/ [from VAD, a permutation of ADV (i.e.,
   {ADVENT}), used to avoid a particular {admin}'s continual
   search-and-destroy sweeps for the game] n. A leisure-time activity
   of certain hackers involving the covert exploration of the `secret'
   parts of large buildings --- basements, roofs, freight elevators,
   maintenance crawlways, steam tunnels, and the like.  A few go so
   far as to learn locksmithing in order to synthesize vadding keys.
   The verb is `to vad' (compare {phreaking}).

   The most extreme and dangerous form of vadding is `elevator
   rodeo', a.k.a. `elevator surfing', a sport played by wrasslin'
   down a thousand-pound elevator car with a 3-foot piece of
   string, and then exploiting this mastery in various stimulating
   ways (such as elevator hopping, shaft exploration, rat-racing, and
   the ever-popular drop experiments).  Kids, don't try this at home! 
   See also {hobbit} (sense 2).

vanilla: [from the default flavor of ice cream in the U.S.] adj.
   Ordinary {flavor}, standard.  When used of food, very often does
   not mean that the food is flavored with vanilla extract!  For
   example, `vanilla wonton soup' means ordinary wonton soup, as
   opposed to hot-and-sour wonton soup.  Applied to hardware and
   software, as in "Vanilla Version 7 UNIX can't run on a
   vanilla 11/34."  Also used to orthogonalize chip nomenclature; for
   instance, a 74V00 means what TI calls a 7400, as distinct from
   a 74LS00, etc.  This word differs from {canonical} in that the
   latter means `default', whereas vanilla simply means `ordinary'.
   For example, when hackers go on a {great-wall}, hot-and-sour
   wonton soup is the {canonical} wonton soup to get (because that
   is what most of them usually order) even though it isn't the
   vanilla wonton soup.

vannevar: /van'*-var/ n. A bogus technological prediction or
   a foredoomed engineering concept, esp. one that fails by
   implicitly assuming that technologies develop linearly,
   incrementally, and in isolation from one another when in fact the
   learning curve tends to be highly nonlinear, revolutions are
   common, and competition is the rule.  The prototype was Vannevar
   Bush's prediction of `electronic brains' the size of the Empire
   State Building with a Niagara-Falls-equivalent cooling system for
   their tubes and relays, made at a time when the semiconductor effect had
   already been demonstrated.  Other famous vannevars have included
   magnetic-bubble memory, LISP machines, {videotex}, and a paper from
   the late 1970s that computed a purported ultimate limit on areal
   density for ICs that was in fact less than the routine densities
   of 5 years later.

vaporware: /vay'pr-weir/ n. Products announced far in advance of
   any release (which may or may not actually take place).

var: /veir/ or /var/ n. Short for `variable'.  Compare {arg},
   {param}.

VAX: /vaks/ n. 1. [from Virtual Address eXtension] The most
   successful minicomputer design in industry history, possibly
   excepting its immediate ancestor, the PDP-11.  Between its release
   in 1978 and its eclipse by {killer micro}s after about 1986, the VAX
   was probably the hacker's favorite machine of them all, esp.
   after the 1982 release of 4.2 BSD UNIX (see {BSD}).  Esp.
   noted for its large, assembler-programmer-friendly instruction set
   --- an asset that became a liability after the RISC revolution.
   2. A major brand of vacuum cleaner in Britain.  Cited here because
   its alleged sales pitch, "Nothing sucks like a VAX!" became a
   sort of battle-cry of RISC partisans.  Ironically, the slogan was
   *not* actually used by the Vax vacuum-cleaner people, but was
   actually that of a rival brand called Electrolux (as in "Nothing
   sucks like an...").  It is claimed, however, that DEC actually
   entered a cross-licensing deal with the vacuum-Vax people that
   allowed them to market VAX computers in the U.K. in return for not
   challenging the vacuum cleaner trademark in the U.S.

VAXectomy: /vak-sek't*-mee/ [by analogy with `vasectomy'] n. A
   VAX removal.  DEC's Microvaxen, especially, are much slower than
   newer RISC-based workstations such as the SPARC.  Thus, if one knows
   one has a replacement coming, VAX removal can be cause for
   celebration.

VAXen: /vak'sn/ [from `oxen', perhaps influenced by `vixen'] n.
   (alt. `vaxen') The plural canonically used among hackers for the
   DEC VAX computers.  "Our installation has four PDP-10s and twenty
   vaxen."  See {boxen}.

vaxherd: n. /vaks'herd/ [from `oxherd'] A VAX operator.

vaxism: /vak'sizm/ n. A piece of code that exhibits
   {vaxocentrism} in critical areas.  Compare {PC-ism},
   {unixism}.

vaxocentrism: /vak`soh-sen'trizm/ [analogy with
   `ethnocentrism'] n. A notional disease said to afflict
   C programmers who persist in coding according to certain assumptions that are 
   valid (esp. under UNIX) on {VAXen} but false elsewhere. Among
   these are:

  1.    The assumption that dereferencing a null pointer is safe because it
        is all bits 0, and location 0 is readable and 0.  Problem: this may
        instead cause an illegal-address trap on non-VAXen, and even on
        VAXen under OSes other than BSD UNIX.  Usually this is an implicit
        assumption of sloppy code (forgetting to check the pointer before
        using it), rather than deliberate exploitation of a
        misfeature.)

  2.    The assumption that characters are signed.

  3.    The assumption that a pointer to any one type can freely be cast
        into a pointer to any other type.  A stronger form of this is the
        assumption that all pointers are the same size and format, which
        means you don't have to worry about getting the types correct in
        calls.  Problem: this fails on word-oriented machines or others with
        multiple pointer formats.

  4.    The assumption that the parameters of a routine are stored in
        memory, contiguously, and in strictly ascending or descending order.
        Problem: this fails on many RISC architectures.

  5.    The assumption that pointer and integer types are the same size,
        and that pointers can be stuffed into integer variables (and
        vice-versa) and drawn back out without being truncated or mangled.
        Problem: this fails on segmented architectures or word-oriented
        machines with funny pointer formats.

  6.    The assumption that a data type of any size may begin at any byte
        address in memory (for example, that you can freely construct and
        dereference a pointer to a word- or greater-sized object at an odd
        char address).  Problem: this fails on many (esp. RISC)
        architectures better optimized for {HLL} execution speed, and
        can cause an illegal address fault or bus error.

  7.    The (related) assumption that there is no padding at the end of
        types and that in an array you can thus step right from the last
        byte of a previous component to the first byte of the next one.
        This is not only machine- but compiler-dependent.

  8.    The assumption that memory address space is globally flat and that
        the array reference `foo[-1]' is necessarily valid.  Problem:
        this fails at 0, or other places on segment-addressed machines like
        Intel chips (yes, segmentation is universally considered a
        {brain-damaged} way to design machines (see {moby}), but that
        is a separate issue).

  9.    The assumption that objects can be arbitrarily large with no
        special considerations.  Problem: this fails on segmented
        architectures and under non-virtual-addressing environments.

 10.    The assumption that the stack can be as large as memory.  Problem:
        this fails on segmented architectures or almost anything else without
        virtual addressing and a paged stack.

 11.    The assumption that bits and addressable units within an object
        are ordered in the same way and that this order is a constant of
        nature.  Problem: this fails on {big-endian} machines.

 12.    The assumption that it is meaningful to compare pointers to
        different objects not located within the same array, or to objects
        of different types.  Problem: the former fails on segmented
        architectures, the latter on word-oriented machines or others with
        multiple pointer formats.

 13.    The assumption that an `int' is 32 bits, or (nearly
        equivalently) the assumption that `sizeof(int) ==
        sizeof(long)'.  Problem: this fails on 286-based systems and even
        on 386 and 68000 systems under some compilers.

 14.    The assumption that `argv[]' is writable.  Problem: this fails in
        some embedded-systems C environments.

   Note that a programmer can validly be accused of vaxocentrism
   even if he or she has never seen a VAX.  Some of these assumptions
   (esp. 2--5) were valid on the PDP-11, the original C machine, and
   became endemic years before the VAX.  The terms `vaxocentricity'
   and `all-the-world's-a-VAX syndrome' have been used synonymously.

vdiff: /vee'dif/ v.,n. Visual diff.  The operation of finding
   differences between two files by {eyeball search}.  The term
   `optical diff' has also been reported.  See {diff}.

veeblefester: /vee'b*l-fes`tr/ [from the "Born Loser"
   comix via Commodore; prob. originally from `Mad' Magazine's
   `Veeblefeetzer' parodies ca. 1960] n. Any obnoxious person engaged
   in the (alleged) professions of marketing or management.  Antonym of
   {hacker}.  Compare {suit}, {marketroid}.

Venus flytrap: [after the insect-eating plant] n. See {firewall
   machine}.

verbage: /ver'b*j/ n. A deliberate misspelling and mispronunciation of
   {verbiage} that assimilates it to the word `garbage'.  Compare
   {content-free}.  More pejorative than `verbiage'.

verbiage: n. When the context involves a software or hardware
   system, this refers to {{documentation}}.  This term borrows the
   connotations of mainstream `verbiage' to suggest that the
   documentation is of marginal utility and that the motives behind
   its production have little to do with the ostensible subject.

Version 7: alt. V7 /vee' se'vn/ n. The 1978 unsupported release of
   {{UNIX}} ancestral to all current commercial versions.  Before
   the release of the POSIX/SVID standards, V7's features were often
   treated as a UNIX portability baseline.  See {BSD}, {USG UNIX},
   {{UNIX}}.  Some old-timers impatient with commercialization and
   kernel bloat still maintain that V7 was the Last True UNIX.

vgrep: /vee'grep/ v.,n. Visual grep.  The operation of finding
   patterns in a file optically rather than digitally.  See {grep};
   compare {vdiff}.

vi: /V-I/, *not* /vi:/ and *never* /siks/ [from
   `Visual Interface'] n. A screen editor crufted together by Bill Joy
   for an early {BSD} version.  Became the de facto standard UNIX
   editor and a nearly undisputed hacker favorite until the rise of
   {EMACS} after about 1984.  Tends to frustrate new users no end,
   as it will neither take commands while expecting input text nor
   vice versa, and the default setup provides no indication of which
   mode one is in (one correspondent accordingly reports that he has
   often heard the editor's name pronounced /vi:l/).  Nevertheless it
   is still widely used (about half the respondents in a 1991 USENET
   poll preferred it), and even EMACS fans often resort to it as a
   mail editor and for small editing jobs (mainly because it starts up
   faster than bulky EMACS).  See {holy wars}.

videotex: n. obs. An electronic service offering people the
   privilege of paying to read the weather on their television screens
   instead of having somebody read it to them for free while they
   brush their teeth.  The idea bombed everywhere it wasn't
   government-subsidized, because by the time videotex was practical
   the installed base of personal computers could hook up to
   timesharing services and do the things for which videotex might
   have been worthwhile better and cheaper.  Videotex planners badly
   overestimated both the appeal of getting information from a
   computer and the cost of local intelligence at the user's end.
   Like the {gorilla arm} effect, this has been a cautionary tale
   to hackers ever since.  See also {vannevar}.

virgin: adj. Unused; pristine; in a known initial state.  "Let's
   bring up a virgin system and see if it crashes again."  (Esp.
   useful after contracting a {virus} through {SEX}.)  Also, by
   extension, buffers and the like within a program that have not yet
   been used.

virtual: [via the technical term `virtual memory', prob. from the
   term `virtual image' in optics] adj. 1. Common alternative to
   {logical}.  2. Simulated; performing the functions of something
   that isn't really there.  An imaginative child's doll may be a
   virtual playmate.

virtual Friday: n. The last day before an extended weekend, if
   that day is not a `real' Friday.  For example, the U.S. holiday
   Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday.  The next day is often also
   a holiday or taken as an extra day off, in which case Wednesday of
   that week is a virtual Friday (and Thursday is a virtual Saturday,
   as is Friday).  There are also `virtual Mondays' that are
   actually Tuesdays, after the three-day weekends associated with many
   national holidays in the U.S.

virtual reality: n. 1. Computer simulations that use 3-D graphics
   and devices such as the Dataglove to allow the user to interact
   with the simulation.  See {cyberspace}.  2. A form of network
   interaction incorporating aspects of role-playing games,
   interactive theater, improvisational comedy, and `true confessions'
   magazines.  In a virtual reality forum (such as USENET's
   alt.callahans newsgroup or the {MUD} experiments on Internet),
   interaction between the participants is written like a shared novel
   complete with scenery, `foreground characters' that may be
   personae utterly unlike the people who write them, and common
   `background characters' manipulable by all parties.  The one
   iron law is that you may not write irreversible changes to a
   character without the consent of the person who `owns' it.
   Otherwise anything goes.  See {bamf}, {cyberspace}.

virus: [from the obvious analogy with biological viruses, via SF]
   n. A cracker program that searches out other programs and `infects'
   them by embedding a copy of itself in them, so that they become
   {Trojan Horse}s.  When these programs are executed, the embedded
   virus is executed too, thus propagating the `infection'.  This
   normally happens invisibly to the user.  Unlike a {worm}, a
   virus cannot infect other computers without assistance.  It is
   propagated by vectors such as humans trading programs with their
   friends (see {SEX}).  The virus may do nothing but propagate
   itself and then allow the program to run normally.  Usually,
   however, after propagating silently for a while, it starts doing
   things like writing cute messages on the terminal or playing
   strange tricks with your display (some viruses include nice
   {display hack}s).  Many nasty viruses, written by particularly
   perversely minded {cracker}s, do irreversible damage, like
   nuking all the user's files.

   In the 1990s, viruses have become a serious problem, especially
   among IBM PC and Macintosh users (the lack of security on these
   machines enables viruses to spread easily, even infecting the
   operating system).  The production of special anti-virus software
   has become an industry, and a number of exaggerated media reports
   have caused outbreaks of near hysteria among users; many
   {luser}s tend to blame *everything* that doesn't work as
   they had expected on virus attacks.  Accordingly, this sense of
   `virus' has passed not only into techspeak but into also popular
   usage (where it is often incorrectly used to denote a {worm} or
   even a {Trojan horse}).  Compare {back door}; see also
   {UNIX conspiracy}.

visionary: n. 1. One who hacks vision, in the sense of an
   Artificial Intelligence researcher working on the problem of
   getting computers to `see' things using TV cameras.  (There isn't
   any problem in sending information from a TV camera to a computer.
   The problem is, how can the computer be programmed to make use of
   the camera information?  See {SMOP}, {AI-complete}.)  2. [IBM]
   One who reads the outside literature.  At IBM, apparently, such a
   penchant is viewed with awe and wonder.

VMS: /V-M-S/ n. DEC's proprietary operating system for its VAX
   minicomputer; one of the seven or so environments that loom largest
   in hacker folklore.  Many UNIX fans generously concede that VMS
   would probably be the hacker's favorite commercial OS if UNIX
   didn't exist; though true, this makes VMS fans furious.  One major
   hacker gripe with VMS concerns its slowness --- thus the following
   limerick:

        There once was a system called VMS
        Of cycles by no means abstemious.
             It's chock-full of hacks
             And runs on a VAX
        And makes my poor stomach all squeamious.
                                         --- The Great Quux

   See also {VAX}, {{TOPS-10}}, {{TOPS-20}}, {{UNIX}}, {runic}.

voice: vt. To phone someone, as opposed to emailing them or
   connecting in talk mode.  "I'm busy now; I'll voice you later."

voice-net: n. Hackish way of referring to the telephone system,
   analogizing it to a digital network.  USENET {sig block}s not
   uncommonly include the sender's phone next to a "Voice:" or
   "Voice-Net:" header; common variants of this are "Voicenet" and
   "V-Net".  Compare {paper-net}, {snail-mail}.

voodoo programming: [from George Bush's "voodoo economics"] n.
   The use by guess or cookbook of an {obscure} or {hairy} system,
   feature, or algorithm that one does not truly understand.  The
   implication is that the technique may not work, and if it doesn't,
   one will never know why.  Almost synonymous with {black magic},
   except that black magic typically isn't documented and
   *nobody* understands it.  Compare {magic}, {deep magic},
   {heavy wizardry}, {rain dance}, {cargo cult programming},
   {wave a dead chicken}.

VR: // [MUD] n. On-line abbrev for {virtual reality}, as
   opposed to {RL}.

Vulcan nerve pinch: n. [from the old "Star Trek" TV series via
   Commodore Amiga hackers] The keyboard combination that forces a
   soft-boot or jump to ROM monitor (on machines that support such a
   feature).  On many micros this is Ctrl-Alt-Del; on Suns, L1-A; on
   some Macintoshes, it is <Cmd>-<Power switch>!  Also called
   {three-finger salute}.  Compare {quadruple bucky}.

vulture capitalist: n. Pejorative hackerism for `venture
   capitalist', deriving from the common practice of pushing contracts
   that deprive inventors of control over their own innovations and
   most of the money they ought to have made from them.

= W =

wabbit: /wab'it/ [almost certainly from Elmer Fudd's immortal
   line "You wascawwy wabbit!"] n. 1. A legendary early hack
   reported on a System/360 at RPI and elsewhere around 1978.  The
   program would make two copies of itself every time it was run,
   eventually crashing the system.  2. By extension, any hack that
   includes infinite self-replication but is not a {virus} or
   {worm}.  See also {cookie monster}.

WAITS:: /wayts/ n. The mutant cousin of {{TOPS-10}} used on a
   handful of systems at {{SAIL}} up to 1990.  There was never an
   `official' expansion of WAITS (the name itself having been arrived
   at by a rather sideways process), but it was frequently glossed as
   `West-coast Alternative to ITS'.  Though WAITS was less visible
   than ITS, there was frequent exchange of people and ideas between
   the two communities, and innovations pioneered at WAITS exerted
   enormous indirect influence.  The early screen modes of {EMACS},
   for example, were directly inspired by WAITS's `E' editor --- one
   of a family of editors that were the first to do `real-time
   editing', in which the editing commands were invisible and where
   one typed text at the point of insertion/overwriting.  The modern
   style of multi-region windowing is said to have originated there,
   and WAITS alumni at XEROX PARC and elsewhere played major roles in
   the developments that led to the XEROX Star, the Macintosh, and the
   Sun workstations.  {Bucky bits} were also invented there ---
   thus, the ALT key on every IBM PC is a WAITS legacy.  One notable
   WAITS feature seldom duplicated elsewhere was a news-wire interface
   that allowed WAITS hackers to read, store, and filter AP and UPI
   dispatches from their terminals; the system also featured a
   still-unusual level of support for what is now called `multimedia'
   computing, allowing analog audio and video signals to be switched
   to programming terminals.

waldo: /wol'doh/ [From Robert A. Heinlein's story "Waldo"]
   1. A mechanical agent, such as a gripper arm, controlled by a human
   limb.  When these were developed for the nuclear industry in the
   mid-1940s they were named after the invention described by Heinlein
   in the story, which he wrote in 1942.  Now known by the more
   generic term `telefactoring', this technology is of intense
   interest to NASA for tasks like space station maintenance.  2. At
   Harvard (particularly by Tom Cheatham and students), this is used
   instead of {foobar} as a meta-syntactic variable and general
   nonsense word.  See {foo}, {bar}, {foobar}, {quux}.

walk: n.,vt. Traversal of a data structure, especially an array or
   linked-list data structure in {core}.  See also {codewalker},
   {silly walk}, {clobber}.

walk off the end of: vt. To run past the end of an array, list, or      medium after stepping 
through it --- a good way to land in trouble.
   Often the result of an {off-by-one error}.  Compare
   {clobber}, {roach}, {smash the stack}.

walking drives: n. An occasional failure mode of magnetic-disk
   drives back in the days when they were huge, clunky {washing
   machine}s.  Those old {dinosaur} parts carried terrific angular
   momentum; the combination of a misaligned spindle or worn bearings
   and stick-slip interactions with the floor could cause them to
   `walk' across a room, lurching alternate corners forward a couple
   of millimeters at a time.  There is a legend about a drive that
   walked over to the only door to the computer room and jammed it
   shut; the staff had to cut a hole in the wall in order to get at
   it!  Walking could also be induced by certain patterns of drive
   access (a fast seek across the whole width of the disk, followed by
   a slow seek in the other direction).  Some bands of old-time
   hackers figured out how to induce disk-accessing patterns that
   would do this to particular drive models and held disk-drive races.

wall: [WPI] interj. 1. An indication of confusion, usually spoken
   with a quizzical tone:  "Wall??"  2. A request for further
   explication.  Compare {octal forty}.

   It is said that "Wall?" really came from `like talking to a
   blank wall'.  It was initially used in situations where, after you
   had carefully answered a question, the questioner stared at you
   blankly, clearly having understood nothing that was explained.  You
   would then throw out a "Hello, wall?" to elicit some sort of
   response from the questioner.  Later, confused questioners began
   voicing "Wall?" themselves.

wall follower: n. A person or algorithm that compensates for lack
   of sophistication or native stupidity by efficiently following some
   simple procedure shown to have been effective in the past.  Used of
   an algorithm, this is not necessarily pejorative; it recalls
   `Harvey Wallbanger', the winning robot in an early AI contest
   (named, of course, after the cocktail).  Harvey successfully solved
   mazes by keeping a `finger' on one wall and running till it came
   out the other end.  This was inelegant, but it was mathematically
   guaranteed to work on simply-connected mazes --- and, in fact,
   Harvey outperformed more sophisticated robots that tried to
   `learn' each maze by building an internal representation of it.
   Used of humans, the term *is* pejorative and implies an
   uncreative, bureaucratic, by-the-book mentality.  See also {code
   grinder}, {droid}.

wall time: n. (also `wall clock time') 1. `Real world' time (what
   the clock on the wall shows), as opposed to the system clock's idea
   of time.  2. The real running time of a program, as opposed to the
   number of {clocks} required to execute it (on a timesharing
   system these will differ, as no one program gets all the
   {clocks}, and on multiprocessor systems with good thread support
   one may get more processor clocks than real-time clocks).

wallpaper: n. 1. A file containing a listing (e.g., assembly
   listing) or a transcript, esp. a file containing a transcript of
   all or part of a login session.  (The idea was that the paper for
   such listings was essentially good only for wallpaper, as evidenced
   at Stanford, where it was used to cover windows.)  Now rare,
   esp. since other systems have developed other terms for it (e.g.,
   PHOTO on TWENEX).  However, the UNIX world doesn't have an
   equivalent term, so perhaps {wallpaper} will take hold there.
   The term probably originated on ITS, where the commands to begin
   and end transcript files were `:WALBEG' and `:WALEND',
   with default file `WALL PAPER' (the space was a path
   delimiter).  2. The background pattern used on graphical
   workstations (this is techspeak under the `Windows' graphical user
   interface to MS-DOS).  3. `wallpaper file' n. The file that
   contains the wallpaper information before it is actually printed on
   paper.  (Even if you don't intend ever to produce a real paper copy
   of the file, it is still called a wallpaper file.)

wango: /wang'goh/ n. Random bit-level {grovel}ling going on in
   a system during some unspecified operation.  Often used in
   combination with {mumble}.  For example: "You start with the `.o'
   file, run it through this postprocessor that does mumble-wango ---
   and it comes out a snazzy object-oriented executable."

wank: /wangk/ [Columbia University: prob. by mutation from
   Commonwealth slang v. `wank', to masturbate] n.,v. Used much as
   {hack} is elsewhere, as a noun denoting a clever technique or
   person or the result of such cleverness.  May describe (negatively)
   the act of hacking for hacking's sake ("Quit wanking, let's go get
   supper!")  or (more positively) a {wizard}.  Adj.  `wanky'
   describes something particularly clever (a person, program, or
   algorithm).  Conversations can also get wanky when there are too
   many wanks involved.  This excess wankiness is signalled by an
   overload of the `wankometer' (compare {bogometer}).  When the
   wankometer overloads, the conversation's subject must be changed,
   or all non-wanks will leave.  Compare `neep-neeping' (under
   {neep-neep}).  Usage: U.S. only.  In Britain and the Commonwealth
   this word is *extremely* rude and is best avoided unless one
   intends to give offense.

wannabee: /won'*-bee/ (also, more plausibly, spelled `wannabe')
   [from a term recently used to describe Madonna fans who dress,
   talk, and act like their idol; prob. originally from biker slang]
   n. A would-be {hacker}.  The connotations of this term differ
   sharply depending on the age and exposure of the subject.  Used of
   a person who is in or might be entering {larval stage}, it is
   semi-approving; such wannabees can be annoying but most hackers
   remember that they, too, were once such creatures.  When used of
   any professional programmer, CS academic, writer, or {suit}, it is
   derogatory, implying that said person is trying to cuddle up to the
   hacker mystique but doesn't, fundamentally, have a prayer of
   understanding what it is all about.  Overuse of terms from this lexicon
   is often an indication of the {wannabee} nature.  Compare
   {newbie}.

   Historical note: The wannabee phenomenon has a slightly different
   flavor now (1991) than it did ten or fifteen years ago.  When the
   people who are now hackerdom's tribal elders were in {larval
   stage}, the process of becoming a hacker was largely unconscious
   and unaffected by models known in popular culture --- communities
   formed spontaneously around people who, *as individuals*, felt
   irresistibly drawn to do hackerly things, and what wannabees
   experienced was a fairly pure, skill-focused desire to become
   similarly wizardly.  Those days of innocence are gone forever;
   society's adaptation to the advent of the microcomputer after 1980
   included the elevation of the hacker as a new kind of folk hero,
   and the result is that some people semi-consciously set out to
   *be hackers* and borrow hackish prestige by fitting the
   popular image of hackers.  Fortunately, to do this really well, one
   has to actually become a wizard.  Nevertheless, old-time hackers
   tend to share a poorly articulated disquiet about the change; among
   other things, it gives them mixed feelings about the effects of
   public compendia of lore like this one.

warm boot: n. See {boot}.

wart: n. A small, {crock}y {feature} that sticks out of an
   otherwise {clean} design.  Something conspicuous for localized
   ugliness, especially a special-case exception to a general rule.
   For example, in some versions of `csh(1)', single quotes
   literalize every character inside them except `!'.  In ANSI C,
   the `??' syntax used obtaining ASCII characters in a foreign
   environment is a wart.  See also {miswart}.

washing machine: n. Old-style 14-inch hard disks in floor-standing
   cabinets.  So called because of the size of the cabinet and the
   `top-loading' access to the media packs --- and, of course, they
   were always set on `spin cycle'.  The washing-machine idiom
   transcends language barriers; it is even used in Russian hacker
   jargon.  See also {walking drives}.  The thick channel cables
   connecting these were called `bit hoses' (see {hose}).

water MIPS: n. (see {MIPS}, sense 2) Large, water-cooled
   machines of either today's ECL-supercomputer flavor or yesterday's
   traditional {mainframe} type.


wave a dead chicken: v. To perform a ritual in the direction of
   crashed software or hardware that one believes to be futile but
   is nevertheless necessary so that others are satisfied that an
   appropriate degree of effort has been expended.  "I'll wave a dead
   chicken over the source code, but I really think we've run into an
   OS bug."  Compare {voodoo programming}, {rain dance}.

weasel: n. [Cambridge] A na"ive user, one who deliberately or
   accidentally does things that are stupid or ill-advised.  Roughly
   synonymous with {loser}.

wedged: [from a common description of recto-cranial inversion] adj.
   1. To be stuck, incapable of proceeding without help.  This is
   different from having crashed.  If the system has crashed, then it
   has become totally non-functioning.  If the system is wedged, it is
   trying to do something but cannot make progress; it may be capable
   of doing a few things, but not be fully operational.  For example,
   a process may become wedged if it {deadlock}s with another (but
   not all instances of wedging are deadlocks).  Being wedged is
   slightly milder than being {hung}.  See also {gronk}, {locked
   up}, {hosed}.  Describes a {deadlock}ed condition.  2. Often
   refers to humans suffering misconceptions.  "He's totally wedged
   --- he's convinced that he can levitate through meditation."
   3. [UNIX] Specifically used to describe the state of a TTY left in
   a losing state by abort of a screen-oriented program or one that
   has messed with the line discipline in some obscure way.

wedgie: [Fairchild] n. A bug.  Prob. related to {wedged}.

wedgitude: /wedj'i-t[y]ood/ n. The quality or state of being
   {wedged}.

weeble: /weeb'l/ [Cambridge] interj. Used to denote frustration,
   usually at amazing stupidity.  "I stuck the disk in upside down."
   "Weeble...." Compare {gurfle}.

weeds: n. 1. Refers to development projects or algorithms that have
   no possible relevance or practical application.  Comes from `off in
   the weeds'.  Used in phrases like "lexical analysis for microcode
   is serious weeds...."  2. At CDC/ETA before its demise, the
   phrase `go off in the weeds' was equivalent to IBM's {branch to
   Fishkill} and mainstream hackerdom's {jump off into never-never
   land}.

weenie: n. 1. When used with a qualifier (for example, as in
   {UNIX weenie}, VMS weenie, IBM weenie) this can be either an
   insult or a term of praise, depending on context, tone of voice,
   and whether or not it is applied by a person who considers
   him or herself to be the same sort of weenie.  Implies that the weenie
   has put a major investment of time, effort, and concentration into
   the area indicated; whether this is positive or negative depends on
   the hearer's judgment of how the speaker feels about that area.
   See also {bigot}.  2. The semicolon character, `;' (ASCII
   0111011).

Weenix: /wee'niks/ [ITS] n. A derogatory term for {{UNIX}},
   derived from {UNIX weenie}.  According to one noted ex-ITSer, it
   is "the operating system preferred by Unix Weenies: typified by
   poor modularity, poor reliability, hard file deletion, no file
   version numbers, case sensitivity everywhere, and users who believe
   that these are all advantages".  Some ITS fans behave as though
   they believe UNIX stole a future that rightfully belonged to them.
   See {{ITS}}, sense 2.

well-behaved: adj. 1. [primarily {{MS-DOS}}] Said of software
   conforming to system interface guidelines and standards.
   Well-behaved software uses the operating system to do chores such
   as keyboard input, allocating memory and drawing graphics.  Oppose
   {ill-behaved}.  2. Software that does its job quietly and
   without counterintuitive effects.  Esp. said of software having
   an interface spec sufficiently simple and well-defined that it can
   be used as a {tool} by other software. See {cat}.

well-connected: adj. Said of a computer installation, this means
   that it has reliable email links with {the network} and/or that
   it relays a large fraction of available {USENET} newsgroups.
   `Well-known' can be almost synonymous, but also implies that the
   site's name is familiar to many (due perhaps to an archive service
   or active USENET users).

wetware: /wet'weir/ [prob. from the novels of Rudy Rucker] n.
   1. The human nervous system, as opposed to computer hardware or
   software.  "Wetware has 7 plus or minus 2 temporary registers."
   2. Human beings (programmers, operators, administrators) attached
   to a computer system, as opposed to the system's hardware or
   software.  See {liveware}, {meatware}.

whacker: [University of Maryland: from {hacker}] n. 1. A person,
   similar to a {hacker}, who enjoys exploring the details of
   programmable systems and how to stretch their capabilities.
   Whereas a hacker tends to produce great hacks, a whacker only ends
   up whacking the system or program in question.  Whackers are often
   quite egotistical and eager to claim {wizard} status,
   regardless of the views of their peers.  2. A person who is good at
   programming quickly, though rather poorly and ineptly.

whales: n. See {like kicking dead whales down the beach}.

wheel: [from slang `big wheel' for a powerful person] n. A
   person who has an active a {wheel bit}.  "We need to find a
   wheel to un{wedge} the hung tape drives."

wheel bit: n. A privilege bit that allows the possessor to perform
   some restricted operation on a timesharing system, such as read or
   write any file on the system regardless of protections, change or
   look at any address in the running monitor, crash or reload the
   system, and kill or create jobs and user accounts.  The term was
   invented on the TENEX operating system, and carried over to
   TOPS-20, XEROX-IFS, and others.  The state of being in a privileged
   logon is sometimes called `wheel mode'.  This term entered the
   UNIX culture from TWENEX in the mid-1980s and has been gaining
   popularity there (esp. at university sites).  See also {root}.

wheel wars: [Stanford University] A period in {larval stage}
   during which student hackers hassle each other by attempting to log
   each other out of the system, delete each other's files, and
   otherwise wreak havoc, usually at the expense of the lesser users.

White Book: n. Syn. {K&R}.

whizzy: [Sun] adj. (alt. `wizzy') Describes a {cuspy} program;
   one that is feature-rich and well presented.

WIBNI: // [Bell Labs: Wouldn't It Be Nice If] n. What most
   requirements documents and specifications consist entirely of.
   Compare {IWBNI}.

widget: n. 1. A meta-thing.  Used to stand for a real object in
   didactic examples (especially database tutorials).  Legend has it
   that the original widgets were holders for buggy whips.  "But
   suppose the parts list for a widget has 52 entries...."
   2. [poss. evoking `window gadget'] A user interface object in
   {X} graphical user interfaces.

wiggles: n. [scientific computation] In solving partial differential
   equations by finite difference and similar methods, wiggles are
   sawtooth (up-down-up-down) oscillations at the shortest wavelength
   representable on the grid.  If an algorithm is unstable, this is
   often the most unstable waveform, so it grows to dominate the
   solution.  Alternatively, stable (though inaccurate) wiggles can be
   generated near a discontinuity by a Gibbs phenomenon.

WIMP environment: n. [acronymic from `Window, Icon, Menu, Pointing
   device (or Pull-down menu)'] A graphical-user-interface-based
   environment such as {X} or the Macintosh interface, as described
   by a hacker who prefers command-line interfaces for their superior
   flexibility and extensibility.  See {menuitis},
   {user-obsequious}.

win: [MIT] 1. vi. To succeed.  A program wins if no unexpected
   conditions arise, or (especially) if it sufficiently {robust} to
   take exceptions in stride.  2. n. Success, or a specific instance
   thereof.  A pleasing outcome.  A {feature}.  Emphatic forms:
   `moby win', `super win', `hyper-win' (often used
   interjectively as a reply).  For some reason `suitable win' is
   also common at MIT, usually in reference to a satisfactory solution
   to a problem.  Oppose {lose}; see also {big win}, which isn't
   quite just an intensification of `win'.

win big: vi. To experience serendipity.  "I went shopping and won
   big; there was a 2-for-1 sale." See {big win}.

win win: interj. Expresses pleasure at a {win}.

Winchester:: n. Informal generic term for `floating-head'
   magnetic-disk drives in which the read-write head planes over the
   disk surface on an air cushion.  The name arose because the
   original 1973 engineering prototype for what later became the
   IBM 3340 featured two 30-megabyte volumes; 30--30 became
   `Winchester' when somebody noticed the similarity to the common
   term for a famous Winchester rifle (in the latter, the first 30
   referred to caliber and the second to the grain weight of the
   charge).

winged comments: n. Comments set on the same line as code, as
   opposed to {boxed comments}.  In C, for example:

     d = sqrt(x*x + y*y);  /* distance from origin */

   Generally these refer only to the action(s) taken on that line.

winkey: n. (alt. `winkey face')  See {emoticon}.

winnage: /win'*j/ n. The situation when a lossage is corrected, or
   when something is winning.

winner: 1. n. An unexpectedly good situation, program, programmer,
   or person.  "So it turned out I could use a {lexer} generator
   instead of hand-coding my own pattern recognizer.  What a win!"
   2. `real winner': Often sarcastic, but also used as high praise
   (see also the note under {user}). "He's a real winner --- never
   reports a bug till he can duplicate it and send in an
   example."

winnitude: /win'*-t[y]ood/ n. The quality of winning (as opposed
   to {winnage}, which is the result of winning).  "Guess what?
   They tweaked the microcode and now the LISP interpreter runs twice
   as fast as it used to." "That's really great!  Boy, what
   winnitude!" "Yup. I'll probably get a half-hour's winnage on the
   next run of my program."  Perhaps curiously, the obvious antonym
   `lossitude' is rare.

wired: n. See {hardwired}.

wirehead: /wi:r'hed/ n. [prob. from SF slang for an
   electrical-brain-stimulation addict] 1. A hardware hacker,
   especially one who concentrates on communications hardware.  2. An
   expert in local-area networks.  A wirehead can be a network
   software wizard too, but will always have the ability to deal with
   network hardware, down to the smallest component.  Wireheads are
   known for their ability to lash up an Ethernet terminator from
   spare resistors, for example.

wish list: n. A list of desired features or bug fixes that probably
   won't get done for a long time, usually because the person
   responsible for the code is too busy or can't think of a clean way
   to do it.  "OK, I'll add automatic filename completion to the wish
   list for the new interface." Compare {tick-list features}.

within delta of: adj. See {delta}.

within epsilon of: adj. See {epsilon}.

wizard: n. 1. A person who knows how a complex piece of software
   or hardware works (that is, who {grok}s it); esp. someone who
   can find and fix bugs quickly in an emergency.  Someone is a
   {hacker} if he or she has general hacking ability, but is a wizard
   with respect to something only if he or she has specific detailed
   knowledge of that thing.  A good hacker could become a wizard for
   something given the time to study it.  2. A person who is permitted
   to do things forbidden to ordinary people; one who has {wheel}
   privileges on a system.  3. A UNIX expert, esp. a UNIX systems
   programmer.  This usage is well enough established that `UNIX
   Wizard' is a recognized job title at some corporations and to most
   headhunters.  See {guru}, {lord high fixer}.  See also
   {deep magic}, {heavy wizardry}, {incantation}, {magic},
   {mutter}, {rain dance}, {voodoo programming}, {wave a
   dead chicken}.

Wizard Book: n. Hal Abelson and Jerry Sussman's `Structure
   and Interpretation of Computer Programs' (MIT Press, 1984; ISBN
   0-262-01077-1, an excellent computer science text used in
   introductory courses at MIT.  So called because of the wizard on
   the jacket.  One of the {bible}s of the LISP/Scheme
   world.

wizard mode: [from {rogue}] n. A special access mode of a program or
   system, usually passworded, that permits some users godlike
   privileges.  Generally not used for operating systems themselves
   (`root mode' or `wheel mode' would be used instead).

wizardly: adj. Pertaining to wizards.  A wizardly {feature} is one
   that only a wizard could understand or use properly.

womb box: n. 1. [TMRC] Storage space for equipment.  2. [proposed]
   A variety of hard-shell equipment case with heavy interior padding
   and/or shaped carrier cutouts in a foam-rubber matrix; mundanely
   called a `flight case'.  Used for delicate test equipment,
   electronics, and musical instruments.

WOMBAT: [Waste Of Money, Brains, And Time] adj. Applied to problems
   which are both profoundly {uninteresting} in themselves and
   unlikely to benefit anyone interesting even if solved.  Often used
   in fanciful constructions such as `wrestling with a wombat'.  See
   also {crawling horror}, {SMOP}.  Also note the rather different
   usage as a meta-syntactic variable in {{Commonwealth Hackish}}.

wonky: /wong'kee/ [from Australian slang] adj. Yet another
   approximate synonym for {broken}.  Specifically connotes a
   malfunction that produces behavior seen as crazy, humorous, or
   amusingly perverse.  "That was the day the printer's font logic
   went wonky and everybody's listings came out in Tengwar."  Also in
   `wonked out'.  See {funky}, {demented}, {bozotic}.

workaround: n. A temporary {kluge} inserted in a system under
   development or test in order to avoid the effects of a {bug} or
   {misfeature} so that work can continue.  Theoretically,
   workarounds are always replaced by {fix}es; in practice,
   customers often find themselves living with workarounds in the
   first couple of releases.  "The code died on NUL characters in the
   input, so I fixed it to interpret them as spaces."  "That's not a
   fix, that's a workaround!"

working as designed: [IBM] adj. 1. In conformance to a wrong or
   inappropriate specification; useful, but misdesigned.
   2. Frequently used as a sardonic comment on a program's utility.
   3. Unfortunately also used as a bogus reason for not accepting a
   criticism or suggestion.  At {IBM}, this sense is used in
   official documents!  See {BAD}.

worm: [from `tapeworm' in John Brunner's novel `The
   Shockwave Rider', via XEROX PARC] n. A program that propagates
   itself over a network, reproducing itself as it goes.  Compare
   {virus}.  Nowadays the term has negative connotations, as it is
   assumed that only {cracker}s write worms.  Perhaps the
   best-known example was Robert T. Morris's `Internet Worm' of 1988,
   a `benign' one that got out of control and hogged hundreds of
   Suns and VAXen across the U.S.  See also {cracker}, {RTM},
   {Trojan horse}, {ice}.

wound around the axle: adj. In an infinite loop.  Often used by older
   computer types.

wrap around: vi. (also n. `wraparound' and v. shorthand `wrap')
   1. [techspeak] The action of a counter that starts over at zero or at
   `minus infinity' (see {infinity}) after its maximum value has
   been reached, and continues incrementing, either because it is
   programmed to do so or because of an overflow (as when a car's
   odometer starts over at 0).  2. To change {phase} gradually and
   continuously by maintaining a steady wake-sleep cycle somewhat
   longer than 24 hours, e.g., living six long (28-hour) days in a week
   (or, equivalently, sleeping at the rate of 10 microhertz).

write-only code: [a play on `read-only memory'] n. Code so
   arcane, complex, or ill-structured that it cannot be modified or
   even comprehended by anyone but its author, and possibly not even
   by him/her.  A {Bad Thing}.

write-only language: n. A language with syntax (or semantics)
   sufficiently dense and bizarre that any routine of significant size
   is {write-only code}.  A sobriquet applied occasionally to C and
   often to APL, though {INTERCAL} and {TECO} certainly deserve it
   more.

write-only memory: n. The obvious antonym to `read-only
   memory'.  Out of frustration with the long and seemingly useless
   chain of approvals required of component specifications, during
   which no actual checking seemed to occur, an engineer at Signetics
   once created a specification for a write-only memory and included
   it with a bunch of other specifications to be approved.  This
   inclusion came to the attention of Signetics {management} only
   when regular customers started calling and asking for pricing
   information.  Signetics published a corrected edition of the data
   book and requested the return of the `erroneous' ones.  Later,
   around 1974, Signetics bought a double-page spread in `Electronics'
   magazine's April issue and used the spec as an April Fools' Day
   joke.  Instead of the more conventional characteristic curves, the
   25120 "fully encoded, 9046 x N, Random Access, write-only-memory"
   data sheet included diagrams of "bit capacity vs. Temp.",
   "Iff vs. Vff", "Number of pins remaining vs. number of socket
   insertions", and "AQL vs. selling price".  The 25120 required a
   6.3 VAC VFF supply, a +10V VCC, and VDD of 0V,
   +/- 2%.

Wrong Thing: n. A design, action, or decision that is clearly
   incorrect or inappropriate.  Often capitalized; always emphasized
   in speech as if capitalized.  The opposite of the {Right Thing};
   more generally, anything that is not the Right Thing.  In cases
   where `the good is the enemy of the best', the merely good --- although
   good --- is nevertheless the Wrong Thing. "In C, the default is for
   module-level declarations to be visible everywhere, rather than
   just within the module.  This is clearly the Wrong Thing."

wugga wugga: /wuh'g* wuh'g*/ n. Imaginary sound that a computer
   program makes as it labors with a tedious or difficult task.
   Compare {cruncha cruncha cruncha}, {grind} (sense 4).

WYSIWYG: /wiz'ee-wig/ adj. Describes a user interface under which
   "What You See Is What You Get", as opposed to one that uses
   more-or-less obscure commands which do not result in immediate
   visual feedback.  The term can be mildly derogatory, as it is often
   used to refer to dumbed-down {user-friendly} interfaces targeted
   at non-programmers; a hacker has no fear of obscure commands.
   On the other hand, EMACS was one of the very first WYSIWYG editors,
   replacing (actually, at first overlaying) the extremely obscure,
   command-based {TECO}.  See also {WIMP environment}.  [Oddly
   enough, this term has already made it into the OED. --- ESR]

= X =

X: /X/ n. 1. Used in various speech and writing contexts (also
   in lowercase) in roughly its algebraic sense of `unknown within a
   set defined by context' (compare {N}).  Thus, the abbreviation
   680x0 stands for 68000, 68010, 68020, 68030, or 68040, and 80x86
   stands for 80186, 80286 80386 or 80486 (note that a UNIX hacker
   might write these as 680[0-4]0 and 80[1-4]86 or 680?0 and 80?86
   respectively; see {glob}).  2. [after the name of an earlier
   window system called `W'] An over-sized, over-featured,
   over-engineered and incredibly over-complicated window system
   developed at MIT and widely used on UNIX systems.

XOFF: /X'of/ n. Syn. {control-s}.

xor: /X'or/, /kzor/ conj. Exclusive or.  `A xor B' means
   `A or B, but not both'.  "I want to get cherry pie xor a
   banana split."  This derives from the technical use of the term as
   a function on truth-values that is true if exactly one of its two
   arguments is true.

xref: /X'ref/ vt., n. Hackish standard abbreviation for
   `cross-reference'.

XXX: /X-X-X/ n. A marker that attention is needed.
   Commonly used in program comments to indicate areas that are kluged
   up or need to be.  Some hackers liken `XXX' to the notional
   heavy-porn movie rating.

xyzzy: /X-Y-Z-Z-Y/, /X-Y-ziz'ee/, /ziz'ee/, or /ik-ziz'ee/
   [from the ADVENT game] adj.  The {canonical} `magic word'.
   This comes from {ADVENT}, in which the idea is to explore an
   underground cave with many rooms and to collect the treasures you
   find there.  If you type `xyzzy' at the appropriate time, you can
   move instantly between two otherwise distant points.  If, therefore,
   you encounter some bit of {magic}, you might remark on this
   quite succinctly by saying simply "Xyzzy!"  "Ordinarily you
   can't look at someone else's screen if he has protected it, but if
   you type quadruple-bucky-clear the system will let you do it
   anyway."  "Xyzzy!"  Xyzzy has actually been implemented as an
   undocumented no-op command on several OSes; in Data General's
   AOS/VS, for example, it would typically respond "Nothing
   happens", just as {ADVENT} did if the magic was invoked at the
   wrong spot or before a player had performed the action that enabled
   the word.  See also {plugh}.

= Y =

YA-: [Yet Another] abbrev. In hackish acronyms this almost
   invariably expands to {Yet Another}, following the precedent set
   by UNIX `yacc(1)'.  See {YABA}.

YABA: /ya'b*/ [Cambridge] n. Yet Another Bloody Acronym.  Whenever
   some program is being named, someone invariably suggests that it be
   given a name that is acronymic.  The response from those with a
   trace of originality is to remark ironically that the proposed name
   would then be `YABA-compatible'.  Also used in response to questions
   like "What is WYSIWYG?"  See also {TLA}.

YAUN: /yawn/ [Acronym for `Yet Another UNIX Nerd'] n. Reported
   from the San Diego Computer Society (predominantly a microcomputer
   users' group) as a good-natured punning insult aimed at UNIX
   zealots.

Yellow Book: [proposed] n. The print version of this Jargon File;
   `The New Hacker's Dictionary', forthcoming from MIT Press,
   1991.  Includes all the material in the File, plus a Foreword by
   Guy L.  Steele and a Preface by Eric S. Raymond.  Most importantly,
   the book version is nicely typeset and includes almost all of the
   infamous Crunchly cartoons by the Great Quux, each attached to an
   appropriate entry.

Yet Another: adj. [From UNIX's `yacc(1)', `Yet Another Compiler-
   Compiler', a LALR parser generator]  1. Of your own work: A humorous
   allusion often used in titles to acknowledge that the topic is not
   original, though the content is.  As in `Yet Another AI Group'
   or `Yet Another Simulated Annealing Algorithm'.  2. Of others'
   work: Describes something of which there are far too many.  See
   also {YA-}, {YABA}, {YAUN}.

You are not expected to understand this: cav. [UNIX] The canonical
   comment describing something {magic} or too complicated to
   bother explaining properly.  From an infamous comment in the
   context-switching code of the V6 UNIX kernel.

You know you've been hacking too long when...: The set-up line
   for a genre of one-liners told by hackers about themselves.  These
   include the following:

   * not only do you check your email more often than your paper
     mail, but you remember your {network address} faster than your
     postal one.
   * your {SO} kisses you on the neck and the first thing you
     think is "Uh, oh, {priority interrupt}."
   * you go to balance your checkbook and discover that you're
     doing it in octal.
   * your computers have a higher street value than your car.
   * in your universe, `round numbers' are powers of 2, not 10.
   * more than once, you have woken up recalling a dream in
     some programming language.
   * you realize you have never seen half of your best friends.

   [An early version of this entry said "All but one of these
   have been reliably reported as hacker traits (some of them quite
   often).  Even hackers may have trouble spotting the ringer."  The
   ringer was balancing one's checkbook in octal, which I made up out
   of whole cloth.  Although more respondents picked that one
   out as fiction than any of the others, I also received multiple
   independent reports of its actually happening. --- ESR]

Your mileage may vary: cav. [from the standard disclaimer attached
   to EPA mileage ratings by American car manufacturers] 1. A ritual
   warning often found in UNIX freeware distributions.  Translates
   roughly as "Hey, I tried to write this portably, but who
   *knows* what'll happen on your system?"  2. A qualifier more
   generally attached to advice.  "I find that sending flowers works
   well, but your mileage may vary."

Yow!: /yow/ [from "Zippy the Pinhead" comix] interj. A favored hacker
   expression of humorous surprise or emphasis.  "Yow!  Check out what
   happens when you twiddle the foo option on this display hack!"
   Compare {gurfle}.

yoyo mode: n. The state in which the system is said to be when it
   rapidly alternates several times between being up and being down.
   Interestingly (and perhaps not by coincidence), many hardware
   vendors give out free yoyos at Usenix exhibits.

   Sun Microsystems gave out logoized yoyos at SIGPLAN '88.  Tourists
   staying at one of Atlanta's most respectable hotels were
   subsequently treated to the sight of 200 of the country's top
   computer scientists testing yo-yo algorithms in the lobby.

Yu-Shiang Whole Fish: /yoo-shyang hohl fish/ n. obs. The
   character gamma (extended SAIL ASCII 0001001), which with a loop in
   its tail looks like a little fish swimming down the page.  The term
   is actually the name of a Chinese dish in which a fish is cooked
   whole (not {parse}d) and covered with Yu-Shiang (or Yu-Hsiang)
   sauce.  Usage: primarily by people on the MIT LISP Machine, which
   could display this character on the screen.  Tends to elicit
   incredulity from people who hear about it second-hand.

= Z =

zap: 1. n. Spiciness.  2. vt. To make food spicy.  3. vt. To make
   someone `suffer' by making his food spicy.  (Most hackers love
   spicy food.  Hot-and-sour soup is considered wimpy unless it makes
   you wipe your nose for the rest of the meal.)  See {zapped}.
   4. vt. To modify, usually to correct; esp. used when the action
   is performed with a debugger or binary patching tool.  Also implies
   surgical precision.  "Zap the debug level to 6 and run it again."
   In the IBM mainframe world, binary patches are applied to programs
   or to the OS with a program called `superzap', whose file name is
   `IMASPZAP' (I M A SuPerZAP).  5. vt. To erase or reset.  6. To
   {fry} a chip with static electricity. "Uh oh --- I think that
   lightning strike may have zapped the disk controller."

zapped: adj. Spicy.  This term is used to distinguish between food
   that is hot (in temperature) and food that is *spicy*-hot.
   For example, the Chinese appetizer Bon Bon Chicken is a kind of
   chicken salad that is cold but zapped; by contrast, {vanilla}
   wonton soup is hot but not zapped.  See also {{oriental food}},
   {laser chicken}.  See {zap}, senses 1 and 2.

zen: vt. To figure out something by meditation or by a sudden flash
   of enlightenment.  Originally applied to bugs, but occasionally
   applied to problems of life in general.  "How'd you figure out the
   buffer allocation problem?"  "Oh, I zenned it."  Contrast {grok},
   which connotes a time-extended version of zenning a system.
   Compare {hack mode}.  See also {guru}.

zero: vt. 1. To set to 0.  Usually said of small pieces of data,
   such as bits or words (esp. in the construction `zero out').  2. To
   erase; to discard all data from.  Said of disks and directories,
   where `zeroing' need not involve actually writing zeroes throughout
   the area being zeroed.  One may speak of something being
   `logically zeroed' rather than being `physically zeroed'.  See
   {scribble}.

zero-content: adj. Syn. {content-free}.

zeroth: /zee'rohth/ adj. First.  Among software designers, comes
   from C's and LISP's 0-based indexing of arrays.  Hardware people
   also tend to start counting at 0 instead of 1; this is natural
   since, e.g., the 256 states of 8 bits correspond to the binary
   numbers 0, 1, ..., 255 and the digital devices known as `counters'
   count in this way.

   Hackers and computer scientists often like to call the first
   chapter of a publication `chapter 0', especially if it is of an
   introductory nature (one of the classic instances was in the First
   Edition of {K&R}).  In recent years this trait has also been
   observed among many pure mathematicians (who have an independent
   tradition of numbering from 0).  Zero-based numbering tends to
   reduce {fencepost error}s, though it cannot eliminate them
   entirely.

zigamorph: /zig'*-morf/ n. Hex FF (11111111) when used as a
   delimiter or {fence} character.  Usage: primarily at IBM
   shops.

zip: [primarily MS-DOS] vt. To create a compressed archive from a
   group of files using PKWare's PKZIP or a compatible archiver.  Its
   use is spreading now that portable implementations of the algorithm
   have been written.  Commonly used as follows: "I'll zip it up and
   send it to you."  See {arc}, {tar and feather}.

zipperhead: [IBM] n. A person with a closed mind.

zombie: [UNIX] n. A process that has died but has not yet
   relinquished its process table slot (because the parent process
   hasn't executed a `wait(2)' for it yet).  These can be seen in
   `ps(1)' listings occasionally.  Compare {orphan}.

zorch: /zorch/ 1. [TMRC] v. To attack with an inverse heat sink.
   2. [TMRC] v. To travel, with v approaching c [that
   is, with velocity approaching lightspeed --- ESR].  3. [MIT] v. To
   propel something very quickly.  "The new comm software is very
   fast; it really zorches files through the network."  4. [MIT] n.
   Influence.  Brownie points.  Good karma.  The intangible and fuzzy
   currency in which favors are measured.  "I'd rather not ask him
   for that just yet; I think I've used up my quota of zorch with him
   for the week."  5. [MIT] n. Energy, drive, or ability.  "I think
   I'll {punt} that change for now; I've been up for 30 hours
   and I've run out of zorch."

Zork: /zork/ n. The second of the great early experiments in computer
   fantasy gaming; see {ADVENT}.  Originally written on MIT-DM
   during the late 1970s, later distributed with BSD UNIX and
   commercialized as `The Zork Trilogy' by Infocom.

zorkmid: /zork'mid/ n. The canonical unit of currency in
   hacker-written games.  This originated in {zork} but has spread
   to {nethack} and is referred to in several other games.


 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 



 




 



 



 



 



 



