Jargon File 2.9.12
THIS IS THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.12, 10 MAY 1993

This is version 0.9.2 of a more or less mechanical conversion of the ASCII version of the Jargon File to the MS-Windows help file format. It isn't perfect, yet. Just to the contrary, a few entries have been damaged during the conversion, and the formatting leaves something to be desired. The current layout is identical to that found in the online ASCII version, not to the one in the book, as I would have prefered. All formatting has been left intact in its original, ugly WYGIWIG (What You Get Is What I've Got) form.

This version is not "official" or "authorized".

      o      (

     /\        *

   _`\ `_<===

__(_)/_(_)___.-._

Wolfgang Strobl (strobl@gmd.de), May 1993

Index

(select a letter)
ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ [~A..Z]

JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.12, 10 MAY 1993

      Introduction

         About This File

         Of Slang, Jargon, and Techspeak

         Revision History

      How Jargon Works

         Jargon Construction

              Verb Doubling

              Soundalike slang

              The `-P' convention

              Overgeneralization

              Spoken inarticulations

              Anthromorphization

         Hacker Writing Style

         Email Quotes and Inclusion Conventions

         Hacker Speech Style

         International Style

      How to Use the Lexicon

         Pronunciation Guide

         Other Lexicon Conventions

         Format For New Entries

      The Jargon Lexicon

      Appendix A  Hacker Folklore

         The Meaning of `Hack'

         TV Typewriters

         A Story About `Magic'

         A Selection of AI Koans

         OS and JEDGAR

         The Story of Mel, a Real Programmer

      Appendix B   A Portrait of J. Random Hacker

         General Appearance

         Dress

         Reading Habits

         Other Interests

         Physical Activity and Sports

         Education

         Things Hackers Detest and Avoid

         Food

         Politics

         Gender and Ethnicity

         Religion

         Ceremonial Chemicals

         Communication Style

         Geographical Distribution

         Sexual Habits

         Personality Characteristics

         Weaknesses of the Hacker Personality

         Miscellaneous

      Appendix C  Bibliography

              Gödel, Escher, Bach

              Illuminatus!

              The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

              The Tao of Programming

              Hackers

              The Devil's DP Dictionary

              The Devouring Fungus

              The Soul of a New Machine

              Life with UNIX

              True Names ... and Other Dangers

              Cyberpunk

              Technobabble

              The Cuckoo's Egg


Index A
A

              abbrev

              ABEND

              accumulator

              ACK

              ad-hockery

              Ada

              adger

              admin

              ADVENT

              AFJ

              AI

              AI-complete

              AI koans

              AIDS

              AIDX

              airplane rule

              aliasing bug

              all-elbows

              alpha particles

              alt

              alt bit

              altmode

              Aluminum Book

              amoeba

              amp off

              amper

              angle brackets

              angry fruit salad

              annoybot

              AOS

              app

              arena

              arg

              ARMM

              armor-plated

              asbestos

              asbestos cork award

              asbestos longjohns

              ASCII

              ASCII art

              ASCIIbetical order

              atomic

              attoparsec

              autobogotiphobia

              automagically

              avatar

              awk


Index B
B

              back door

              backbone cabal

              backbone site

              backgammon

              background

              backspace and overstrike

              backward combatability

              BAD

              Bad Thing

              bag on the side

              bagbiter

              bamf

              banana label

              banana problem

              bandwidth

              bang

              bang on

              bang path

              banner

              bar

              bare metal

              barf

              barfmail

              barfulation

              barfulous

              barney

              baroque

              BASIC

              batch

              bathtub curve

              baud

              baud barf

              baz

              bboard

              BBS

              beam

              beanie key

              beep

              beige toaster

              bells and whistles

              bells, whistles, and gongs

              benchmark

              Berkeley Quality Software

              berklix

              Berzerkeley

              beta

              BFI

              bible

              BiCapitalization

              BIFF

              biff

              Big Gray Wall

              big iron

              Big Red Switch

              Big Room, the

              big win

              big-endian

              bignum

              bigot

              bit

              bit bang

              bit bashing

              bit bucket

              bit decay

              bit rot

              bit twiddling

              bit-paired keyboard

              bitblt

              BITNET

              bits

              bitty box

              bixie

              black art

              black hole

              black magic

              blargh

              blast

              blat

              bletch

              bletcherous

              blinkenlights

              blit

              blitter

              blivet

              BLOB

              block

              block transfer computations

              Bloggs Family, the

              blow an EPROM

              blow away

              blow out

              blow past

              blow up

              BLT

              Blue Book

              Blue Glue

              blue goo

              blue wire

              blurgle

              BNF

              boa

              board

              boat anchor

              BOF

              bogo-sort

              bogometer

              bogon

              bogon filter

              bogon flux

              bogosity

              bogotify

              bogue out

              bogus

              Bohr bug

              boink

              bomb

              bondage-and-discipline language

              bonk/oif

              book titles

              boot

              bottom feeder

              bottom-up implementation

              bounce

              bounce message

              boustrophedon

              box

              boxed comments

              boxen

              boxology

              bozotic

              BQS

              brain dump

              brain fart

              brain-damaged

              brain-dead

              braino

              branch to Fishkill

              bread crumbs

              break

              break-even point

              breath-of-life packet

              breedle

              bring X to its knees

              brittle

              broadcast storm

              brochureware

              broken

              broken arrow

              broket

              Brooks's Law

              BRS

              brute force

              brute force and ignorance

              BSD

              BUAF

              BUAG

              bubble sort

              bucky bits

              buffer overflow

              bug

              bug-compatible

              bug-for-bug compatible

              buglix

              bulletproof

              bum

              bump

              burble

              buried treasure

              burn-in period

              burst page

              busy-wait

              buzz

              BWQ

              by hand

              byte

              bytesexual

              bzzzt, wrong


Index C
C

              C

              C Programmer's Disease

              calculator

              can

              can't happen

              candygrammar

              canonical

              card walloper

              careware

              cargo cult programming

              cascade

              case and paste

              casters-up mode

              casting the runes

              cat

              catatonic

              cd tilde

              cdr

              chad

              chad box

              chain

              channel

              channel hopping

              channel op

              chanop

              char

              charityware

              chase pointers

              check

              chemist

              Chernobyl chicken

              Chernobyl packet

              chicken head

              chiclet keyboard

              chine nual

              Chinese Army technique

              choke

              chomp

              chomper

              CHOP

              Christmas tree

              Christmas tree packet

              chrome

              chug

              Church of the SubGenius

              Cinderella Book

              CI$

              Classic C

              clean

              CLM

              clobber

              clocks

              clone

              clover key

              clustergeeking

              COBOL

              COBOL fingers

              code grinder

              code police

              codewalker

              coefficient of X

              cokebottle

              cold boot

              COME FROM

              comm mode

              command key

              comment out

              Commonwealth Hackish

              compact

              compiler jock

              compress

              Compu$erve

              computer confetti

              computer geek

              computron

              con

              condition out

              condom

              confuser

              connector conspiracy

              cons

              considered harmful

              console

              console jockey

              content-free

              control-C

              control-O

              control-Q

              control-S

              Conway's Law

              cookbook

              cooked mode

              cookie

              cookie bear

              cookie file

              cookie jar

              cookie monster

              copious free time

              copper

              copy protection

              copybroke

              copyleft

              copywronged

              core

              core cancer

              core dump

              core leak

              Core Wars

              corge

              cosmic rays

              cough and die

              cowboy

              CP/M

              CPU Wars

              crack root

              cracker

              cracking

              crank

              CrApTeX

              crash

              crash and burn

              crawling horror

              cray

              cray instability

              crayola

              crayola books

              crayon

              creationism

              creep

              creeping elegance

              creeping featurism

              creeping featuritis

              cretin

              cretinous

              crippleware

              critical mass

              crlf

              crock

              cross-post

              crudware

              cruft

              cruft together

              cruftsmanship

              crufty

              crumb

              crunch

              cruncha cruncha cruncha

              cryppie

              CTSS

              CTY

              cube

              cubing

              cursor dipped in X

              cuspy

              cut a tape

              cybercrud

              cyberpunk

              cyberspace

              cycle

              cycle crunch

              cycle drought

              cycle of reincarnation

              cycle server


Index D
D

              D. C. Power Lab

              daemon

              dangling pointer

              dark-side hacker

              Datamation

              DAU

              day mode

              dd

              DDT

              de-rezz

              dead

              dead code

              DEADBEEF

              deadlock

              deadly embrace

              death code

              Death Star

              dec

              DEC Wars

              decay

              DEChead

              deckle

              DED

              deep hack mode

              deep magic

              deep space

              defenestration

              defined as

              dehose

              delint

              delta

              demented

              demigod

              demo

              demo mode

              demon

              depeditate

              deprecated

              deserves to lose

              desk check

              despew

              Devil Book

              devo

              dickless workstation

              dictionary flame

              diddle

              die

              die horribly

              diff

              digit

              dike

              ding

              dink

              dinosaur

              dinosaur pen

              dinosaurs mating

              dirtball

              dirty power

              disclaimer

              Discordianism

              disk farm

              display hack

              Dissociated Press

              distribution

              do protocol

              doc

              doco

              documentation

              dodgy

              dogcow

              dogwash

              domainist

              Don't do that, then!

              dongle

              dongle-disk

              donuts

              doorstop

              dot file

              double bucky

              double DECkers

              doubled sig

              down

              download

              DP

              DPB

              DPer

              dragon

              Dragon Book

              drain

              dread high-bit disease

              DRECNET

              driver

              droid

              drool-proof paper

              drop on the floor

              drop-ins

              drop-outs

              drugged

              drum

              drunk mouse syndrome

              Duff's device

              dumb terminal

              dumbass attack

              dumbed down

              dump

              dumpster diving

              dup killer

              dup loop

              dusty deck

              DWIM

              dynner


Index E
E

              earthquake

              Easter egg

              Easter egging

              eat flaming death

              EBCDIC

              echo

              eighty-column mind

              El Camino Bignum

              elder days

              elegant

              elephantine

              elevator controller

              ELIZA effect

              elvish

              EMACS

              email

              emoticon

              empire

              engine

              English

              enhancement

              ENQ

              EOF

              EOL

              EOU

              epoch

              epsilon

              epsilon squared

              era, the

              Eric Conspiracy

              Eris

              erotics

              error 33

              evil

              evil and rude

              exa-

              examining the entrails

              EXCH

              excl

              EXE

              exec

              exercise, left as an

              external memory

              eyeball search


Index F
F

              face time

              factor

              fall over

              fall through

              fan

              fandango on core

              FAQ

              FAQ list

              FAQL

              faradize

              farkled

              farming

              fascist

              fat electrons

              faulty

              fd leak

              fear and loathing

              feature

              feature creature

              feature key

              feature shock

              featurectomy

              feep

              feeper

              feeping creature

              feeping creaturism

              feetch feetch

              fence

              fencepost error

              fepped out

              FidoNet

              field circus

              field servoid

              Fight-o-net

              File Attach

              File Request

              file signature

              filk

              film at 11

              filter

              Finagle's Law

              fine

              finger

              finger-pointing syndrome

              finn

              firebottle

              firefighting

              firehose syndrome

              firewall code

              firewall machine

              fireworks mode

              firmy

              fish

              FISH queue

              FITNR

              fix

              FIXME

              flag

              flag day

              flaky

              flamage

              flame

              flame bait

              flame on

              flame war

              flamer

              flap

              flarp

              flat

              flat-ASCII

              flat-file

              flatten

              flavor

              flavorful

              flippy

              flood

              flowchart

              flower key

              flush

              flypage

              Flyspeck 3

              flytrap

              FM

              fnord

              FOAF

              FOD

              fold case

              followup

              fontology

              foo

              foobar

              fool

              fool file, the

              Foonly

              footprint

              for free

              for the rest of us

              for values of

              fora

              foreground

              fork bomb

              forked

              Fortrash

              fortune cookie

              forum

              fossil

              four-color glossies

              fragile

              fred

              frednet

              freeware

              freeze

              fried

              frink

              friode

              fritterware

              frob

              frobnicate

              frobnitz

              frog

              frogging

              front end

              frotz

              frotzed

              frowney

              fry

              FTP

              FUBAR

              fuck me harder

              FUD

              FUD wars

              fudge

              fudge factor

              fuel up

              fum

              funky

              funny money

              fuzzball


Index G
G

              G

              gabriel

              gag

              gang bang

              garbage collect

              garply

              gas

              gaseous

              GC

              GCOS

              GECOS

              gedanken

              geef

              geek out

              gen

              gender mender

              General Public Virus

              generate

              gensym

              Get a life!

              Get a real computer!

              GFR

              gig

              giga-

              GIGO

              gilley

              gillion

              GIPS

              glark

              glass

              glass tty

              glassfet

              glitch

              glob

              glork

              glue

              gnarly

              GNU

              GNUMACS

              go flatline

              go root

              go-faster stripes

              gobble

              Godzillagram

              golden

              golf-ball printer

              gonk

              gonkulator

              gonzo

              Good Thing

              gorets

              gorilla arm

              gorp

              GOSMACS

              Gosperism

              gotcha

              GPL

              GPV

              grault

              gray goo

              Great Renaming

              Great Runes

              Great Worm, the

              great-wall

              Green Book

              green bytes

              green card

              green lightning

              green machine

              Green's Theorem

              grep

              grilf

              grind

              grind crank

              gripenet

              gritch

              grok

              gronk

              gronk out

              gronked

              grovel

              grunge

              gubbish

              guiltware

              gumby

              gun

              gunch

              gurfle

              guru

              guru meditation

              gweep


Index H
H

              h

              ha ha only serious

              hack

              hack attack

              hack mode

              hack on

              hack together

              hack up

              hack value

              hacked off

              hacked up

              hacker

              hacker ethic, the

              hacking run

              Hacking X for Y

              Hackintosh

              hackish

              hackishness

              hackitude

              hair

              hairy

              HAKMEM

              hakspek

              hammer

              hamster

              hand cruft

              hand-hacking

              handle

              hand-roll

              handshaking

              handwave

              hang

              Hanlon's Razor

              happily

              haque

              hard boot

              hardcoded

              hardwarily

              hardwired

              has the X nature

              hash bucket

              hash collision

              hat

              HCF

              heads down

              heartbeat

              heatseeker

              heavy metal

              heavy wizardry

              heavyweight

              heisenbug

              Helen Keller mode

              hello, sailor!

              hello, wall!

              hello, world

              hex

              hexadecimal

              hexit

              HHOK

              HHOS

              hidden flag

              high bit

              high moby

              highly

              hing

              hirsute

              HLL

              hobbit

              hog

              holy wars

              home box

              home machine

              hook

              hop

              hose

              hosed

              hot spot

              house wizard

              HP-SUX

              huff

              humma

              Humor, Hacker

              hung

              hungry puppy

              hungus

              hyperspace

              hysterical reasons


Index I
I

              I didn't change anything!

              I see no X here.

              IBM

              IBM discount

              ICBM address

              ice

              idempotent

              If you want X, you know where to find it.

              ifdef out

              ill-behaved

              IMHO

              Imminent Death Of The Net Predicted!

              in the extreme

              inc

              incantation

              include

              include war

              indent style

              index

              infant mortality

              infinite

              infinite loop

              Infinite-Monkey Theorem

              infinity

              initgame

              insanely great

              INTERCAL

              interesting

              Internet address

              interrupt

              interrupt list, the

              interrupts locked out

              IRC

              iron

              Iron Age

              iron box

              ironmonger

              ITS

              IWBNI

              IYFEG


Index J
J

              J. Random

              J. Random Hacker

              jack in

              jaggies

              JCL

              JEDR

              JFCL

              jiffy

              job security

              jock

              joe code

              jolix

              JR[LN]

              JRST

              juggling eggs

              jump off into never-never land

              jupiter


Index K
K

              K

              K&R

              kahuna

              kamikaze packet

              kangaroo code

              ken

              kgbvax

              KIBO

              kick

              kill file

              killer micro

              killer poke

              kilo-

              KIPS

              KISS Principle

              kit

              klone

              kludge

              kluge

              kluge around

              kluge up

              Knights of the Lambda Calculus

              Knuth

              kremvax

              kyrka


Index L
L

              lace card

              language lawyer

              languages of choice

              larval stage

              lase

              laser chicken

              Lasherism

              laundromat

              LDB

              leaf site

              leak

              leaky heap

              leapfrog attack

              legal

              legalese

              LER

              LERP

              let the smoke out

              letterbomb

              lexer

              lexiphage

              life

              Life is hard

              light pipe

              lightweight

              like kicking dead whales down the beach

              like nailing jelly to a tree

              line 666

              line eater, the

              line noise

              line starve

              link farm

              link-dead

              lint

              lion food

              Lions Book

              LISP

              literature, the

              lithium lick

              little-endian

              live data

              Live Free Or Die!

              livelock

              liveware

              lobotomy

              locals, the

              locked and loaded

              locked up

              logic bomb

              logical

              loop through

              loose bytes

              lord high fixer

              lose

              lose lose

              loser

              losing

              loss

              lossage

              lost in the noise

              lost in the underflow

              lots of MIPS but no I/O

              low-bandwidth

              LPT

              Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology

              lunatic fringe

              lurker

              luser


Index M
M

              M

              macdink

              machinable

              machoflops

              Macintoy

              Macintrash

              macro

              macro-

              macrology

              macrotape

              maggotbox

              magic

              magic cookie

              magic number

              magic smoke

              mailbomb

              mailing list

              main loop

              mainframe

              management

              mandelbug

              manged

              mangle

              mangler

              mango

              manularity

              marbles

              marginal

              Marginal Hacks

              marginally

              marketroid

              Mars

              martian

              massage

              math-out

              Matrix

              maximum Maytag mode

              Mbogo, Dr. Fred

              meatware

              meeces

              meg

              mega-

              megapenny

              MEGO

              meltdown, network

              meme

              meme plague

              memetics

              memory farts

              memory leak

              memory smash

              menuitis

              mess-dos

              meta

              meta bit

              metasyntactic variable

              MFTL

              mickey

              mickey mouse program

              micro-

              microfloppies

              microfortnight

              microLenat

              microReid

              Microsloth Windows

              microtape

              middle-endian

              milliLampson

              minifloppies

              MIPS

              misbug

              misfeature

              Missed'em-five

              missile address

              miswart

              moby

              mockingbird

              mod

              mode

              mode bit

              modulo

              molly-guard

              Mongolian Hordes technique

              monkey up

              monkey, scratch

              monstrosity

              monty

              Moof

              Moore's Law

              moose call

              moria

              MOTAS

              MOTOS

              MOTSS

              mouse ahead

              mouse around

              mouse belt

              mouse droppings

              mouse elbow

              mouso

              MS-DOS

              mu

              MUD

              muddie

              mudhead

              multician

              Multics

              multitask

              mumblage

              mumble

              munch

              munching

              munching squares

              munchkin

              mundane

              mung

              munge

              Murphy's Law

              music

              mutter


Index N
N

              N

              nadger

              nagware

              nailed to the wall

              nailing jelly

              naive

              naive user

              NAK

              nano

              nano-

              nanoacre

              nanobot

              nanocomputer

              nanofortnight

              nanotechnology

              nasal demons

              nastygram

              Nathan Hale

              nature

              neat hack

              neats vs. scruffies

              neep-neep

              neophilia

              net.-

              net.god

              net.personality

              net.police

              NetBOLLIX

              netburp

              netdead

              nethack

              netiquette

              netlag

              netnews

              netrock

              netsplit

              netter

              network address

              network meltdown

              network, the

              New Jersey

              New Testament

              newbie

              newgroup wars

              newline

              NeWS

              news

              newsfroup

              newsgroup

              nick

              nickle

              night mode

              Nightmare File System

              NIL

              Ninety-Ninety Rule

              NMI

              no-op

              noddy

              NOMEX underwear

              Nominal Semidestructor

              non-optimal solution

              nonlinear

              nontrivial

              not ready for prime time

              notwork

              NP-

              nroff

              NSA line eater

              nude

              nuke

              number-crunching

              numbers

              NUXI problem

              nybble

              nyetwork


Index O
O

              Ob-

              Obfuscated C Contest

              obi-wan error

              Objectionable-C

              obscure

              octal forty

              off the trolley

              off-by-one error

              offline

              ogg

              old fart

              Old Testament

              one-banana problem

              one-line fix

              one-liner wars

              ooblick

              op

              open

              Open DeathTrap

              open switch

              operating system

              optical diff

              optical grep

              optimism

              Orange Book

              oriental food

              orphan

              orphaned i-node

              orthogonal

              OS

              OS/2

              out-of-band

              overflow bit

              overflow pdl

              overrun

              overrun screw


Index P
P

              P-mail

              P.O.D.

              padded cell

              page in

              page out

              pain in the net

              paper-net

              param

              PARC

              parent message

              parity errors

              Parkinson's Law of Data

              parm

              parse

              Pascal

              pastie

              patch

              patch space

              path

              pathological

              payware

              PBD

              PC-ism

              PD

              PDL

              pdl

              PDP-10

              PDP-20

              peek

              pencil and paper

              peon

              percent-S

              perf

              perfect programmer syndrome

              Perl

              person of no account

              pessimal

              pessimizing compiler

              peta-

              PETSCII

              phage

              phase

              phase of the moon

              phase-wrapping

              phreaking

              pico-

              pig, run like a

              pilot error

              ping

              Pink-Shirt Book

              PIP

              pistol

              pizza box

              pizza, ANSI standard

              plaid screen

              plain-ASCII

              plan file

              platinum-iridium

              playpen

              playte

              plingnet

              plokta

              plonk

              plugh

              plumbing

              PM

              pnambic

              pod

              point-and-drool interface

              poke

              poll

              polygon pusher

              POM

              pop

              POPJ

              post

              postcardware

              posting

              postmaster

              PostScript

              pound on

              power cycle

              power hit

              PPN

              precedence lossage

              prepend

              prestidigitization

              pretty pictures

              prettyprint

              pretzel key

              prime time

              printing discussion

              priority interrupt

              profile

              proglet

              program

              Programmer's Cheer

              programming

              programming fluid

              propeller head

              propeller key

              proprietary

              protocol

              provocative maintenance

              prowler

              pseudo

              pseudoprime

              pseudosuit

              psychedelicware

              psyton

              pubic directory

              puff

              punched card

              punt

              Purple Book

              purple wire

              push


Index Q
Q

              quad

              quadruple bucky

              quantifiers

              quantum bogodynamics

              quarter

              ques

              quick-and-dirty

              quine

              quote chapter and verse

              quotient

              quux

              qux

              QWERTY


Index R
R

              rabbit job

              rain dance

              rainbow series

              random

              random numbers

              randomness

              rape

              rare mode

              raster blaster

              raster burn

              rat belt

              rave

              rave on!

              ravs

              raw mode

              rc file

              RE

              read-only user

              README file

              real

              real estate

              real hack

              real operating system

              Real Programmer

              Real Soon Now

              real time

              real user

              Real World

              reality check

              reaper

              rectangle slinger

              recursion

              recursive acronym

              Red Book

              red wire

              regexp

              register dancing

              reincarnation, cycle of

              reinvent the wheel

              religion of CHI

              religious issues

              replicator

              reply

              restriction

              retcon

              RETI

              retrocomputing

              return from the dead

              RFC

              RFE

              rib site

              rice box

              Right Thing

              RL

              roach

              robot

              robust

              rococo

              rogue

              room-temperature IQ

              root

              root mode

              rot13

              rotary debugger

              round tape

              RSN

              RTBM

              RTFAQ

              RTFB

              RTFM

              RTFS

              RTI

              RTM

              rude

              runes

              runic

              rusty iron

              rusty memory


Index S
S

              S/N ratio

              sacred

              saga

              sagan

              SAIL

              salescritter

              salt mines

              salt substrate

              same-day service

              samurai

              sandbender

              sandbox

              sanity check

              Saturday-night special

              say

              scag

              scanno

              schroedinbug

              science-fiction fandom

              scram switch

              scratch

              scratch monkey

              scream and die

              screaming tty

              screw

              screwage

              scribble

              scrog

              scrool

              scrozzle

              scruffies

              SCSI

              ScumOS

              search-and-destroy mode

              second-system effect

              secondary damage

              security through obscurity

              SED

              segfault

              seggie

              segment

              segmentation fault

              segv

              self-reference

              selvage

              semi

              semi-infinite

              senior bit

              server

              SEX

              sex changer

              shambolic link

              sharchive

              Share and enjoy!

              shareware

              shelfware

              shell

              shell out

              shift left (or right) logical

              shim

              shitogram

              short card

              shotgun debugging

              shovelware

              showstopper

              shriek

              Shub-Internet

              sidecar

              SIG

              sig block

              sig quote

              sig virus

              signal-to-noise ratio

              silicon

              silly walk

              silo

              Silver Book

              since time T equals minus infinity

              sitename

              skrog

              skulker

              slack

              slap on the side

              slash

              sleep

              slim

              slop

              slopsucker

              slurp

              smart

              smart terminal

              smash case

              smash the stack

              smiley

              smoke

              smoke and mirrors

              smoke test

              smoking clover

              SMOP

              smurf

              SNAFU principle

              snail

              snail-mail

              snap

              snarf

              snarf & barf

              snarf down

              snark

              sneakernet

              sniff

              snivitz

              SO

              social engineering

              social science number

              soft boot

              softcopy

              software bloat

              software laser

              software rot

              softwarily

              softy

              some random X

              sorcerer's apprentice mode

              SOS

              source of all good bits

              space-cadet keyboard

              SPACEWAR

              spaghetti code

              spaghetti inheritance

              spam

              special-case

              speedometer

              spell

              spelling flame

              spiffy

              spike

              spin

              spl

              splash screen

              splat

              spod

              spoiler

              sponge

              spoo

              spooge

              spool

              spool file

              square tape

              stack

              stack puke

              stale pointer bug

              state

              steam-powered

              stiffy

              stir-fried random

              stomp on

              Stone Age

              stone knives and bearskins

              stoppage

              store

              stroke

              strudel

              stubroutine

              studlycaps

              stunning

              stupid-sort

              Stupids

              Sturgeon's Law

              sucking mud

              sufficiently small

              suit

              suitable win

              suitably small

              sun lounge

              sun-stools

              sunspots

              superprogrammer

              superuser

              support

              Suzie COBOL

              swab

              swap

              swap space

              swapped in

              swapped out

              swizzle

              sync

              syntactic salt

              syntactic sugar

              sys-frog

              sysadmin

              sysape

              sysop

              system

              systems jock

              system mangler

              SysVile


Index T
T

              T

              tail recursion

              talk mode

              talker system

              tall card

              tanked

              TANSTAAFL

              tar and feather

              taste

              tayste

              TCB

              tea, ISO standard cup of

              TechRef

              TECO

              tee

              teledildonics

              Telerat

              TELNET

              ten-finger interface

              tense

              tenured graduate student

              tera-

              teraflop club

              terminak

              terminal brain death

              terminal illness

              terminal junkie

              terpri

              test

              TeX

              text

              thanks in advance

              That's not a bug, that's a feature!

              the X that can be Y is not the true X

              theology

              theory

              thinko

              This can't happen

              This time, for sure!

              thrash

              thread

              three-finger salute

              thud

              thumb

              thunk

              tick

              tick-list features

              tickle a bug

              tiger team

              time bomb

              time sink

              time T

              times-or-divided-by

              tip of the ice-cube

              tired iron

              tits on a keyboard

              TLA

              TMRC

              TMRCie

              to a first approximation

              to a zeroth approximation

              toast

              toaster

              toeprint

              toggle

              tool

              toolsmith

              topic drift

              topic group

              TOPS-10

              TOPS-20

              toto

              tourist

              tourist information

              touristic

              toy

              toy language

              toy problem

              toy program

              trampoline

              trap

              trap door

              trash

              trawl

              tree-killer

              treeware

              trit

              trivial

              troff

              troglodyte

              troglodyte mode

              Trojan horse

              tron

              true-hacker

              tty

              tube

              tube time

              tunafish

              tune

              turbo nerd

              Turing tar-pit

              turist

              tweak

              tweeter

              TWENEX

              twiddle

              twilight zone

              twink

              two pi

              two-to-the-N

              twonkie


Index U
U

              UBD

              UN*X

              undefined external reference

              under the hood

              undocumented feature

              uninteresting

              UNIX

              UNIX brain damage

              UNIX conspiracy

              UNIX weenie

              unixism

              unleaded

              unroll

              unswizzle

              unwind the stack

              unwind-protect

              up

              upload

              upthread

              urchin

              USENET

              user

              user-friendly

              user-obsequious

              USG UNIX

              UTSL

              UUCPNET


Index V
V

              vadding

              vanilla

              vannevar

              vaporware

              var

              VAX

              VAXectomy

              VAXen

              vaxherd

              vaxism

              vaxocentrism

              vdiff

              veeblefester

              ventilator card

              Venus flytrap

              verbage

              verbiage

              Version 7

              vgrep

              vi

              videotex

              virgin

              virtual

              virtual Friday

              virtual reality

              virtual shredder

              virus

              visionary

              VMS

              voice

              voice-net

              voodoo programming

              VR

              Vulcan nerve pinch

              vulture capitalist


Index W
W

              wabbit

              WAITS

              waldo

              walk

              walk off the end of

              walking drives

              wall

              wall follower

              wall time

              wallpaper

              wango

              wank

              wannabee

              warlording

              warm boot

              wart

              washing machine

              water MIPS

              wave a dead chicken

              weasel

              wedged

              wedgie

              wedgitude

              weeble

              weeds

              weenie

              Weenix

              well-behaved

              well-connected

              wetware

              whack

              whacker

              whales

              whalesong

              What's a spline?

              wheel

              wheel bit

              wheel wars

              White Book

              whizzy

              WIBNI

              widget

              wiggles

              WIMP environment

              win

              win big

              win win

              Winchester

              window shopping

              winged comments

              winkey

              winnage

              winner

              winnitude

              wired

              wirehead

              wirewater

              wish list

              within delta of

              within epsilon of

              wizard

              Wizard Book

              wizard mode

              wizardly

              womb box

              WOMBAT

              wonky

              woofer

              workaround

              working as designed

              worm

              wound around the axle

              wrap around

              write-only code

              write-only language

              write-only memory

              Wrong Thing

              wugga wugga

              wumpus

              WYSIAYG

              WYSIWYG


Index X
X

              X

              XEROX PARC

              XOFF

              XON

              xor

              xref

              XXX

              xyzzy


Index Y
Y

              YA-

              YABA

              YAFIYGI

              YAUN

              Yellow Book

              yellow wire

              Yet Another

              YKYBHTL

              You are not expected to understand this

              You know you've been hacking too long when...

              Your mileage may vary

              Yow!

              yoyo mode

              Yu-Shiang Whole Fish


Index Z
Z

              zap

              zapped

              zen

              zero

              zero-content

              zeroth

              zigamorph

              zip

              zipperhead

              zombie

              zorch

              Zork

              zorkmid


Index [~a-z]
[^A-Za-z] (see {regexp})

              'Snooze

              (TM)

              -oid

              -ware

              /dev/null

              0

              1TBS

              120 reset

              2

              @-party

              @Begin

              \begin

              (Lexicon Entries End Here)


The Jargon File Version 2.9.12

#========= THIS IS THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.12, 10 MAY 1993 =========#

This is the Jargon File, a comprehensive compendium of hacker slang

illuminating many aspects of hackish tradition, folklore, and humor.

This document (the Jargon File) is in the public domain, to be freely

used, shared, and modified.  There are (by intention) no legal

restraints on what you can do with it, but there are traditions about

its proper use to which many hackers are quite strongly attached.

Please extend the courtesy of proper citation when you quote the File,

ideally with a version number, as it will change and grow over time.

(Examples of appropriate citation form: "Jargon File 2.9.12" or

"The on-line hacker Jargon File, version 2.9.12, 10 MAY 1993".)

The Jargon File is a common heritage of the hacker culture.

Over the years a number of individuals have volunteered considerable

time to maintaining the File and been recognized by the net at large

as editors of it.  Editorial responsibilities include: to collate

contributions and suggestions from others; to seek out corroborating

information; to cross-reference related entries; to keep the file in a

consistent format; and to announce and distribute updated versions

periodically.  Current volunteer editors include:

        Eric Raymond    esr@snark.thyrsus.com   (215)-296-5718

Although there is no requirement that you do so, it is considered good

form to check with an editor before quoting the File in a published work

or commercial product.  We may have additional information that would be

helpful to you and can assist you in framing your quote to reflect

not only the letter of the File but its spirit as well.

All contributions and suggestions about this file sent to a volunteer

editor are gratefully received and will be regarded, unless otherwise

labelled, as freely given donations for possible use as part of this

public-domain file.

From time to time a snapshot of this file has been polished, edited,

and formatted for commercial publication with the cooperation of the

volunteer editors and the hacker community at large.  If you wish to

have a bound paper copy of this file, you may find it convenient to

purchase one of these.  They often contain additional material not

found in on-line versions.  The two `authorized' editions so far are

described in the Revision History section; there may be more in the

future.


About This File
Introduction:

About This File

This document is a collection of slang terms used by various subcultures

of computer hackers.  Though some technical material is included for

background and flavor, it is not a technical dictionary; what we

describe here is the language hackers use among themselves for fun,

social communication, and technical debate.

The `hacker culture' is actually a loosely networked collection of

subcultures that is nevertheless conscious of some important shared

experiences, shared roots, and shared values.  It has its own myths,

heroes, villains, folk epics, in-jokes, taboos, and dreams.  Because

hackers as a group are particularly creative people who define

themselves partly by rejection of `normal' values and working habits, it

has unusually rich and conscious traditions for an intentional culture

less than 35 years old.

As usual with slang, the special vocabulary of hackers helps hold their

culture together --- it helps hackers recognize each other's places in

the community and expresses shared values and experiences.  Also as

usual, *not* knowing the slang (or using it inappropriately) defines one

as an outsider, a mundane, or (worst of all in hackish vocabulary)

possibly even a {suit}.  All human cultures use slang in this threefold

way --- as a tool of communication, and of inclusion, and of exclusion.

Among hackers, though, slang has a subtler aspect, paralleled perhaps in

the slang of jazz musicians and some kinds of fine artists but hard to

detect in most technical or scientific cultures; parts of it are code

for shared states of *consciousness*.  There is a whole range of altered

states and problem-solving mental stances basic to high-level hacking

which don't fit into conventional linguistic reality any better than a

Coltrane solo or one of Maurits Escher's `trompe l'oeil' compositions

(Escher is a favorite of hackers), and hacker slang encodes these

subtleties in many unobvious ways.  As a simple example, take the

distinction between a {kluge} and an {elegant} solution, and the

differing connotations attached to each.  The distinction is not only of

engineering significance; it reaches right back into the nature of the

generative processes in program design and asserts something important

about two different kinds of relationship between the hacker and the

hack.  Hacker slang is unusually rich in implications of this kind, of

overtones and undertones that illuminate the hackish psyche.

But there is more.  Hackers, as a rule, love wordplay and are very

conscious and inventive in their use of language.  These traits seem to

be common in young children, but the conformity-enforcing machine we are

pleased to call an educational system bludgeons them out of most of us

before adolescence.  Thus, linguistic invention in most subcultures of

the modern West is a halting and largely unconscious process.  Hackers,

by contrast, regard slang formation and use as a game to be played for

conscious pleasure.  Their inventions thus display an almost unique

combination of the neotenous enjoyment of language-play with the

discrimination of educated and powerful intelligence.  Further, the

electronic media which knit them together are fluid, `hot' connections,

well adapted to both the dissemination of new slang and the ruthless

culling of weak and superannuated specimens.  The results of this

process give us perhaps a uniquely intense and accelerated view of

linguistic evolution in action.

Hackish slang also challenges some common linguistic and

anthropological assumptions.  For example, it has recently become

fashionable to speak of `low-context' versus `high-context'

communication, and to classify cultures by the preferred context level

of their languages and art forms.  It is usually claimed that

low-context communication (characterized by precision, clarity, and

completeness of self-contained utterances) is typical in cultures

which value logic, objectivity, individualism, and competition; by

contrast, high-context communication (elliptical, emotive,

nuance-filled, multi-modal, heavily coded) is associated with cultures

which value subjectivity, consensus, cooperation, and tradition.  What

then are we to make of hackerdom, which is themed around extremely

low-context interaction with computers and exhibits primarily

"low-context" values, but cultivates an almost absurdly high-context

slang style?

The intensity and consciousness of hackish invention make a compilation

of hacker slang a particularly effective window into the surrounding

culture --- and, in fact, this one is the latest version of an evolving

compilation called the `Jargon File', maintained by hackers themselves

for over 15 years.  This one (like its ancestors) is primarily a

lexicon, but also includes `topic entries' which collect background or

sidelight information on hacker culture that would be awkward to try to

subsume under individual entries.

Though the format is that of a reference volume, it is intended that the

material be enjoyable to browse.  Even a complete outsider should find

at least a chuckle on nearly every page, and much that is amusingly

thought-provoking.  But it is also true that hackers use humorous

wordplay to make strong, sometimes combative statements about what they

feel.  Some of these entries reflect the views of opposing sides in

disputes that have been genuinely passionate; this is deliberate.  We

have not tried to moderate or pretty up these disputes; rather we have

attempted to ensure that *everyone's* sacred cows get gored,

impartially.  Compromise is not particularly a hackish virtue, but the

honest presentation of divergent viewpoints is.

The reader with minimal computer background who finds some references

incomprehensibly technical can safely ignore them.  We have not felt it

either necessary or desirable to eliminate all such; they, too,

contribute flavor, and one of this document's major intended audiences

--- fledgling hackers already partway inside the culture --- will

benefit from them.

A selection of longer items of hacker folklore and humor is included in

{appendix A}.  The `outside' reader's attention is particularly directed

to {appendix B}, "A Portrait of J. Random Hacker".  {Appendix C} is a

bibliography of non-technical works which have either influenced or

described the hacker culture.

Because hackerdom is an intentional culture (one each individual must

choose by action to join), one should not be surprised that the line

between description and influence can become more than a little

blurred.  Earlier versions of the Jargon File have played a central role

in spreading hacker language and the culture that goes with it to

successively larger populations, and we hope and expect that this one

will do likewise.


Of Slang, Jargon, and Techspeak
:Of Slang, Jargon, and Techspeak:

=================================

Linguists usually refer to informal language as `slang' and reserve the

term `jargon' for the technical vocabularies of various occupations.

However, the ancestor of this collection was called the `Jargon File',

and hackish slang is traditionally `the jargon'.  When talking about the

jargon there is therefore no convenient way to distinguish it from what

a *linguist* would call hackers' jargon --- the formal vocabulary they

learn from textbooks, technical papers, and manuals.

To make a confused situation worse, the line between hackish slang and

the vocabulary of technical programming and computer science is fuzzy,

and shifts over time.  Further, this vocabulary is shared with a wider

technical culture of programmers, many of whom are not hackers and do

not speak or recognize hackish slang.

Accordingly, this lexicon will try to be as precise as the facts of

usage permit about the distinctions among three categories:

   * `slang': informal language from mainstream English or non-technical

     subcultures (bikers, rock fans, surfers, etc).

   * `jargon': without qualifier, denotes informal `slangy' language

     peculiar to or predominantly found among hackers --- the subject of

     this lexicon.

   * `techspeak': the formal technical vocabulary of programming,

     computer science, electronics, and other fields connected to

     hacking.

This terminology will be consistently used throughout the remainder of

this lexicon.

The jargon/techspeak distinction is the delicate one.  A lot of

techspeak originated as jargon, and there is a steady continuing uptake

of jargon into techspeak.  On the other hand, a lot of jargon arises

from overgeneralization of techspeak terms (there is more about this in

the "Jargon Construction" section below).

In general, we have considered techspeak any term that communicates

primarily by a denotation well established in textbooks, technical

dictionaries, or standards documents.

A few obviously techspeak terms (names of operating systems, languages,

or documents) are listed when they are tied to hacker folklore that

isn't covered in formal sources, or sometimes to convey critical

historical background necessary to understand other entries to which

they are cross-referenced.  Some other techspeak senses of jargon words

are listed in order to make the jargon senses clear; where the text does

not specify that a straight technical sense is under discussion, these

are marked with `[techspeak]' as an etymology.  Some entries have a

primary sense marked this way, with subsequent jargon meanings explained

in terms of it.

We have also tried to indicate (where known) the apparent origins of

terms.  The results are probably the least reliable information in the

lexicon, for several reasons.  For one thing, it is well known that many

hackish usages have been independently reinvented multiple times, even

among the more obscure and intricate neologisms.  It often seems that

the generative processes underlying hackish jargon formation have an

internal logic so powerful as to create substantial parallelism across

separate cultures and even in different languages!  For another, the

networks tend to propagate innovations so quickly that `first use' is

often impossible to pin down.  And, finally, compendia like this one

alter what they observe by implicitly stamping cultural approval on

terms and widening their use.

Despite these problems, the organized collection of jargon-related oral

history for the File's 2.x.x versions has enabled us to put to rest

quite a number of folk etymologies, place credit where credit is due,

and illuminate the early history of many important hackerisms such as

{kluge}, {cruft}, and {foo}.  We believe specialist lexicographers will

find many of the historical notes more than casually instructive.


Revision History
:Revision History:

==================

The original Jargon File was a collection of hacker jargon from

technical cultures including the MIT AI Lab, the Stanford AI lab (SAIL),

and others of the old ARPANET AI/LISP/PDP-10 communities including Bolt,

Beranek and Newman (BBN), Carnegie-Mellon University (CMU), and

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI).

The Jargon File (hereafter referred to as `jargon-1' or `the File') was

begun by Raphael Finkel at Stanford in 1975.  From this time until the

plug was finally pulled on the SAIL computer in 1991, the File was named

AIWORD.RF[UP,DOC] there.  Some terms in it date back considerably

earlier ({frob} and some senses of {moby}, for instance, go back to the

Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT and are believed to date at least back

to the early 1960s).  The revisions of jargon-1 were all unnumbered and

may be collectively considered `Version 1'.

In 1976, Mark Crispin, having seen an announcement about the File on the

SAIL computer, {FTP}ed a copy of the File to MIT.  He noticed that it

was hardly restricted to `AI words' and so stored the file on his

directory as AI:MRC;SAIL JARGON.

The file was quickly renamed JARGON > (the `>' caused versioning under

ITS) as a flurry of enhancements were made by Mark Crispin and Guy L.

Steele Jr.  Unfortunately, amidst all this activity, nobody thought of

correcting the term `jargon' to `slang' until the compendium had already

become widely known as the Jargon File.

Raphael Finkel dropped out of active participation shortly thereafter

and Don Woods became the SAIL contact for the File (which was

subsequently kept in duplicate at SAIL and MIT, with periodic

resynchronizations).

The File expanded by fits and starts until about 1983; Richard Stallman

was prominent among the contributors, adding many MIT and ITS-related

coinages.

In Spring 1981, a hacker named Charles Spurgeon got a large chunk of the

File published in Stewart Brand's `CoEvolution Quarterly' (issue 29,

pages 26--35) with illustrations by Phil Wadler and Guy Steele

(including a couple of the Crunchly cartoons).  This appears to have

been the File's first paper publication.

A late version of jargon-1, expanded with commentary for the mass

market, was edited by Guy Steele into a book published in 1983 as `The

Hacker's Dictionary' (Harper & Row CN 1082, ISBN 0-06-091082-8).  The

other jargon-1 editors (Raphael Finkel, Don Woods, and Mark Crispin)

contributed to this revision, as did Richard M. Stallman and Geoff

Goodfellow.  This book (now out of print) is hereafter referred to as

`Steele-1983' and those six as the Steele-1983 coauthors.

Shortly after the publication of Steele-1983, the File effectively

stopped growing and changing.  Originally, this was due to a desire to

freeze the file temporarily to facilitate the production of Steele-1983,

but external conditions caused the `temporary' freeze to become

permanent.

The AI Lab culture had been hit hard in the late 1970s by funding cuts

and the resulting administrative decision to use vendor-supported

hardware and software instead of homebrew whenever possible.  At MIT,

most AI work had turned to dedicated LISP Machines.  At the same time,

the commercialization of AI technology lured some of the AI Lab's best

and brightest away to startups along the Route 128 strip in

Massachusetts and out West in Silicon Valley.  The startups built LISP

machines for MIT; the central MIT-AI computer became a {TWENEX} system

rather than a host for the AI hackers' beloved {ITS}.

The Stanford AI Lab had effectively ceased to exist by 1980, although

the SAIL computer continued as a Computer Science Department resource

until 1991.  Stanford became a major {TWENEX} site, at one point

operating more than a dozen TOPS-20 systems; but by the mid-1980s most

of the interesting software work was being done on the emerging BSD UNIX

standard.

In April 1983, the PDP-10-centered cultures that had nourished the File

were dealt a death-blow by the cancellation of the Jupiter project at

Digital Equipment Corporation.  The File's compilers, already dispersed,

moved on to other things.  Steele-1983 was partly a monument to what its

authors thought was a dying tradition; no one involved realized at the

time just how wide its influence was to be.

By the mid-1980s the File's content was dated, but the legend that had

grown up around it never quite died out.  The book, and softcopies

obtained off the ARPANET, circulated even in cultures far removed from

MIT and Stanford; the content exerted a strong and continuing influence

on hackish language and humor.  Even as the advent of the microcomputer

and other trends fueled a tremendous expansion of hackerdom, the File

(and related materials such as the AI Koans in Appendix A) came to be

seen as a sort of sacred epic, a hacker-culture Matter of Britain

chronicling the heroic exploits of the Knights of the Lab.  The pace of

change in hackerdom at large accelerated tremendously --- but the Jargon

File, having passed from living document to icon, remained essentially

untouched for seven years.

This revision contains nearly the entire text of a late version of

jargon-1 (a few obsolete PDP-10-related entries were dropped after

careful consultation with the editors of Steele-1983).  It merges in

about 80% of the Steele-1983 text, omitting some framing material and a

very few entries introduced in Steele-1983 that are now also obsolete.

This new version casts a wider net than the old Jargon File; its aim is

to cover not just AI or PDP-10 hacker culture but all the technical

computing cultures wherein the true hacker-nature is manifested.  More

than half of the entries now derive from {USENET} and represent jargon

now current in the C and UNIX communities, but special efforts have been

made to collect jargon from other cultures including IBM PC programmers,

Amiga fans, Mac enthusiasts, and even the IBM mainframe world.

Eric S. Raymond <esr@snark.thyrsus.com> maintains the new File with

assistance from Guy L. Steele Jr. <gls@think.com>; these are the persons

primarily reflected in the File's editorial `we', though we take

pleasure in acknowledging the special contribution of the other

coauthors of Steele-1983.  Please email all additions, corrections, and

correspondence relating to the Jargon File to jargon@thyrsus.com

(UUCP-only sites without connections to an autorouting smart site can

use ...!uunet!snark!jargon).

(Warning: other email addresses appear in this file *but are not

guaranteed to be correct* later than the revision date on the first

line.  *Don't* email us if an attempt to reach your idol bounces --- we

have no magic way of checking addresses or looking up people.)

The 2.9.6 version became the main text of `The New Hacker's Dictionary',

by Eric Raymond (ed.), MIT Press 1991, ISBN 0-262-68069-6.  The

maintainers are committed to updating the on-line version of the Jargon

File through and beyond paper publication, and will continue to make it

available to archives and public-access sites as a trust of the hacker

community.

Here is a chronology of the high points in the recent on-line revisions:

Version 2.1.1, Jun 12 1990: the Jargon File comes alive again after a

seven-year hiatus.  Reorganization and massive additions were by Eric

S.  Raymond, approved by Guy Steele.  Many items of UNIX, C, USENET, and

microcomputer-based jargon were added at that time (as well as The

Untimely Demise of Mabel The Monkey).

Version 2.9.6, Aug 16 1991: corresponds to reproduction copy for book.

This version had 18952 lines, 148629 words, 975551 characters, and 1702

entries.

Version 2.9.8, Jan 01 1992: first public release since the book,

including over fifty new entries and numerous corrections/additions to

old ones.  Packaged with version 1.1 of vh(1) hypertext reader.  This

version had 19509 lines, 153108 words, 1006023 characters, and 1760

entries.

Version 2.9.9, Apr 01 1992: folded in XEROX PARC lexicon.  This version

had 20298 lines, 159651 words, 1048909 characters, and 1821 entries.

Version 2.9.10, Jul 01 1992: lots of new historical material.  This

version had 21349 lines, 168330 words, 1106991 characters, and 1891

entries.

Version 2.9.11, Jan 01 1993: lots of new historical material.  This

version had 21725 lines, 171169 words, 1125880 characters, and 1922

entries.

Version 2.9.12, May 10 1993: a few new entries & changes, marginal

MUD/IRC slang and some borderline techspeak removed, all in preparation

for 2nd Edition of TNHD.  This version had 22238 lines, 175114 words,

1152467 characters, and 1946 entries.

Version numbering: Version numbers should be read as

major.minor.revision.  Major version 1 is reserved for the `old' (ITS)

Jargon File, jargon-1.  Major version 2 encompasses revisions by ESR

(Eric S. Raymond) with assistance from GLS (Guy L.  Steele, Jr.) leading

up to and including the second paper edition.  From now on, major

version number N.00 will probably correspond to the Nth paper edition.

Usually later versions will either completely supersede or incorporate

earlier versions, so there is generally no point in keeping old versions

around.

Our thanks to the coauthors of Steele-1983 for oversight and assistance,

and to the hundreds of USENETters (too many to name here) who

contributed entries and encouragement.  More thanks go to several of the

old-timers on the USENET group alt.folklore.computers, who contributed

much useful commentary and many corrections and valuable historical

perspective: Joseph M. Newcomer <jn11+@andrew.cmu.edu>, Bernie Cosell

<cosell@bbn.com>, Earl Boebert <boebert@SCTC.com>, and Joe Morris

<jcmorris@mwunix.mitre.org>.

We were fortunate enough to have the aid of some accomplished

linguists.  David Stampe <stampe@uhunix.uhcc.hawaii.edu> and Charles

Hoequist <hoequist@bnr.ca> contributed valuable criticism; Joe Keane

<jgk@osc.osc.com> helped us improve the pronunciation guides.

A few bits of this text quote previous works.  We are indebted to Brian

A. LaMacchia <bal@zurich.ai.mit.edu> for obtaining permission for us to

use material from the `TMRC Dictionary'; also, Don Libes

<libes@cme.nist.gov> contributed some appropriate material from his

excellent book `Life With UNIX'.  We thank Per Lindberg <per@front.se>,

author of the remarkable Swedish-language 'zine `Hackerbladet', for

bringing `FOO!' comics to our attention and smuggling one of the IBM

hacker underground's own baby jargon files out to us.  Thanks also to

Maarten Litmaath for generously allowing the inclusion of the ASCII

pronunciation guide he formerly maintained.  And our gratitude to Marc

Weiser of XEROX PARC <Marc_Weiser.PARC@xerox.com> for securing us

permission to quote from PARC's own jargon lexicon and shipping us a

copy.

It is a particular pleasure to acknowledge the major contributions of

Mark Brader <msb@sq.com> to the final manuscript; he read and reread

many drafts, checked facts, caught typos, submitted an amazing number of

thoughtful comments, and did yeoman service in catching typos and minor

usage bobbles.  Mr. Brader's rare combination of enthusiasm,

persistence, wide-ranging technical knowledge, and precisionism in

matters of language made his help invaluable, and the sustained volume

and quality of his input over many months only allowed him to escape

co-editor credit by the slimmest of margins.

Finally, George V. Reilly <gvr@cs.brown.edu> helped with TeX arcana and

painstakingly proofread some 2.7 and 2.8 versions; Steve Summit

<scs@adam.mit.edu> contributed a number of excellent new entries and

many small improvements to 2.9.10; and Eric Tiedemann <est@thyrsus.com>

contributed sage advice throughout on rhetoric, amphigory, and

philosophunculism.


How Jargon Works

Jargon Construction

There are some standard methods of jargonification that became

established quite early (i.e., before 1970), spreading from such sources

as the Tech Model Railroad Club, the PDP-1 SPACEWAR hackers, and John

McCarthy's original crew of LISPers.  These include the following:


Verb Doubling
:Verb Doubling:  --------------- A standard construction in English is to

double a verb and use it as an exclamation, such as "Bang, bang!" or

"Quack, quack!".  Most of these are names for noises.  Hackers also

double verbs as a concise, sometimes sarcastic comment on what the

implied subject does.  Also, a doubled verb is often used to terminate a

conversation, in the process remarking on the current state of affairs

or what the speaker intends to do next.  Typical examples involve {win},

{lose}, {hack}, {flame}, {barf}, {chomp}:

     "The disk heads just crashed."  "Lose, lose."

     "Mostly he talked about his latest crock.  Flame, flame."

     "Boy, what a bagbiter!  Chomp, chomp!"

Some verb-doubled constructions have special meanings not immediately

obvious from the verb.  These have their own listings in the lexicon.

The {USENET} culture has one *tripling* convention unrelated to

this; the names of `joke' topic groups often have a tripled last

element.  The first and paradigmatic example was

alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork (a "Muppet Show" reference);

other infamous examples have included:

     alt.french.captain.borg.borg.borg

     alt.wesley.crusher.die.die.die

     comp.unix.internals.system.calls.brk.brk.brk

     sci.physics.edward.teller.boom.boom.boom

     alt.sadistic.dentists.drill.drill.drill


Soundalike slang
:Soundalike slang:  ------------------ Hackers will often make rhymes or

puns in order to convert an ordinary word or phrase into something more

interesting.  It is considered particularly {flavorful} if the phrase is

bent so as to include some other jargon word; thus the computer hobbyist

magazine `Dr. Dobb's Journal' is almost always referred to among hackers

as `Dr. Frob's Journal' or simply `Dr. Frob's'.  Terms of this kind that

have been in fairly wide use include names for newspapers:

     Boston Herald => Horrid (or Harried)

     Boston Globe => Boston Glob

     Houston (or San Francisco) Chronicle

            => the Crocknicle (or the Comical)

     New York Times => New York Slime

However, terms like these are often made up on the spur of the moment.

Standard examples include:

     Data General => Dirty Genitals

     IBM 360 => IBM Three-Sickly

     Government Property --- Do Not Duplicate (on keys)

            => Government Duplicity --- Do Not Propagate

     for historical reasons => for hysterical raisins

     Margaret Jacks Hall (the CS building at Stanford)

            => Marginal Hacks Hall

This is not really similar to the Cockney rhyming slang it has been

compared to in the past, because Cockney substitutions are opaque

whereas hacker punning jargon is intentionally transparent.


The `-P' convention
:The `-P' convention:  --------------------- Turning a word into a

question by appending the syllable `P'; from the LISP convention of

appending the letter `P' to denote a predicate (a boolean-valued

function).  The question should expect a yes/no answer, though it

needn't.  (See {T} and {NIL}.)

     At dinnertime:

           Q: "Foodp?"

           A: "Yeah, I'm pretty hungry." or "T!"

     At any time:

           Q: "State-of-the-world-P?"

           A: (Straight) "I'm about to go home."

           A: (Humorous) "Yes, the world has a state."

     On the phone to Florida:

           Q: "State-p Florida?"

           A: "Been reading JARGON.TXT again, eh?"

[One of the best of these is a {Gosperism}.  Once, when we were at a

Chinese restaurant, Bill Gosper wanted to know whether someone would

like to share with him a two-person-sized bowl of soup.  His inquiry

was: "Split-p soup?" --- GLS]


Overgeneralization
:Overgeneralization:  -------------------- A very conspicuous feature of

jargon is the frequency with which techspeak items such as names of

program tools, command language primitives, and even assembler opcodes

are applied to contexts outside of computing wherever hackers find

amusing analogies to them.  Thus (to cite one of the best-known

examples) UNIX hackers often {grep} for things rather than searching for

them.  Many of the lexicon entries are generalizations of exactly this

kind.

Hackers enjoy overgeneralization on the grammatical level as well.  Many

hackers love to take various words and add the wrong endings to them to

make nouns and verbs, often by extending a standard rule to nonuniform

cases (or vice versa).  For example, because

     porous => porosity

     generous => generosity

hackers happily generalize:

     mysterious => mysteriosity

     ferrous => ferrosity

     obvious => obviosity

     dubious => dubiosity

Another class of common construction uses the suffix `-itude' to

abstract a quality from just about any adjective or noun.  This

is used especially in cases where mainstream English would perform the

same abstraction through `-iness' or `-ingness'.  Thus:

win =>winnitude (a common exclamation)loss =>lossitudecruft =>cruftitudelame =>lameitude

Some hackers cheerfully reverse this; they argue, for example, that

the horizontal degree lines on a globe ought to be called `lats' ---

after all, they're measuring latitude!

Also, note that all nouns can be verbed.  E.g.: "All nouns can be

verbed", "I'll mouse it up", "Hang on while I clipboard it over", "I'm

grepping the files".  English as a whole is already heading in this

direction (towards pure-positional grammar like Chinese); hackers are

simply a bit ahead of the curve.

However, hackers avoid the unimaginative verb-making techniques

characteristic of marketroids, bean-counters, and the Pentagon; a hacker

would never, for example, `productize', `prioritize', or `securitize'

things.  Hackers have a strong aversion to bureaucratic bafflegab and

regard those who use it with contempt.

Similarly, all verbs can be nouned.  This is only a slight

overgeneralization in modern English; in hackish, however, it is good

form to mark them in some standard nonstandard way.  Thus:

     win => winnitude, winnage

     disgust => disgustitude

     hack => hackification

Further, note the prevalence of certain kinds of nonstandard plural

forms.  Some of these go back quite a ways; the TMRC Dictionary includes

an entry which implies that the plural of `mouse' is {meeces}, and notes

that the defined plural of `caboose' is `cabeese'.  This latter has

apparently been standard (or at least a standard joke) among railfans

(railroad enthusiasts) for many years.

On a similarly Anglo-Saxon note, almost anything ending in `x' may form

plurals in `-xen' (see {VAXen} and {boxen} in the main text).  Even

words ending in phonetic /k/ alone are sometimes treated this way; e.g.,

`soxen' for a bunch of socks.  Other funny plurals are `frobbotzim' for

the plural of `frobbozz' (see {frobnitz}) and `Unices' and `Twenices'

(rather than `Unixes' and `Twenexes'; see {UNIX}, {TWENEX} in main

text).  But note that `Unixen' and `Twenexen' are never used; it has

been suggested that this is because `-ix' and `-ex' are Latin singular

endings that attract a Latinate plural.  Finally, it has been suggested

to general approval that the plural of `mongoose' ought to be

`polygoose'.

The pattern here, as with other hackish grammatical quirks, is

generalization of an inflectional rule that in English is either an

import or a fossil (such as the Hebrew plural ending `-im', or the

Anglo-Saxon plural suffix `-en') to cases where it isn't normally

considered to apply.

This is not `poor grammar', as hackers are generally quite well aware of

what they are doing when they distort the language.  It is grammatical

creativity, a form of playfulness.  It is done not to impress but to

amuse, and never at the expense of clarity.


Spoken inarticulations
:Spoken inarticulations:  ------------------------ Words such as

`mumble', `sigh', and `groan' are spoken in places where their referent

might more naturally be used.  It has been suggested that this usage

derives from the impossibility of representing such noises on a comm

link or in electronic mail (interestingly, the same sorts of

constructions have been showing up with increasing frequency in comic

strips).  Another expression sometimes heard is "Complain!", meaning "I

have a complaint!"


Anthromorphization
:Anthromorphization:  -------------------- Semantically, one rich source

of jargon constructions is the hackish tendency to anthropomorphize

hardware and software.  This isn't done in a naive way; hackers don't

personalize their stuff in the sense of feeling empathy with it, nor do

they mystically believe that the things they work on every day are

`alive'.  What *is* common is to hear hardware or software talked about

as though it has homunculi talking to each other inside it, with

intentions and desires.  Thus, one hears "The protocol handler got

confused", or that programs "are trying" to do things, or one may say of

a routine that "its goal in life is to X".  One even hears explanations

like "...  and its poor little brain couldn't understand X, and it

died."  Sometimes modelling things this way actually seems to make them

easier to understand, perhaps because it's instinctively natural to

think of anything with a really complex behavioral repertoire as `like a

person' rather than `like a thing'.

Of the six listed constructions, verb doubling, peculiar noun

formations, anthromorphization, and (especially) spoken inarticulations

have become quite general; but punning jargon is still largely confined

to MIT and other large universities, and the `-P' convention is found

only where LISPers flourish.

Finally, note that many words in hacker jargon have to be understood as

members of sets of comparatives.  This is especially true of the

adjectives and nouns used to describe the beauty and functional quality

of code.  Here is an approximately correct spectrum:

     monstrosity  brain-damage  screw  bug  lose  misfeature

     crock  kluge  hack  win  feature  elegance  perfection

The last is spoken of as a mythical absolute, approximated but never

actually attained.  Another similar scale is used for describing the

reliability of software:

     broken  flaky  dodgy  fragile  brittle

     solid  robust  bulletproof  armor-plated

Note, however, that `dodgy' is primarily Commonwealth hackish (it is

rare in the U.S.) and may change places with `flaky' for some speakers.

Coinages for describing {lossage} seem to call forth the very finest in

hackish linguistic inventiveness; it has been truly said that hackers

have even more words for equipment failures than Yiddish has for

obnoxious people.


Hacker Writing Style
:Hacker Writing Style:

======================

We've already seen that hackers often coin jargon by overgeneralizing

grammatical rules.  This is one aspect of a more general fondness for

form-versus-content language jokes that shows up particularly in hackish

writing.  One correspondent reports that he consistently misspells

`wrong' as `worng'.  Others have been known to criticize glitches in

Jargon File drafts by observing (in the mode of Douglas Hofstadter)

"This sentence no verb", or "Too repetetetive", or "Bad speling", or

"Incorrectspa cing."  Similarly, intentional spoonerisms are often made

of phrases relating to confusion or things that are confusing; `dain

bramage' for `brain damage' is perhaps the most common (similarly, a

hacker would be likely to write "Excuse me, I'm cixelsyd today", rather

than "I'm dyslexic today").  This sort of thing is quite common and is

enjoyed by all concerned.

Hackers tend to use quotes as balanced delimiters like parentheses, much

to the dismay of American editors.  Thus, if "Jim is going" is a phrase,

and so are "Bill runs" and "Spock groks", then hackers generally prefer

to write: "Jim is going", "Bill runs", and "Spock groks".  This is

incorrect according to standard American usage (which would put the

continuation commas and the final period inside the string quotes);

however, it is counter-intuitive to hackers to mutilate literal strings

with characters that don't belong in them.  Given the sorts of examples

that can come up in discussions of programming, American-style quoting

can even be grossly misleading.  When communicating command lines or

small pieces of code, extra characters can be a real pain in the neck.

Consider, for example, a sentence in a {vi} tutorial that looks like this:

     Then delete a line from the file by typing "dd".

Standard usage would make this

     Then delete a line from the file by typing "dd."

but that would be very bad --- because the reader would be prone to type

the string d-d-dot, and it happens that in `vi(1)' dot repeats the last

command accepted.  The net result would be to delete *two* lines!

The Jargon File follows hackish usage throughout.

Interestingly, a similar style is now preferred practice in Great

Britain, though the older style (which became established for

typographical reasons having to do with the aesthetics of comma and

quotes in typeset text) is still accepted there.  `Hart's Rules' and the

`Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors' call the hacker-like style

`new' or `logical' quoting.

Another hacker quirk is a tendency to distinguish between `scare' quotes

and `speech' quotes; that is, to use British-style single quotes for

marking and reserve American-style double quotes for actual reports of

speech or text included from elsewhere.  Interestingly, some authorities

describe this as correct general usage, but mainstream American English

has gone to using double-quotes indiscriminately enough that hacker

usage appears marked [and, in fact, I thought this was a personal quirk

of mine until I checked with USENET --- ESR].  One further permutation

that is definitely *not* standard is a hackish tendency to do marking

quotes by using apostrophes (single quotes) in pairs; that is, 'like

this'.  This is modelled on string and character literal syntax in some

programming languages (reinforced by the fact that many character-only

terminals display the apostrophe in typewriter style, as a vertical

single quote).

One quirk that shows up frequently in the {email} style of UNIX hackers

in particular is a tendency for some things that are normally

all-lowercase (including usernames and the names of commands and C

routines) to remain uncapitalized even when they occur at the beginning

of sentences.  It is clear that, for many hackers, the case of such

identifiers becomes a part of their internal representation (the

`spelling') and cannot be overridden without mental effort (an

appropriate reflex because UNIX and C both distinguish cases and

confusing them can lead to {lossage}).  A way of escaping this dilemma

is simply to avoid using these constructions at the beginning of

sentences.

There seems to be a meta-rule behind these nonstandard hackerisms to the

effect that precision of expression is more important than conformance

to traditional rules; where the latter create ambiguity or lose

information they can be discarded without a second thought.  It is

notable in this respect that other hackish inventions (for example, in

vocabulary) also tend to carry very precise shades of meaning even when

constructed to appear slangy and loose.  In fact, to a hacker, the

contrast between `loose' form and `tight' content in jargon is a

substantial part of its humor!

Hackers have also developed a number of punctuation and emphasis

conventions adapted to single-font all-ASCII communications links, and

these are occasionally carried over into written documents even when

normal means of font changes, underlining, and the like are available.

One of these is that TEXT IN ALL CAPS IS INTERPRETED AS `LOUD', and this

becomes such an ingrained synesthetic reflex that a person who goes to

caps-lock while in {talk mode} may be asked to "stop shouting, please,

you're hurting my ears!".

Also, it is common to use bracketing with unusual characters to signify

emphasis.  The asterisk is most common, as in "What the *hell*?" even

though this interferes with the common use of the asterisk suffix as a

footnote mark.  The underscore is also common, suggesting underlining

(this is particularly common with book titles; for example, "It is often

alleged that Joe Haldeman wrote _The_Forever_War_ as a rebuttal to

Robert Heinlein's earlier novel of the future military,

_Starship_Troopers_.").  Other forms exemplified by "=hell=", "\hell/",

or "/hell/" are occasionally seen (it's claimed that in the last example

the first slash pushes the letters over to the right to make them

italic, and the second keeps them from falling over).  Finally, words

may also be emphasized L I K E T H I S, or by a series of carets (^)

under them on the next line of the text.

There is a semantic difference between *emphasis like this* (which

emphasizes the phrase as a whole), and *emphasis* *like* *this* (which

suggests the writer speaking very slowly and distinctly, as if to a

very young child or a mentally impaired person).  Bracketing a word with

the `*' character may also indicate that the writer wishes readers to

consider that an action is taking place or that a sound is being made.

Examples: *bang*, *hic*, *ring*, *grin*, *kick*, *stomp*, *mumble*.

Another habit is that of using angle-bracket enclosure to genericize a

term; this derives from conventions used in {BNF}.  Uses like the

following are common:

     So this <ethnic> walks into a bar one day, and...

There is also an accepted convention for `writing under erasure'; the

text

     Be nice to this fool^H^H^H^Hgentleman, he's in from corporate HQ.

would be read as "Be nice to this fool, I mean this gentleman...".  This

comes from the fact that the digraph ^H is often used as a print

representation for a backspace.  It parallels (and may have been

influenced by) the ironic use of `slashouts' in science-fiction

fanzines.

In a formula, `*' signifies multiplication but two asterisks in a row

are a shorthand for exponentiation (this derives from FORTRAN).  Thus,

one might write 2 ** 8 = 256.

Another notation for exponentiation one sees more frequently uses the

caret (^, ASCII 1011110); one might write instead `2^8 = 256'.  This

goes all the way back to Algol-60, which used the archaic ASCII

`up-arrow' that later became the caret; this was picked up by Kemeny and

Kurtz's original BASIC, which in turn influenced the design of the

`bc(1)' and `dc(1)' UNIX tools, which have probably done most to

reinforce the convention on USENET.  The notation is mildly confusing to

C programmers, because `^' means bitwise {XOR} in C.  Despite this, it

was favored 3:1 over ** in a late-1990 snapshot of USENET.  It is used

consistently in this text.

In on-line exchanges, hackers tend to use decimal forms or improper

fractions (`3.5' or `7/2') rather than `typewriter style' mixed

fractions (`3-1/2').  The major motive here is probably that the former

are more readable in a monospaced font, together with a desire to avoid

the risk that the latter might be read as `three minus one-half'.  The

decimal form is definitely preferred for fractions with a terminating

decimal representation; there may be some cultural influence here from

the high status of scientific notation.

Another on-line convention, used especially for very large or very small

numbers, is taken from C (which derived it from FORTRAN).  This is a

form of `scientific notation' using `e' to replace `*10^'; for example,

one year is about 3e7 seconds long.

The tilde (~) is commonly used in a quantifying sense of

`approximately'; that is, `~50' means `about fifty'.

On USENET and in the {MUD} world, common C boolean, logical, and

relational operators such as `|', `&', `||', `&&', `!', `==', `!=', `>',

`<', `>=', and `=<' are often combined with English.  The Pascal

not-equals, `<>', is also recognized, and occasionally one sees `/=' for

not-equals (from Ada, Common Lisp, and Fortran 90).  The use of prefix

`!' as a loose synonym for `not-' or `no-' is particularly common; thus,

`!clue' is read `no-clue' or `clueless'.

A related practice borrows syntax from preferred programming languages

to express ideas in a natural-language text.  For example, one might

see the following:

     In <jrh578689@thudpucker.com> J. R. Hacker wrote:

     >I resently had occasion to field-test the Snafu

     >Systems 2300E adaptive gonkulator.  The price was

     >right, and the racing stripe on the case looked

     >kind of neat, but its performance left something

     >to be desired.

     Yeah, I tried one out too.

     #ifdef FLAME

     Hasn't anyone told those idiots that you can't get

     decent bogon suppression with AFJ filters at today's

     net volumes?

     #endif /* FLAME */

     I guess they figured the price premium for true

     frame-based semantic analysis was too high.

     Unfortunately, it's also the only workable approach.

     I wouldn't recommend purchase of this product unless

     you're on a *very* tight budget.

     #include <disclaimer.h>

     --

                      == Frank Foonly (Fubarco Systems)

In the above, the `#ifdef'/`#endif' pair is a conditional compilation

syntax from C; here, it implies that the text between (which is a

{flame}) should be evaluated only if you have turned on (or defined on)

the switch FLAME.  The `#include' at the end is C for "include standard

disclaimer here"; the `standard disclaimer' is understood to read,

roughly, "These are my personal opinions and not to be construed as the

official position of my employer."

The top section in the example, with > at the left margin, is an example

of an inclusion convention we'll discuss below.

Hackers also mix letters and numbers more freely than in mainstream

usage.  In particular, it is good hackish style to write a digit

sequence where you intend the reader to understand the text string that

names that number in English.  So, hackers prefer to write `1970s'

rather than `nineteen-seventies' or `1970's' (the latter looks like a

possessive).

It should also be noted that hackers exhibit much less reluctance to use

multiply nested parentheses than is normal in English.  Part of this is

almost certainly due to influence from LISP (which uses deeply nested

parentheses (like this (see?)) in its syntax a lot), but it has also

been suggested that a more basic hacker trait of enjoying playing with

complexity and pushing systems to their limits is in operation.

Finally, it is worth mentioning that many studies of on-line

communication have shown that electronic links have a de-inhibiting

effect on people.  Deprived of the body-language cues through which

emotional state is expressed, people tend to forget everything about

other parties except what is presented over that ASCII link.  This has

both good and bad effects.  A good one is that it encourages honesty and

tends to break down hierarchical authority relationships; a bad one is

that it may encourage depersonalization and gratuitous rudeness.

Perhaps in response to this, experienced netters often display a sort of

conscious formal politesse in their writing that has passed out of

fashion in other spoken and written media (for example, the phrase "Well

said, sir!" is not uncommon).

Many introverted hackers who are next to inarticulate in person

communicate with considerable fluency over the net, perhaps precisely

because they can forget on an unconscious level that they are dealing

with people and thus don't feel stressed and anxious as they would face

to face.

Though it is considered gauche to publicly criticize posters for poor

spelling or grammar, the network places a premium on literacy and

clarity of expression.  It may well be that future historians of

literature will see in it a revival of the great tradition of personal

letters as art.


Email Quotes and Inclusion Conventions
:Email Quotes and Inclusion Conventions:

========================================

One area where hackish conventions for on-line writing are still in some

flux is the marking of included material from earlier messages --- what

would be called `block quotations' in ordinary English.  From the usual

typographic convention employed for these (smaller font at an extra

indent), there derived the notation of included text being indented by

one ASCII TAB (0001001) character, which under UNIX and many other

environments gives the appearance of an 8-space indent.

Early mail and netnews readers had no facility for including messages

this way, so people had to paste in copy manually.  BSD `Mail(1)' was

the first message agent to support inclusion, and early USENETters

emulated its style.  But the TAB character tended to push included text

too far to the right (especially in multiply nested inclusions), leading

to ugly wraparounds.  After a brief period of confusion (during which an

inclusion leader consisting of three or four spaces became established

in EMACS and a few mailers), the use of leading `>' or `> ' became

standard, perhaps owing to its use in `ed(1)' to display tabs

(alternatively, it may derive from the `>' that some early UNIX mailers

used to quote lines starting with "From" in text, so they wouldn't look

like the beginnings of new message headers).  Inclusions within

inclusions keep their `>' leaders, so the `nesting level' of a quotation

is visually apparent.

The practice of including text from the parent article when posting a

followup helped solve what had been a major nuisance on USENET: the fact

that articles do not arrive at different sites in the same order.

Careless posters used to post articles that would begin with, or even

consist entirely of, "No, that's wrong" or "I agree" or the like.  It

was hard to see who was responding to what.  Consequently, around 1984,

new news-posting software evolved a facility to automatically include

the text of a previous article, marked with "> " or whatever the poster

chose.  The poster was expected to delete all but the relevant lines.

The result has been that, now, careless posters post articles containing

the *entire* text of a preceding article, *followed* only by "No, that's

wrong" or "I agree".

Many people feel that this cure is worse than the original disease, and

there soon appeared newsreader software designed to let the reader skip

over included text if desired.  Today, some posting software rejects

articles containing too high a proportion of lines beginning with `>'

--- but this too has led to undesirable workarounds, such as the

deliberate inclusion of zero-content filler lines which aren't quoted

and thus pull the message below the rejection threshold.

Because the default mailers supplied with UNIX and other operating

systems haven't evolved as quickly as human usage, the older conventions

using a leading TAB or three or four spaces are still alive; however,

>-inclusion is now clearly the prevalent form in both netnews and mail.

In 1991 practice is still evolving, and disputes over the `correct'

inclusion style occasionally lead to {holy wars}.  One variant style

reported uses the citation character `|' in place of `>' for extended

quotations where original variations in indentation are being retained.

One also sees different styles of quoting a number of authors in the

same message: one (deprecated because it loses information) uses a

leader of `> ' for everyone, another (the most common) is `> > > > ', `>

> > ', etc. (or `>>>> ', `>>> ', etc., depending on line length and

nesting depth) reflecting the original order of messages, and yet

another is to use a different citation leader for each author, say `> ',

`: ', `| ', `} ' (preserving nesting so that the inclusion order of

messages is still apparent, or tagging the inclusions with authors'

names).  Yet *another* style is to use each poster's initials (or login

name) as a citation leader for that poster.  Occasionally one sees a `#

' leader used for quotations from authoritative sources such as

standards documents; the intended allusion is to the root prompt (the

special UNIX command prompt issued when one is running as the privileged

super-user).


Hacker Speech Style
:Hacker Speech Style:

=====================

Hackish speech generally features extremely precise diction, careful

word choice, a relatively large working vocabulary, and relatively

little use of contractions or street slang.  Dry humor, irony, puns, and

a mildly flippant attitude are highly valued --- but an underlying

seriousness and intelligence are essential.  One should use just enough

jargon to communicate precisely and identify oneself as a member of the

culture; overuse of jargon or a breathless, excessively gung-ho attitude

is considered tacky and the mark of a loser.

This speech style is a variety of the precisionist English normally

spoken by scientists, design engineers, and academics in technical

fields.  In contrast with the methods of jargon construction, it is

fairly constant throughout hackerdom.

It has been observed that many hackers are confused by negative

questions --- or, at least, that the people to whom they are talking are

often confused by the sense of their answers.  The problem is that they

have done so much programming that distinguishes between

     if (going) ...

and

     if (!going) ...

that when they parse the question "Aren't you going?" it seems to be

asking the opposite question from "Are you going?", and so merits an

answer in the opposite sense.  This confuses English-speaking

non-hackers because they were taught to answer as though the negative

part weren't there.  In some other languages (including Russian,

Chinese, and Japanese) the hackish interpretation is standard and the

problem wouldn't arise.  Hackers often find themselves wishing for a

word like French `si' or German `doch' with which one could

unambiguously answer `yes' to a negative question.

For similar reasons, English-speaking hackers almost never use double

negatives, even if they live in a region where colloquial usage allows

them.  The thought of uttering something that logically ought to be an

affirmative knowing it will be misparsed as a negative tends to disturb

them.

In a related vein, hackers sometimes make a game of answering

questions containing logical connectives with a strictly literal

rather than colloquial interpretation.  A non-hacker who is indelicate

enough to ask a question like "So, are you working on finding that

bug *now* or leaving it until later?"  is likely to get the

perfectly correct answer "Yes!" (that is, "Yes, I'm doing it either

now or later, and you didn't ask which!").


International Style
:International Style:

=====================

Although the Jargon File remains primarily a lexicon of hacker usage in

American English, we have made some effort to get input from abroad.

Though the hacker-speak of other languages often uses translations of

jargon from English (often as transmitted to them by earlier Jargon File

versions!), the local variations are interesting, and knowledge of them

may be of some use to travelling hackers.

There are some references herein to `Commonwealth English'.  These are

intended to describe some variations in hacker usage as reported in the

English spoken in Great Britain and the Commonwealth (Canada, Australia,

India, etc. --- though Canada is heavily influenced by American usage).

There is also an entry on {Commonwealth Hackish} reporting some

general phonetic and vocabulary differences from U.S. hackish.

Hackers in Western Europe and (especially) Scandinavia report that they

often use a mixture of English and their native languages for technical

conversation.  Occasionally they develop idioms in their English usage

that are influenced by their native-language styles.  Some of these are

reported here.

A few notes on hackish usages in Russian have been added where they are

parallel with English idioms and thus comprehensible to

English-speakers.


How to Use the Lexicon
:How to Use the Lexicon:

************************


Pronunciation Guide
:Pronunciation Guide:

=====================

Pronunciation keys are provided in the jargon listings for all entries

that are neither dictionary words pronounced as in standard English nor

obvious compounds thereof.  Slashes bracket phonetic pronunciations,

which are to be interpreted using the following conventions:

  1. Syllables are hyphen-separated, except that an accent or back-accent

     follows each accented syllable (the back-accent marks a secondary

     accent in some words of four or more syllables).

  2. Consonants are pronounced as in American English.  The letter `g' is

     always hard (as in "got" rather than "giant"); `ch' is soft

     ("church" rather than "chemist").  The letter `j' is the sound

     that occurs twice in "judge".  The letter `s' is always as in

     "pass", never a z sound.  The digraph `kh' is the guttural of

     "loch" or "l'chaim".  The digraph 'gh' is the aspirated g+h of

     "bughouse" or "ragheap" (rare in English).

  3. Uppercase letters are pronounced as their English letter names; thus

     (for example) /H-L-L/ is equivalent to /aitch el el/.  /Z/ may

     be pronounced /zee/ or /zed/ depending on your local dialect.

  4. Vowels are represented as follows:

     a

            back, that

     ar

            far, mark

     aw

            flaw, caught

     ay

            bake, rain

     e

            less, men

     ee

            easy, ski

     eir

            their, software

     i

            trip, hit

     i:

            life, sky

     o

            father, palm

     oh

            flow, sew

     oo

            loot, through

     or

            more, door

     ow

            out, how

     oy

            boy, coin

     uh

            but, some

     u

            put, foot

     y

            yet, young

     yoo

            few, chew

     [y]oo

            /oo/ with optional fronting as in `news' (/nooz/ or /nyooz/)

A /*/ is used for the `schwa' sound of unstressed or occluded vowels

(the one that is often written with an upside-down `e').  The schwa

vowel is omitted in syllables containing vocalic r, l, m or n; that is,

`kitten' and `color' would be rendered /kit'n/ and /kuhl'r/, not

/kit'*n/ and /kuhl'*r/.

Note that the above table reflects only distinctions found in standard

American English (that is, the neutral dialect spoken by TV network

announcers and typical of educated speech in the Upper Midwest, Chicago,

Minneapolis/St.Paul and Philadelphia).  Many American and British

dialects make different distinctions.  One that's caused particular

comment is that our /o/ represents two different sounds in most other

dialects, one of which is often rendered as /ah/.

Entries with a pronunciation of `//' are written-only usages.  (No, UNIX

weenies, this does *not* mean `pronounce like previous pronunciation'!)


Other Lexicon Conventions
:Other Lexicon Conventions:

===========================

Entries are sorted in case-blind ASCII collation order (rather than the

letter-by-letter order ignoring interword spacing common in mainstream

dictionaries), except that all entries beginning with nonalphabetic

characters are sorted after Z.  The case-blindness is a feature, not a

bug.

The beginning of each entry is marked by a colon (`:') at the

left margin.  This convention helps out tools like hypertext browsers

that benefit from knowing where entry boundaries are, but aren't as

context-sensitive as humans.

In pure ASCII renderings of the Jargon File, you will see {} used to

bracket words which themselves have entries in the File.  This isn't

done all the time for every such word, but it is done everywhere that a

reminder seems useful that the term has a jargon meaning and one might

wish to refer to its entry.

In this all-ASCII version, headwords for topic entries are distinguished

from those for ordinary entries by being followed by "::" rather than

":"; similarly, references are surrounded by "{" and "}" rather than

"{" and "}".

Defining instances of terms and phrases appear in `slanted type'.  A

defining instance is one which occurs near to or as part of an

explanation of it.

Prefix ** is used as linguists do; to mark examples of incorrect usage.

We follow the `logical' quoting convention described in the Writing

Style section above.  In addition, we reserve double quotes for actual

excerpts of text or (sometimes invented) speech.  Scare quotes (which

mark a word being used in a nonstandard way), and philosopher's quotes

(which turn an utterance into the string of letters or words that name

it) are both rendered with single quotes.

References such as `malloc(3)' and `patch(1)' are to UNIX facilities

(some of which, such as `patch(1)', are actually freeware distributed

over USENET).  The UNIX manuals use `foo(n)' to refer to item foo in

section (n) of the manual, where n=1 is utilities, n=2 is system calls,

n=3 is C library routines, n=6 is games, and n=8 (where present) is

system administration utilities.  Sections 4, 5, and 7 of the manuals

have changed roles frequently and in any case are not referred to in any

of the entries.

Various abbreviations used frequently in the lexicon are summarized here:

abbrev.

     abbreviation

adj.

     adjective

adv.

     adverb

alt.

     alternate

cav.

     caveat

esp.

     especially

excl.

     exclamation

imp.

     imperative

interj.

     interjection

n.

     noun

obs.

     obsolete

pl.

     plural

poss.

     possibly

pref.

     prefix

prob.

     probably

prov.

     proverbial

quant.

     quantifier

suff.

     suffix

syn.

     synonym (or synonymous with)

v.

     verb (may be transitive or intransitive)

var.

     variant

vi.

     intransitive verb

vt.

     transitive verb

Where alternate spellings or pronunciations are given, alt.

separates two possibilities with nearly equal distribution, while

var. prefixes one that is markedly less common than the primary.

Where a term can be attributed to a particular subculture or is known

to have originated there, we have tried to so indicate.  Here is a

list of abbreviations used in etymologies:

Berkeley

     University of California at Berkeley

Cambridge

     the university in England (*not* the city in Massachusetts where

     MIT happens to be located!)

BBN

     Bolt, Beranek & Newman

CMU

     Carnegie-Mellon University

Commodore

     Commodore Business Machines

DEC

     The Digital Equipment Corporation

Fairchild

     The Fairchild Instruments Palo Alto development group

Fidonet

     See the {Fidonet} entry

IBM

     International Business Machines

MIT

     Massachusetts Institute of Technology; esp. the legendary MIT AI Lab

     culture of roughly 1971 to 1983 and its feeder groups, including the

     Tech Model Railroad Club

NRL

     Naval Research Laboratories

NYU

     New York University

OED

     The Oxford English Dictionary

Purdue

     Purdue University

SAIL

     Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (at Stanford

     University)

SI

     From Syst`eme International, the name for the standard

     conventions of metric nomenclature used in the sciences

Stanford

     Stanford University

Sun

     Sun Microsystems

TMRC

     Some MITisms go back as far as the Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC) at

     MIT c. 1960.  Material marked TMRC is from `An Abridged Dictionary

     of the TMRC Language', originally compiled by Pete Samson in 1959

UCLA

     University of California at Los Angeles

UK

     the United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland)

USENET

     See the {USENET} entry

WPI

     Worcester Polytechnic Institute, site of a very active community of

     PDP-10 hackers during the 1970s

XEROX PARC

     XEROX's Palo Alto Research Center, site of much pioneering research in

     user interface design and networking

Yale

     Yale University

Some other etymology abbreviations such as {UNIX} and {PDP-10}

refer to technical cultures surrounding specific operating systems,

processors, or other environments.  The fact that a term is labelled

with any one of these abbreviations does not necessarily mean its use

is confined to that culture.  In particular, many terms labelled `MIT'

and `Stanford' are in quite general use.  We have tried to give some

indication of the distribution of speakers in the usage notes;

however, a number of factors mentioned in the introduction conspire to

make these indications less definite than might be desirable.

A few new definitions attached to entries are marked [proposed].

These are usually generalizations suggested by editors or USENET

respondents in the process of commenting on previous definitions of

those entries.  These are *not* represented as established

jargon.


Format For New Entries
:Format For New Entries:

========================

All contributions and suggestions about the Jargon File will be

considered donations to be placed in the public domain as part of this

File, and may be used in subsequent paper editions.  Submissions may

be edited for accuracy, clarity and concision.

Try to conform to the format already being used --- head-words

separated from text by a colon (double colon for topic entries),

cross-references in curly brackets (doubled for topic entries),

pronunciations in slashes, etymologies in square brackets,

single-space after definition numbers and word classes, etc.  Stick to

the standard ASCII character set (7-bit printable, no high-half

characters or [nt]roff/TeX/Scribe escapes), as one of the versions

generated from the master file is an info document that has to be

viewable on a character tty.

We are looking to expand the file's range of technical specialties covered.

There are doubtless rich veins of jargon yet untapped in the scientific

computing, graphics, and networking hacker communities; also in numerical

analysis, computer architectures and VLSI design, language design, and many

other related fields.  Send us your jargon!

We are *not* interested in straight technical terms explained by

textbooks or technical dictionaries unless an entry illuminates

`underground' meanings or aspects not covered by official histories.

We are also not interested in `joke' entries --- there is a lot of

humor in the file but it must flow naturally out of the explanations

of what hackers do and how they think.

It is OK to submit items of jargon you have originated if they have spread

to the point of being used by people who are not personally acquainted with

you.  We prefer items to be attested by independent submission from two

different sites.

The Jargon File will be regularly maintained and re-posted from now on

and will include a version number.  Read it, pass it around,

contribute --- this is *your* monument!


The Jargon Lexicon
:The Jargon Lexicon:

******************

starts here. Click >> for sequential reading.


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

   `abbreviation'.


ABEND
:ABEND:  [ABnormal END] /o'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
: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
: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-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 against 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/), `ad-crockery'.  See also

   {ELIZA effect}.


Ada
: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
:adger:  /aj'r/ [UCLA] vt. To make a bonehead move with

   consequences that could have been foreseen with even slight mental

   effort.  E.g., "He started removing files and promptly adgered the

   whole project".  Compare {dumbass attack}.


admin
: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
: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 six-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.


AFJ
:AFJ:  // n. Written-only abbreviation for "April Fool's Joke".

   Elaborate April Fool's hoaxes are a long-established tradition on

   USENET and Internet; see {kremvax} for an example.  In fact,

   April Fool's Day is the *only* seasonal holiday marked by

   customary observances on the hacker networks.


AI
:AI:  /A-I/ n. Abbreviation for `Artificial Intelligence', so

   common that the full form is almost never written or spoken among

   hackers.


AI-complete
: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 (1993) to solve them have

   foundered on the amount of context information and `intelligence'

   they seem to require. See also {gedanken}.


AI koans
: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

   under "{A Selection of AI Koans}" in {Appendix}

   {A}).  See also {ha ha only serious}, {mu}, and {Humor,}

   {Hacker}.


AIDS
: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}.


AIDX
:AIDX:  n. /aydkz/ n. Derogatory term for IBM's perverted version

   of UNIX, AIX, especially for the AIX 3.? used in the IBM RS/6000

   series.  A victim of the dreaded "hybridism" disease, this

   attempt to combine the two main currents of the UNIX stream

   ({BSD} and {USG UNIX}) became a {monstrosity} to haunt

   system administrators' dreams.  For example, if new accounts are

   created while many users are logged on, the load average jumps

   quickly over 20 due to silly implementation of the user databases.

   For a quite similar disease, compare {HP-SUX}.  Also, compare

   {terminak}, {Macintrash} {Nominal Semidestructor},

   {Open DeathTrap}, {ScumOS}, {sun-stools}.


airplane rule
: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.  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.  See also {KISS}

   {Principle}.


aliasing bug
: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 several pointers address

   (`aliases for') a given hunk of storage, it may happen that the

   storage is freed or reallocated (and thus moved) 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, or 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}, {memory smash},

   {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
:all-elbows:  [MS-DOS] 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 {rude}, also

   {mess-dos}.


alpha particles
:alpha particles:  n. See {bit rot}.


alt
:alt:  /awlt/ 1. n. The alt shift key on an IBM PC or {clone}

   keyboard; see {bucky bits}, sense 2 (though typical PC usage does

   not simply set the 0200 bit).  2. 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 {feature}

   {key}).  Some Mac hackers, confusingly, reserve `alt' for the Option

   key (and it is so labeled on some Mac II keyboards).  3. n.obs.

   [PDP-10; often capitalized to ALT] 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 usage probably arose 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
:alt bit:  /awlt bit/ [from alternate] adj. See {meta bit}.


altmode
:altmode:  n. Syn. {alt} sense 3.


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


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

   operator.


amper
:amper:  n. Common abbreviation for the name of the ampersand (`&',

   ASCII 0100110) character.  See {ASCII} for other synonyms.


angle brackets
:angle brackets:  n. Either of the characters `<' (ASCII

   0111100) and `>' (ASCII 0111110) (ASCII less-than or

   greater-than signs).  Typographers in the {Real World} use angle

   brackets which are either taller and slimmer (the ISO `Bra' and

   `Ket' characters), or significantly smaller (single or double

   guillemets) than the less-than and greater-than signs.

   See {broket}, {ASCII}.


angry fruit salad
:angry fruit salad:  n. A bad visual-interface design that uses too

   many colors.  (This term derives, of course, from the bizarre

   day-glo colors found in canned fruit salad.)  Too often one sees

   similar effects 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.


annoybot
:annoybot:  /*-noy-bot/ [IRC] n. See {robot}.


AOS
: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. n. 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. n. 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
:app:  /ap/ n. Short for `application program', as opposed to a

   systems program.  Apps are 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.  (Broadly, an app is often a

   self-contained environment for performing some well-defined task

   such as `word processing'; hackers tend to prefer more

   general-purpose tools.) Oppose {tool}, {operating}

   {system}.


arena
: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 `malloc: corrupt arena'

   message emitted when some early versions detected an impossible

   value in the free block list.  See {overrun screw}, {aliasing}

   {bug}, {memory leak}, {memory smash}, {smash the}

   {stack}.


arg
: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}.


ARMM
:ARMM:  [acronym, `Automated Retroactive Minimal Moderation'] n. A

   USENET robot created by Dick Depew of Munroe Falls, Ohio.  It was

   intended to automatically cancel posts from anonymous-posting

   sites.  Unfortunately, the robot's recognizer for anonymous

   postings triggered on its own automatically-generated control

   messages!  Transformed by this stroke of programming ineptitude

   into a monster of Frankensteinian proportions, it broke loose on

   the night of March 31, 1993 and proceeded to spam

   news.admin.policy with a recursive explosion of over 200

   messages.

   ARMM's bug produced a recursive {cascade} of messages each of which

   mechanically added text to the ID and Subject and some other

   headers of its parent.  This produced a flood of messages in which

   each header took up several screens and each message ID and subject

   line got longer and longer and longer.

   Reactions varied from amusememt to outrage.  The pathological

   messages crashed at least one mail system, and upset people paying

   line charges for their USENET feeds.  One poster described the ARMM

   debacle as "instant USENET history" (instantly establishing the

   term {despew}), and it has since been widely cited as a

   cautionary example of the havoc the combination of good intentions

   and incompetence can wreak on a network.  Compare {Great Worm,}

   {The}; {sorcerer's apprentice mode}.  See also {software}

   {laser}, {network meltdown}.


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


asbestos
:asbestos:  adj. Used as a modifier to anything intended to protect

   one from {flame}s; also in other highly {flame}-suggestive

   usages.  See, for example, {asbestos longjohns} and {asbestos}

   {cork award}.


asbestos cork award
: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'.  (Any reader in

   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
:asbestos longjohns:  n. Notional garments 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
:ASCII:  [American Standard Code for Information Interchange]

   /as'kee/ n. The predominant character set encoding of present-day

   computers.  he modern version 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

   or 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}.  The

   abbreviations "l/r" and "o/c" stand for left/right and

   "open/close" respectively.  Ordinary parentheticals provide some

   usage information.

     !

          Common: {bang}; pling; excl; shriek; <exclamation mark>.

          Rare: factorial; exclam; smash; cuss; boing; yell; wow; hey;

          wham; eureka; [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].  Rare: grid; cross-hatch; oc-to-thorpe; flash;

          <square>, pig-pen; tic-tac-toe; 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: l/r paren; l/r parenthesis; left/right; o-pen-/-close;

          par-en/the-sis; o/c paren; o/c par-en-the-sis; l/r

          paren-the-sis; l/r ba-na-na.  Rare: so/al-ready;

          lparen/rparen; <opening/closing parenthesis>; o/c round

          bracket, l/r round bracket, [wax/wane];

          par-en-this-ey/un-par-en-this-ey; l/r 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/great-er than>; bra/ket; l/r angle; l/r angle

          bracket; l/r 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: l/r square bracket; l/r bracket; <opening/closing

          brack-et>; brack-et/un-brack-et.  Rare: square-/-un-square; [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; skid; [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: o/c brace; l/r brace; l/r squiggly; l/r squiggly

          bracket/brace; l/r curly bracket/brace; <opening/closing

          brace>.  Rare: brace/unbrace; curly/un-curly; leftit/rytit;

          l/r 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 and that

   characters have 7 bits; 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
: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.


ASCIIbetical order
:ASCIIbetical order:  /as'kee-be'-t*-kl or'dr/ adj.,n. Used to

   indicate that data is sorted in ASCII collated order rather than

   alphabetical order.  This lexicon is sorted in something close to

   ASCIIbetical order, but with case ignored and entries beginning

   with non-alphabetic characters moved to the end.


atomic
:atomic:  [from Gk. `atomos', indivisible] adj. Indivisible;

   cannot be split up.  For example, an instruction may be said to do

   several things `atomically', i.e., all the things are done

   immediately, and there is no chance of the instruction being

   half-completed.  Esp. used to convey that an operation cannot be

   screwed up by interrupts.  "This routine locks the file and

   increments the file's semaphore atomically."  This usage has none

   of the connotations that `atomic' has in mainstream English (i.e.

   of particles of matter, nuclear explosions etc.).


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


automagically
: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
: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
:awk:  1. n. [UNIX techspeak] An interpreted language for massaging

   text data developed by Alfred Aho, Peter Weinberger, and Brian

   Kernighan (the name derives 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)'.


back door
:back door:  n. A hole in the security of a system deliberately left

   in place by designers or maintainers.  The motivation for such

   holes 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.

   Syn. {trap door}; may also be called a `wormhole'.  See also

   {iron box}, {cracker}, {worm}, {logic bomb}.

   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; the hack perpetuated itself

   invisibly, leaving the 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.


backbone cabal
: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.


backbone site
: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 1993 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
:backgammon:  See {bignum} (sense 3), {moby} (sense 4), and

   {pseudoprime}.


background
: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
:backspace and overstrike:  interj. Whoa!  Back up.  Used to suggest

   that someone just said or did something wrong.  Common among

   APL programmers.


backward combatability
: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, layouts, etc. are

   irrevocably discarded in favor of `new and improved' protocols,

   formats, and layouts, leaving the previous ones not merely

   deprecated but actively defeated.  (Too often, the old and new

   versions cannot definitively be distinguished, such that lingering

   instances of the previous ones yield crashes or other infelicitous

   effects, as opposed to a simple "version mismatch" message.)  A

   backwards compatible change, on the other hand, allows old versions

   to coexist without crashes or error messages, but too many major

   changes incorporating elaborate backwards compatibility processing

   can lead to extreme {software bloat}.  See also {flag}

   {day}.


BAD
: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
: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
: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
: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 five 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, followed 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:  /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.


banana label
: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
: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.  Also,

   see {one-banana problem} for a superficially similar but

   unrelated usage.


bandwidth
: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
: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
: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 for release."  The term

   {pound on} is synonymous.


bang path
: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
: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:  /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
: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

   {The Story of Mel, a Real Programmer} (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, and

   in the code of hackers who just can't let go of that low-level

   control.  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 evil

   (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 well are held in high regard.


barf
: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, perhaps with a suitable error message, perhaps not.

   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}.


barfmail
:barfmail:  n. Multiple {bounce message}s accumulating to the

   level of serious annoyance, or worse.  The sort of thing that

   happens when an inter-network mail gateway goes down or

   wonky.


barfulation
: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
: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.


barney
:barney:  n. In Commonwealth hackish, `barney' is to {fred}

   (sense #1) as {bar} is to {foo}.  That is, people who

   commonly use `fred' as their first metasyntactic variable will

   often use `barney' second.  The reference is, of course, to Fred

   Flintstone and Barney Rubble in the Flintstones cartoons.


baroque
: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}.


BASIC
:BASIC:  [acronym, from Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction

   Code] 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

   cascading lossage that happens 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 make it harder to use more powerful

   languages well.  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
: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. `batching up': 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
: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
: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.

   Historical note: `baud' was originally a unit of telegraph signalling

   speed, set at one pulse per second.  It was proposed at the

   International Telegraph Conference of 1927, and named after J.M.E.

   Baudot (1845--1903), the French engineer who constructed the first

   successful teleprinter.


baud barf
: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:  /baz/ n. 1. The third {metasyntactic variable} "Suppose we

   have three functions: FOO, BAR, and BAZ.  FOO calls BAR, which

   calls BAZ...." (See also {fum}) 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'.

   Earlier versions of this lexicon derived `baz' as a Stanford

   corruption of {bar}.  However, Pete Samson (compiler of the

   {TMRC} lexicon) reports it was already current when he joined TMRC

   in 1958.  He says "It came from `Pogo'.  Albert the Alligator,

   when vexed or outraged, would shout `Bazz Fazz!' or `Rowrbazzle!'

   The club layout was said to model the (mythical) New England

   counties of Rowrfolk and Bassex (Rowrbazzle mingled with

   (Norfolk/Suffolk/Middlesex/Essex)."


bboard
: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 this 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-and-thumbtack 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
:BBS:  /B-B-S/ [abbreviation, `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.  See also {bboard}.


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


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

   hobbyists.


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

   {Macintrash}, {maggotbox}.


bells and whistles
: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
: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
: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}, {smoke and mirrors}.


Berkeley Quality Software
: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}.

   Note to British and Commonwealth readers: that's /berk'lee/, not

   /bark'lee/ as in British Received Pronunciation.


berklix
: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'.


Berzerkeley
: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
:beta:  /bay't*/, /be't*/ or (Commonwealth) /bee't*/ n.

   1. Mostly working, but still under test; usu. used with `in': `in

   beta'.  In the {Real World}, systems (hardware or software)

   software often go through two stages of release testing: Alpha

   (in-house) and Beta (out-house?).  Beta releases are generally made

   to a small number of lucky (or unlucky), trusted customers.

   2. Anything that is new and experimental.  "His girlfriend is in

   beta" means that he is still testing for compatibility and

   reserving judgment.  3. Flaky; dubious; suspect (since beta

   software is notoriously buggy).

   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
:BFI:  /B-F-I/ n. See {brute force and ignorance}.  Also

   encountered in the variants `BFMI', `brute force and

   *massive* ignorance' and `BFBI' `brute force and bloody

   ignorance'.


bible
: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
:BiCapitalization:  n. The act said to have been performed on

   trademarks (such as {PostScript}, 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
: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 naivet'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.

   [1993: Now It Can Be Told!  My spies inform me that BIFF was

   originally created by Joe Talmadge <jat@cup.hp.com>, also the

   author of the infamous and much-plagiarized "Flamer's Bible".

   The BIFF filter he wrote was later passed to Richard Sexton, who

   posted BIFFisms much more widely.  Versions have since been posted

   for the amusement of the net at large. --- ESR]


biff
:biff:  /bif/ vt. To notify someone of incoming mail.  From the

   BSD utility `biff(1)', which was in turn named after a

   friendly golden Labrador who used to chase frisbees in the halls at

   UCB while 4.2BSD was in development (it had a well-known habit of

   barking whenever the mailman came).  No relation to

   {BIFF}.


Big Gray Wall
: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}.  Often contracted to `Gray Wall'.


big iron
: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
: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 abbreviated 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 mainframes 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}; see

   also {scram switch}.


Big Room, the
: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
: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
: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-1993, are big-endian.  See {little-endian},

   {middle-endian}, {NUXI problem}, {swab}.  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
:bignum:  /big'nuhm/ [orig. from MIT MacLISP] n. 1. [techspeak] A

   multiple-precision computer representation for very large

   integers.  2. More generally, any very large number.  "Have you ever

   looked at the United States Budget?  There's bignums for you!"

   3. [Stanford] In backgammon, large numbers on the dice 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

   {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
: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'.  Real 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 truly said "You

   can tell a bigot, but you can't tell him much."  Compare

   {weenie}.


bit
: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}.

   The term `bit' first appeared in print in the computer-science

   sense in 1949, and seems to have been coined by early computer

   scientist John Tukey.  Tukey records that it evolved over a lunch

   table as a handier alternative to `bigit' or `binit'.


bit bang
:bit bang:  n. Transmission of data on a serial line, when

   accomplished by rapidly tweaking a single output bit, in software,

   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
: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
: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 landed 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
:bit decay:  n. See {bit rot}.  People with a physics background

   tend to prefer this variant for the analogy with particle decay.  See

   also {computron}, {quantum bogodynamics}.


bit rot
: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
:bit twiddling:  n. 1. (pejorative) An exercise in tuning (see

   {tune}) in which incredible amounts of time and effort go to

   produce little noticeable improvement, often with the result that

   the code becomes 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
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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 on or 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
: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
: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
:black hole:  n. What a piece of email or netnews has fallen into if

   it disappears mysteriously between its origin and destination sites

   (that is, without returning a {bounce message}).  "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
: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).


blargh
:blargh:  /blarg/ [MIT] n. The opposite of {ping}, sense 5; an

   exclamation indicating that one has absorbed or is emitting a

   quantum of unhappiness.  Less common than {ping}.


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


bletch
: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
: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
: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:  /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. Sometimes

   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.  Its creators liked to claim that "Blit"

   stood for the Bacon, Lettuce, and Interactive Tomato.)


blitter
: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
: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.  6. In the subjargon of computer security

   specialists, a denial-of-service attack performed by hogging

   limited resources that have no access controls (for example, shared

   spool space on a multi-user system).

   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.


BLOB
:BLOB:  [acronym, Binary Large OBject] n. Used by database people to

   refer to any random large block of bits that needs to be stored in

   a database, such as a picture or sound file.  The essential point

   about a BLOB is that it's an object that cannot be interpreted

   within the database itself.


block
: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
:block transfer computations:  [from the television series

   "Dr. Who"] n. 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.


Bloggs Family, the
:Bloggs Family, the:  n.  An imaginary family consisting of Fred and

   Mary Bloggs and their children.  Used as a standard example in

   knowledge representation to show the difference between extensional

   and intensional objects.  For example, every occurrence of "Fred

   Bloggs" is the same unique person, whereas occurrences of

   "person" may refer to different people.  Members of the Bloggs

   family have been known to pop up in bizarre places such as the DEC

   Telephone Directory.  Compare {Mbogo, Dr. Fred}.


blow an EPROM
: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 arose 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.  The usage lives on (it's too vivid and expressive to

   discard) even though the write process on EPROMs is

   nondestructive.


blow away
: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
:blow out:  [prob. from mining and tunneling jargon] vi. Of

   software, to fail spectacularly; almost as serious as {crash and}

   {burn}.  See {blow past}, {blow up}, {die}

   {horribly}.


blow past
:blow past:  vt. To {blow out} despite a safeguard.  "The server blew

   past the 5K reserve buffer."


blow up
: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
: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
: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 three official guides are known as the

   {Green Book}, the {Red Book}, and the {White Book} (sense

   2).  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 book also has green and red siblings).

   3. Any of the 1988 standards issued by the CCITT's ninth plenary

   assembly.  These include, among other things, the X.400 email spec

   and the Group 1 through 4 fax standards.  See also {book}

   {titles}.


Blue Glue
: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 pen}s.  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
: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}.


blue wire
:blue wire:  [IBM] n. Patch wires added to circuit boards at the factory to

   correct design or fabrication problems.  These may be necessary if

   there hasn't been time to design and qualify another board version.

   Compare {purple wire}, {red wire}, {yellow wire}.


blurgle
:blurgle:  /bler'gl/ [Great Britain] n. Spoken {metasyntactic}

   {variable}, to indicate some text that is obvious from context, or

   which is already known. If several words are to be replaced,

   blurgle may well be doubled or trebled. "To look for something in

   several files use `grep string blurgle blurgle'."  In each case,

   "blurgle blurgle" would be understood to be replaced by the file

   you wished to search.  Compare {mumble}, sense 6.


BNF
: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. Any of a number number of variants and extensions of BNF proper,

   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}, a

   `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
: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
:board:  n. 1. In-context synonym for {bboard}; sometimes used

   even for USENET newsgroups (but see usage note under {bboard},

   sense 1).  2. An electronic circuit board.


boat anchor
: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.

   3. (affectionate) Obsolete but still working hardware, especially

   used of an old S100-bus hobbyist system; originally a term of

   annoyance, but became more and more affectionate as the hardware

   became more and more obsolete.


BOF
:BOF:  /B-O-F/ or /bof/ n. Abbreviation for the phrase "Birds

   Of a Feather" (flocking together), an informal discussion group

   and/or bull session scheduled on a conference program.  It is not

   clear where or when this term originated, but it is now associated

   with the USENIX conferences for UNIX techies and was already

   established there by 1984.  It was used earlier than that at DECUS

   conferences and is reported to have been common at SHARE meetings

   as far back as the early 1960s.


bogo-sort
: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}, {Lasherism}.


bogometer
:bogometer:  /boh-gom'-*t-er/ n. A notional instrument for

   measuring {bogosity}.  Compare the `wankometer' described in

   the {wank} entry; see also {bogus}.


bogon
: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 in {Appendix C}] 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}, {fat electrons}, {magic smoke}.

   The bogon has become the type case for a whole bestiary of nonce

   particle names, including the `clutron' or `cluon' (indivisible

   particle of cluefulness, obviously the antiparticle of the bogon)

   and the futon (elementary particle of {randomness}).  These are

   not so much live usages in themselves as examples of a live

   meta-usage: that is, it has become a standard joke or linguistic

   maneuver to "explain" otherwise mysterious circumstances by inventing

   nonce particle names.  And these imply nonce particle theories, with

   all their dignity or lack thereof (we might note parenthetically that

   this is a generalization from "(bogus particle) theories" to "bogus

   (particle theories)"!).  Perhaps such particles are the modern-day

   equivalents of trolls and wood-nymphs as standard starting-points

   around which to construct explanatory myths.  Of course, playing on

   an existing word (as in the `futon') yields additional flavor.

   Compare {magic smoke}.


bogon filter
: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
: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
: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 an 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
: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
: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
: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 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}, {schroedinbug}.


boink
:boink:  /boynk/ [USENET: ascribed 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
: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), in which 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.  {MS-DOS}

   machines tend to get {locked up} in this situation.


bondage-and-discipline language
: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/oif:  /bonk/, /oyf/ interj. In the {MUD} community, it

   has become traditional to express pique or censure by `bonking'

   the offending person.  Convention holds that one should acknowledge

   a bonk by saying `oif!' and there is 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}.


book titles
: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}; see also {rainbow}

   {series}.


boot
: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."  One often hard-boots by performing a {power cycle}.

   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 feeder
:bottom feeder:  n. syn. for {slopsucker}, derived from the

   fishermen's and naturalists' term for finny creatures who subsist

   on the primordial ooze.


bottom-up implementation
: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
:bounce:  v. 1. [perhaps by analogy to a bouncing check] 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.  The

   now-demolished {D. C. Power Lab} building used by the Stanford

   AI Lab in the 1970s had 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 would come over the intercom the

   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

   Roo's psychosexually loaded "Try bouncing me, 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.  [VM/CMS programmers]

   *Automatic* warm-start of a machine after an error.  "I

   logged on this morning and found it had bounced 7 times during the

   night" 6. [IBM] To {power cycle} a peripheral in order to reset

   it.


bounce message
: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} and {software laser}.  The terms `bounce mail' and

   `barfmail' are also common.


boustrophedon
:boustrophedon:  [from a Greek word for turning like an ox while

   plowing] n. An ancient method of writing using alternate

   left-to-right and right-to-left lines.  This term is actually

   philologists' techspeak and typesetters' jargon.  Erudite hackers

   use it for an optimization performed by some computer typesetting

   software and moving-head printers.  The adverbial form

   `boustrophedonically' is also found (hackers purely love

   constructions like this).


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


brain dump
: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 fart
:brain fart:  n. The actual result of a {braino}, as opposed to

   the mental glitch that is the braino itself.  E.g., typing

   `dir' on a UNIX box after a session with DOS.


brain-damaged
: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
: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
:braino:  /bray'no/ n. Syn. for {thinko}. See also {brain}

   {fart}.


branch to Fishkill
: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}.


bread crumbs
:bread crumbs:  n. Debugging statements inserted into a program that

   emit output or log indicators of the program's {state} to a file

   so you can see where it dies or pin down the cause of surprising

   behavior. The term is probably a reference to the Hansel and Gretel

   story from the Brothers Grimm; in several variants, a character

   leaves a trail of bread crumbs so as not to get lost in the

   woods.


break
: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 (two character widths 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), delete or {control-C} does this.  5. `break break'

   may be said to interrupt a conversation (this is an example of verb

   doubling).  This usage comes from radio communications, which in

   turn probably came from landline telegraph/teleprinter usage, as

   badly abused in the Citizen's Band craze a few years ago.


break-even point
:break-even point:  n. in the process of implementing a new computer

   language, the point at which the language is sufficiently effective

   that one can implement the language in itself.  That is, for a new

   language called, hypothetically, FOOGOL, one has reached break-even

   when one can write a demonstration compiler for FOOGOL in FOOGOL,

   discard the original implementation language, and thereafter use

   working versions of FOOGOL to develop newer ones.  This is an

   important milestone; see {MFTL}.

   [Since this entry was first written, several correspondents have

   reported that there actually was a compiler for a tiny Algol-like

   language called Foogol floating around on various {vaxen} in the

   early and mid-1980s.  The above example may not, after all, be

   hypothetical. -- ESR]


breath-of-life packet
:breath-of-life packet:  [XEROX PARC] n. An Ethernet packet that

   contains bootstrap (see {boot}) code, periodically sent out

   from a working computer to infuse the `breath of life' into any

   computer on the network that has happened to crash.  Machines

   depending on such packets have sufficient hardware or firmware code

   to wait for (or request) such a packet during the reboot process.

   See also {dickless workstation}.

   The `kiss-of-death packet', with a function complementary to that of

   a breath-of-life packet, is recommended for dealing with hosts that

   consume too many network resources.  There is at least one documented

   instance of an Internet subnet with limited addres-table slots in a

   gateway machine in which kiss-of-death packets were routinely used

   to compete for slots, rather like Christmas shoppers competing for

   scarce parking spaces.


breedle
:breedle:  n. See {feep}.


bring X to its knees
: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
: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 abnormal but 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
: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}.


brochureware
:brochureware:  n. Planned but non-existent product like

   {vaporware}, but with the added implication that marketing is

   actively selling and promoting it (they've printed brochures).

   Brochureware is often deployed as a strategic weapon; the idea is

   to con customers into not committing to an existing product of the

   competition's.  It is a safe bet that when a brochureware product

   finally becomes real, it will be more expensive than and inferior

   to the alternatives that had been available for years.


broken
:broken:  adj. 1. Not working properly (of programs).  2. Behaving

   strangely; especially (when used of people) exhibiting extreme

   depression.


broken arrow
: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.

   Note: to appreciate this term fully, it helps to know that `broken

   arrow' is also military jargon for an accident involving nuclear

   weapons....


broket
: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
:Brooks's Law:  prov. "Adding manpower to a late software project

   makes it later" --- a result of the fact that the expected

   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} still does.  See

   also {creationism}, {second-system effect},

   {optimism}.


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

   fairly common on-line.


brute force
: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 naive

   methods suited to small problems directly to large ones.  The term

   can also be used in reference to programming style: brute-force

   programs are written in a heavyhanded, tedious way, full of

   repetition and devoid of any elegance or useful abstraction (see

   also {brute force and ignorance}).

   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 the

   cities be visited 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}).  Sometimes,

   unfortunately, there is no better general solution than brute

   force.  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 actually be considered

   stupid or not depends on the context; if the problem is not

   terribly 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.  Additionally, 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
: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 this sort of thing.  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
:BSD:  /B-S-D/ n. [abbreviation 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}.


BUAF
:BUAF:  // [abbreviation, from alt.fan.warlord] n. Big

   Ugly ASCII Font --- a special form of {ASCII art}.  Various

   programs exist for rendering text strings into block, bloob, and

   pseudo-script fonts in cells between four and six character cells

   on a side; this is smaller than the letters generated by older

   {banner} (sense 2) programs.  These are sometimes used to render

   one's name in a {sig block}, and are critically referred to as

   `BUAF's.  See {warlording}.


BUAG
:BUAG:  // [abbreviation, from alt.fan.warlord] n. Big Ugly

   ASCII Graphic.  Pejorative term for ugly {ASCII ART}, especially

   as found in {sig block}s.  For some reason, mutations of the

   head of Bart Simpson are particularly common in the least

   imaginative {sig block}s. See {warlording}.


bubble sort
: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 {naive} and

   untutored programmers, hackers consider it the {canonical}

   example of a naive 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
:bucky bits:  /buh'kee bits/ n. 1. obs. The bits produced by the

   CONTROL and META shift keys on a SAIL keyboard (octal 200 and 400

   respectively), 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 has long been rumored that `bucky bits' were named for

   Buckminster Fuller during a period when he was consulting at

   Stanford.  Actually, bucky bits were invented by Niklaus Wirth 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).  Some sources

   claim that `Bucky' was Niklaus Wirth's nickname st Stanford,

   but Wirth himself does not recall this.

   Whatever its origins, the term spread to MIT and CMU early and is

   now in general use.  See {double bucky}, {quadruple}

   {bucky}.


buffer overflow
: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} and {firehose syndrome}),

   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
:bug:  n. An unwanted and unintended property of a program or piece

   of 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: 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 (NSWC).  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, 1947), reads "1545

   Relay #70 Panel F (moth) in relay.  First actual case of bug being

   found".  This wording establishes that the term was already

   in use at the time in its current specific sense --- and Hopper

   herself reports that the term `bug' was regularly applied to

   problems in radar electronics during WWII.

   Indeed, the use of `bug' to mean an industrial defect was already

   established in Thomas Edison's time, and a more specific and rather

   modern use can be found in an electrical handbook from 1896

   (`Hawkin's New Catechism of Electricity', Theo. Audel & Co.)

   which says: "The term `bug' is used to a limited extent to

   designate any fault or trouble in the connections or working of

   electric apparatus."  It further notes that the term is "said to

   have originated in quadruplex telegraphy and have been transferred

   to all electric apparatus."

   The latter observation may explain a common folk etymology of the

   term; that it came from telephone company usage, in which "bugs in

   a telephone cable" were blamed for noisy lines.  Though this

   derivation seems to be mistaken, it may well be a distorted memory

   of a joke first current among *telegraph* operators more than

   a century ago!

   Actually, use of `bug' in the general sense of a 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 in late 1990, 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 their History of American Technology

   Museum didn't know this and agreed that it would make a worthwhile

   exhibit.  It was moved to the Smithsonian in mid-1991.  Thus, the

   process of investigating the original-computer-bug bug fixed it in

   an entirely unexpected way, by making the myth true!  --- ESR]

   [1992 update: the plot thickens!  A usually reliable source reports

   having seen The Bug at the Smithsonian in 1978.  I am unable to

   reconcile the conflicting histories I have been offered, and merely

   report this fact here. --- ESR.]


bug-compatible
: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
: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
: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 nearly so much venom.

   Compare {AIDX}, {HP-SUX}, {Nominal Semidestructor},

   {Telerat}, {sun-stools}.


bulletproof
:bulletproof:  adj. Used of an algorithm or implementation

   considered extremely {robust}; lossage-resistant; capable of

   correctly recovering from any imaginable exception condition --- a

   rare and valued quality.  Syn. {armor-plated}.


bum
: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."  In {elder days}, John McCarthy (inventor

   of {LISP}) used to compare some efficiency-obsessed hackers

   among his students to "ski bums"; thus, optimization became

   "program bumming", and eventually just "bumming".  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
: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
: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."  This

   is mainstream slang in some parts of England.


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


busy-wait
: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
: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 never gets 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
:BWQ:  /B-W-Q/ [IBM: abbreviation, `Buzz Word Quotient'] The

   percentage of buzzwords in a speech or documents.  Usually roughly

   proportional to {bogosity}.  See {TLA}.


by hand
:by hand:  adv. 1. 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}.  2. By extension,

   writing code which does something in an explicit or low-level way

   for which a presupplied library routine ought to have been

   available.  "This cretinous B-tree library doesn't supply a decent

   iterator, so I'm having to walk the trees by hand."


byte
: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 was coined by Werner Buchholz 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 word was

   coined by mutating the word `bite' so it would not be

   accidentally misspelled as {bit}.  See also {nybble}.


bytesexual
: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}.


bzzzt, wrong
:bzzzt, wrong:  /bzt rong/ [USENET/Internet] From a Robin Williams

   routine in the movie "Dead Poets Society" spoofing radio or

   TV quiz programs, such as *Truth or Consequences*, where an

   incorrect answer earns one a blast from the buzzer and condolences

   from the interlocutor.  A way of expressing mock-rude disagreement,

   usually immediately following an included quote from another

   poster.  The less abbreviated "*Bzzzzt*, wrong, but thank you for

   playing" is also common; capitalization and emphasis of the

   buzzer sound varies.


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".


C Programmer's Disease
:C Programmer's Disease:  n. The tendency of the undisciplined C

   programmer to set arbitrary but supposedly generous static limits

   on table sizes (defined, if you're lucky, by constants in header

   files) rather than taking the trouble to do proper dynamic storage

   allocation.  If an application user later needs to put 68 elements

   into a table of size 50, the afflicted programmer reasons that he

   or she can easily reset the table size to 68 (or even as much as

   70, to allow for future expansion) and recompile.  This gives the

   programmer the comfortable feeling of having made the effort to

   satisfy the user's (unreasonable) demands, and often affords the

   user multiple opportunities to explore the marvelous consequences

   of {fandango on core}.  In severe cases of the disease, the

   programmer cannot comprehend why each fix of this kind seems only

   to further disgruntle the user.


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


can
: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.

   Alternatively, this may derive from mainstream slang `canned' for

   being laid off or fired.


can't happen
:can't happen:  The traditional program comment for code executed

   under a condition that should never be true, for example a file

   size computed as negative.  Often, such a condition being true

   indicates data corruption or a faulty algorithm; it is almost

   always handled by emitting a fatal error message and terminating or

   crashing, since there is little else that can be done.  Some case

   variant of "can't happen" is also often the text emitted if the

   `impossible' error actually happens!  Although "can't happen"

   events are genuinely infrequent in production code, programmers

   wise enough to check for them habitually are often surprised at how

   frequently they are triggered during development and how many

   headaches checking for them turns out to head off. See also

   {firewall code} (sense 2).


candygrammar
:candygrammar:  n. A programming-language grammar that is mostly

   {syntactic sugar}; the term is also a play on `candygram'.

   {COBOL}, Apple's Hypertalk language, and a lot of the so-called

   `4GL' database languages share this property.  The usual intent

   of such designs is that they be as English-like as possible, on the

   theory that they will then be easier for unskilled people to

   program.  This intention comes to grief on the reality that syntax

   isn't what makes programming hard; it's the mental effort and

   organization required to specify an algorithm precisely that

   costs.  Thus the invariable result is that `candygrammar'

   languages are just as difficult to program in as terser ones, and

   far more painful for the experienced hacker.

   [The overtones from the old Chevy Chase skit on Saturday Night Live

   should not be overlooked.  This was a "Jaws" parody.

   Someone lurking outside an apartment door tries all kinds of bogus

   ways to get the occupant to open up, while ominous music plays in

   the background.  The last attempt is a half-hearted "Candygram!"

   When the door is opened, a shark bursts in and chomps the poor

   occupant.  There is a moral here for those attracted to

   candygrammars.  Note that, in many circles, pretty much the same

   ones who remember Monty Python sketches, all it takes is the word

   "Candygram!", suitably timed, to get people rolling on the

   floor. --- GLS]


canonical
: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.

   The word `canon' derives ultimately from the Greek

   `kanon'

   (akin to the English `cane') referring to a reed.  Reeds were used

   for measurement, and in Latin and later Greek the word `canon'

   meant a rule or a standard.  The establishment of a canon of

   scriptures within Christianity was meant to define a standard or a

   rule for the religion.  The above non-techspeak academic usages

   stem from this instance of a defined and accepted body of work.

   Alongside this usage was the promulgation of `canons' (`rules')

   for the government of the Catholic Church.  The techspeak usages

   ("according to religious law") derive from this use of the Latin

   `canon'.

   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 walloper
: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
: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
: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).


cascade
:cascade:  n. 1. A huge volume of spurious error-message output

   produced by a compiler with poor error recovery.  Too frequently,

   one trivial syntax error (such as a missing `)' or `}') throws the

   parser out of synch so that much of the remaining program text is

   interpreted as garbaged or ill-formed.  2. A chain of USENET

   followups, each adding some trivial variation or riposte to the text

   of the previous one, all of which is reproduced in the new message;

   an {include war} in which the object is to create a sort of

   communal graffito.


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

   `down'.  Usually connotes a major failure.  A system (hardware or

   software) which is `down' may be already being restarted before

   the failure is noticed, whereas one which is `casters up' is

   usually a good excuse to take the rest of the day off (as long as

   you're not responsible for fixing it).


casting the runes
: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 "{A Selection}

   {of AI Koans}" ({Appendix A}).


cat
: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 delivers 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, because of its

   woefully unobvious name.  It is far 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
: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}.


cd tilde
:cd tilde:  /C-D til-d*/ vi.  To go home.  From the UNIX C-shell

   and Korn-shell command `cd ~', which takes one to

   one's `$HOME' (`cd' with no arguments happens to do the

   same thing).  By extension, may be used with other arguments; thus,

   over an electronic chat link, `cd ~coffee' would

   mean "I'm going to the coffee machine."


cdr
: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:  /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
:chad box:  n.  boxes inside them, A metal box about the size of a

   lunchbox (or in some models a large wastebasket), for collecting

   the {chad} (sense 2) that accumulated in {Iron Age} card

   punches.  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
:chain:  1. [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'.  2. A series of linked data areas within an

   operating system or application.  `Chain rattling' is the process

   of repeatedly running through the linked data areas searching for

   one which is of interest to the executing program.  The implication

   is that there is a very large number of links on the chain.


channel
:channel:  [IRC] n. The basic unit of discussion on {IRC}.  Once

   one joins a channel, everything one types is read by others on that

   channel.  Channels can either be named with numbers or with strings

   that begin with a `#' sign and can have topic descriptions (which

   are generally irrelevant to the actual subject of discussion).

   Some notable channels are `#initgame', `#hottub', and

   `#report'.  At times of international crisis, `#report'

   has hundreds of members, some of whom take turns listening to

   various news services and typing in summaries of the news, or in

   some cases, giving first-hand accounts of the action (e.g., Scud

   missile attacks in Tel Aviv during the Gulf War in 1991).


channel hopping
:channel hopping:  [IRC, GEnie] n. To rapidly switch channels on

   {IRC}, or a GEnie chat board, just as a social butterfly might hop

   from one group to another at a party.  This term may derive from the TV

   watcher's idiom, `channel surfing'.


channel op
:channel op:  /chan'l op/ [IRC] n. Someone who is endowed with

   privileges on a particular {IRC} channel; commonly abbreviated

   `chanop' or `CHOP'.  These privileges include the right to

   {kick} users, to change various status bits, and to make others

   into CHOPs.


chanop
:chanop:  /chan'-op/ [IRC] n. See {channel op}.


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


chase pointers
: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 {core dump}

   (sense 1), interactively or on a large piece of paper printed with

   hex {runes}, following dynamic data-structures.  Used only in a

   debugging context.


check
:check:  n. A hardware-detected error condition, most commonly used

   to refer to actual hardware failures rather than software-induced

   traps.  E.g., a `parity check' is the result of a

   hardware-detected parity error.  Recorded here because the word

   often humorously extended to non-technical problems. For example,

   the term `child check' has been used to refer to the problems

   caused by a small child who is curious to know what happens when

   s/he presses all the cute buttons on a computer's console (of

   course, this particular problem could have been prevented with

   {molly-guard}s).


chemist
: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
:Chernobyl chicken:  n. See {laser chicken}.


Chernobyl packet
:Chernobyl packet:  /cher-noh'b*l pak'*t/ n. A network packet that

   induces a {broadcast storm} and/or {network meltdown},

   in memory of the April 1986 nuclear accident at Chernobyl

   in Ukraine.  The typical scenario involves 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
: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'; the novel is now sold

   under that title), in which a `chickenhead' is a mutant with

   below-average intelligence.


chiclet keyboard
:chiclet keyboard:  n. A keyboard with a small, flat 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
: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
:Chinese Army technique:  n. Syn. {Mongolian Hordes technique}.


choke
:choke:  v. 1. 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}.   2. [MIT] More generally, to fail at any

   endeavor, but with some flair or bravado; the popular definition is

   "to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory."


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

   {loser}, {bagbiter}, {chomp}.


CHOP
:CHOP:  /chop/ [IRC] n. See {channel op}.


Christmas tree
: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
: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
: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
:chug:  vi. To run slowly; to {grind} or {grovel}.  "The disk is

   chugging like crazy."


Church of the SubGenius
: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
: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.  On the back cover, the device

   is in shambles after she has (inevitably) pulled on the rope.  See

   also {book titles}.


CI$
: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
: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'.

   An analogous construction 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
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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. `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
:clover key:  [Mac users] n. See {feature key}.


clustergeeking
:clustergeeking:  /kluh'st*r-gee`king/ [CMU] n. Spending more time

   at a computer cluster doing CS homework than most people spend

   breathing.


COBOL
: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 that 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
: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 (see

   {candygrammar}); 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
: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 its

   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 one 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
: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
: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
:coefficient of X:  n. Hackish speech makes heavy use of

   pseudo-math-ema-tic-al 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
: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
:cold boot:  n. See {boot}.


COME FROM
: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 R.L. Clark's `A Linguistic Contribution to

   GOTO-less programming', which appeared in a 1973 {Datamation}

   issue (and was reprinted in the April 1984 issue of

   `Communications of the ACM').  This 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 (though a roughly similar feature existed on the IBM 7040

   ten years earlier).  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
: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
:command key:  [Mac users] n. Syn. {feature key}.


comment out
: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 is being left 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
: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 usually

   /bee't*/, zeta is usually /zee't*/, and so forth.  Preferred

   {metasyntactic variable}s include {blurgle}, `eek',

   `ook', `frodo', and `bilbo'; `wibble',

   `wobble', and in emergencies `wubble'; `banana',

   `tom', `dick', `harry', `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}, {loose bytes}, {muddie}, {nadger},

   {noddy}, {psychedelicware}, {plingnet}, {raster}

   {blaster}, {RTBM}, {seggie}, {spod}, {sun lounge},

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


compress
:compress:  [UNIX] vt. When used without a qualifier, generally

   refers to {crunch}ing of a file using a particular

   C implementation of compression by James A. Woods et al. and

   widely circulated via {USENET}; use of {crunch} itself in

   this sense is rare among UNIX hackers.  Specifically, compress is

   built around the Lempel-Ziv-Welch algorithm as described in "A

   Technique for High Performance Data Compression", Terry A. Welch,

   `IEEE Computer', vol. 17, no. 6 (June 1984), pp. 8--19.


Compu$erve
:Compu$erve:  n. See {CI$}.  Synonyms CompuSpend and

   Compu$pend are also reported.


computer confetti
:computer confetti:  n. Syn. {chad}.  Though this term is common,

   this use of 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
: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 {propeller head},

   {clustergeeking}, {geek out}, {wannabee}, {terminal}

   {junkie}, {spod}, {weenie}.


computron
: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'.)


con
:con:  [from SF fandom] n. A science-fiction convention.  Not used

   of other sorts of conventions, such as professional meetings.  This

   term, unlike many others of SF-fan slang, is widely recognized even

   by hackers who aren't {fan}s. "We'd been corresponding on the

   net for months, then we met face-to-face at a con." .


condition out
: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 of

   these directives are `#if 0' (or `#ifdef notdef', though

   some find the latter {bletcherous}) and `#endif' in C.

   Compare {comment out}.


condom
: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}.  3. `keyboard condom':

   A flexible, transparent plastic cover for a keyboard, designed to

   provide some protection against dust and {programming fluid} without

   impeding typing.


confuser
:confuser:  n. Common soundalike slang for `computer'.  Usually

   encountered in compounds such as `confuser room', `personal

   confuser', `confuser guru'.  Usage: silly.


connector conspiracy
: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

   policy 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.

   (A closely related phenomenon, with a slightly different intent, is

   the habit manufacturers have of inventing new screw heads so that

   only Designated Persons, possessing the magic screwdrivers, can

   remove covers and make repairs or install options.  The Apple

   Macintosh takes this one step further, requiring not only a hex

   wrench but a specialized case-cracking tool to open the box.)

   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
: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
: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
: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
:console jockey:  n. See {terminal junkie}.


content-free
: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
: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
: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.  Compare

   {control-S}.


control-Q
:control-Q:  vi. "Resume."  From the ASCII DC1 or {XON}

   character (the pronunciation /X-on/ is therefore also used), used

   to undo a previous {control-S}.


control-S
:control-S:  vi. "Stop talking for a second."  From the ASCII DC3

   or XOFF character (the pronunciation /X-of/ is therefore also

   used).  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
: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".

   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
: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), also known as

   the {Blue Book} 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 function is analogous to the role of phrasebooks

   in human languages.


cooked mode
:cooked mode:  [UNIX, by opposition with {raw mode}] n. The

   normal character-input mode, with interrupts enabled and with

   erase, kill and other special-character interpretations performed

   directly by the tty driver.  Oppose {raw mode}, {rare mode}.

   This term is techspeak under UNIX but jargon elsewhere; other

   operating systems often have similar mode distinctions, and the

   raw/rare/cooked way of describing them has spread widely along with

   the C language and other UNIX exports.  Most generally, `cooked

   mode' may refer to any mode of a system that does extensive

   preprocessing before presenting data to a program.


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


cookie file
:cookie file:  n. A collection of {fortune cookie}s in a format

   that facilitates retrieval by a fortune program.  There are several

   different cookie files in public distribution, and site admins

   often assemble their own from various sources including this

   lexicon.


cookie jar
:cookie jar:  n. An area of memory set aside for storing {cookie}s.

   Most commonly heard in the Atari ST community; many useful ST

   programs record their presence by storing a distinctive {magic}

   {number} in the jar.  Programs can inquire after the presence or

   otherwise of other programs by searching the contents of the jar.


cookie monster
:cookie monster:  [from the children's TV program "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}.


copious free time
:copious free time:  [Apple; orig. fr. the intro to Tom Lehrer's

   song "It Makes A Fellow Proud To Be A Soldier"] n. 1. [used

   ironically to indicate the speaker's lack of the quantity in

   question] A mythical schedule slot for accomplishing tasks held to

   be unlikely or impossible.  Sometimes used to indicate that the

   speaker is interested in accomplishing the task, but believes that

   the opportunity will not arise.  "I'll implement the automatic

   layout stuff in my copious free time."  2. [Archly] Time reserved

   for bogus or otherwise idiotic tasks, such as implementation of

   {chrome}, or the stroking of {suit}s.  "I'll get back to him

   on that feature in my copious free time."


copper
: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
:copy protection:  n. A class of methods for preventing incompetent

   pirates from stealing software and legitimate customers from using

   it.  Considered silly.


copybroke
:copybroke:  /ko'pee-brohk/ adj. 1. [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}.  2. Copy-protected software

   which is unusable because of some bit-rot or bug that has confused

   the anti-piracy check.  See also {copy protection}.


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

   {copybroke}.


core
: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.  Some

   varieties of Commonwealth hackish prefer {store}.


core cancer
:core cancer:  n. A process that exhibits a slow but inexorable

   resource {leak} --- like a cancer, it kills by crowding out

   productive `tissue'.


core dump
: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 (syn. {brain dump}), 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).

   See {core}.


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


Core Wars
: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
:corge:  /korj/ [originally, the name of a cat] n. Yet another

   {metasyntactic variable}, invented by Mike Gallaher and propagated

   by the {GOSMACS} documentation.  See {grault}.


cosmic rays
: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

   one has to design memories to withstand these hits.


cough and die
: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."  Compare

   {die}, {die horribly}, {scream and die}.


cowboy
: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
: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
: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}.


crack root
:crack root:  v. To defeat the security system of a UNIX machine and

   gain {root} privileges thereby; see {cracking}.


cracker
: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.

   Both these neologisms reflected a strong revulsion against the

   theft and vandalism perpetrated by cracking rings.  While it is

   expected that any real hacker will have done some playful cracking

   and knows many of the basic techniques, anyone past {larval}

   {stage} is expected to have outgrown the desire to do so.

   Thus, there is far less overlap between hackerdom and crackerdom

   than the {mundane} reader misled by sensationalistic journalism

   might expect.  Crackers tend to gather in small, tight-knit, very

   secretive groups that have little overlap with the huge, open

   poly-culture this lexicon describes; though crackers often like to

   describe *themselves* as hackers, most true hackers consider

   them a separate and lower form of life.

   Ethical considerations aside, hackers figure that anyone who can't

   imagine a more interesting way to play with their computers than

   breaking into someone else's has to be pretty {losing}.  Some

   other reasons crackers are looked down on are discussed in the

   entries on {cracking} and {phreaking}.  See also

   {samurai}, {dark-side hacker}, and {hacker ethic,}

   {the}.


cracking
:cracking:  n. The act of breaking into a computer system; what a

   {cracker} does.  Contrary to widespread myth, this does not

   usually involve some mysterious leap of hackerly brilliance, but

   rather persistence and the dogged repetition of a handful of fairly

   well-known tricks that exploit common weaknesses in the security of

   target systems.  Accordingly, most crackers are only mediocre

   hackers.


crank
: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."


CrApTeX
:CrApTeX:  /krap'tekh/ [University of York, England] n. Term of

   abuse used to describe TeX and LaTeX when they don't work (when

   used by TeXhackers), or all the time (by everyone else).  The

   non-TeX enthusiasts generally dislike it because it is more verbose

   than other formatters (e.g. troff) and because (particularly if the

   standard Computer Modern fonts are used) it generates vast output

   files.  See {religious issues}, {TeX}.


crash
:crash:  1. n. A sudden, usually drastic failure.  Most often said

   of the {system} (q.v., sense 1), esp. of magnetic disk drives

   (the term originally described what happened when the air gap of a

   hard disk collapses).  "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
: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 (compare {die horribly}).  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
: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
: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
: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
: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}.


crayola books
:crayola books:  n. The {rainbow series} of NCSC computer

   security standards (see {Orange Book}).  Usage: humorous and/or

   disparaging.


crayon
: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 usage that derives from an old Crayola

   crayon promotional gimmick: When you buy 64 crayons you get a free

   sharpener.


creationism
:creationism:  n. The (false) belief that large, innovative software

   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.


creep
:creep:  v. To advance, grow, or multiply inexorably.  In hackish usage

   this verb has overtones of menace and silliness, evoking the

   creeping horrors of low-budget monster movies.


creeping elegance
:creeping elegance:  n. Describes a tendency for parts of a design

   to become {elegant} past the point of diminishing return,

   something which 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
: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
: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
:cretin:  /kret'in/ 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

   /kret'in/ over standard American /kree'tn/; it is thought this may

   be due to the insidious phonetic influence of Monty Python's Flying

   Circus.


cretinous
: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
: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}, {nagware}).

   3. Hardware deliberately crippled, which can be upgraded to a more

   expensive model by a trivial change (e.g., cutting a jumper).

   An excellent example of crippleware (sense 3) is Intel's 486SX

   chip, which is a standard 486DX chip with the co-processor dyked

   out (in some early versions it was present but disabled).  To

   upgrade, you buy a complete 486DX chip with *working*

   co-processor (its identity thinly veiled by a different pinout) and

   plug it into the board's expansion socket.  It then disables the

   SX, which becomes a fancy power sink.  Don't you love Intel?


critical mass
: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.  (This malady has many

   causes: {creeping featurism}, ports to too many disparate

   environments, poor initial design, etc.)  When software achieves

   critical mass, it can never be fixed; it can only be discarded and

   rewritten.


crlf
:crlf:  /ker'l*f/, sometimes /kru'l*f/ or /C-R-L-F/ n. (often

   capitalized as `CRLF') A carriage return (CR, ASCII 0001101)

   followed by a line feed (LF, ASCII 0001010).  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
:crock:  [from the American scatologism crock of shit] n. 1. An

   awkward feature or programming technique that ought to be made

   cleaner.  For example, 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, a too-clever programmer might write an

   assembler which mapped instruction mnemonics to numeric opcodes

   algorithmically, a trick which depends far too intimately on the

   particular bit patterns of the opcodes.  (For another example of

   programming with a dependence on actual opcode values, see {The}

   {Story of Mel, a Real Programmer} in {Appendix A}.)  Many crocks

   have a tightly woven, almost completely unmodifiable structure.

   See {kluge}, {brittle}.  The adjectives `crockish' and

   `crocky', and the nouns `crockishness' and `crockitude', are

   also used.


cross-post
: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 (which 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
: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
: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; used esp. of redundant or superseded code.

   This term is one of the oldest in the jargon and no one is sure of

   its etymology, but it is suggestive that there is a Cruft Hall at

   Harvard University which is part of the old physics building; it's

   said to have been the physics department's radar lab during WWII.

   To this day (early 1993) the windows appear to be full of random

   techno-junk.  MIT or Lincoln Labs people may well have coined the

   term as a knock on the competition.


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

   antithesis of craftsmanship.


crufty
:crufty:  /kruhf'tee/ [origin unknown; poss. from `crusty']

   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
:crumb:  n. Two binary digits; a {quad}.  Larger than a {bit},

   smaller than a {nybble}.  Considered silly.  Syn. {tayste}.


crunch
: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 something 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
: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
:cryppie:  /krip'ee/ n. A cryptographer.  One who hacks or implements

   cryptographic software or hardware.


CTSS
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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
:cuspy:  /kuhs'pee/ [WPI: from the DEC abbreviation 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
:cut a tape:  vi. To write a software or document distribution on

   magnetic tape for shipment.  Has nothing to do with physically

   cutting the medium!  Early versions of this lexicon claimed that

   one never analogously speaks of `cutting a disk', but this has

   since been reported as live usage.  Related slang usages are

   mainstream business's `cut a check', the recording industry's

   `cut a record', and the military's `cut an order'.

   All of these usages reflect physical processes in obsolete

   recording and duplication technologies.  The first stage in

   manufacturing an old-style vinyl record involved cutting grooves in

   a stamping die with a precision lathe.  More mundanely, the

   dominant technology for mass duplication of paper documents in

   pre-photocopying days involved "cutting a stencil", punching away

   portions of the wax overlay on a silk screen.  More directly,

   paper tape with holes punched in it was an important early storage

   medium.


cybercrud
:cybercrud:  /si:'ber-kruhd/ [coined by Ted Nelson] n. Obfuscatory

   tech-talk.  Verbiage with a high {MEGO} factor.  The computer

   equivalent of bureaucratese.


cyberpunk
: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 "{True Names ... and Other Dangers}" in

   appendix C) 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}, {jack in}, {go flatline}.


cyberspace
: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
: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
:cycle crunch:  n. A situation wherein the number of people trying

   to use a 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 scenario 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 since the mid-1980s, 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
: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
: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.  See also

   {blitter}, {bit bang}.


cycle server
: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. C. Power Lab
: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
: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 neither

   compete for access to nor understand any idiosyncrasies of 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 (1993) usage.


dangling pointer
: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 happens 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.


dark-side hacker
:dark-side hacker:  n. A criminal or malicious hacker; a

   {cracker}.  From George Lucas's Darth Vader, "seduced by the

   dark side of the Force".  The implication that hackers form a

   sort of elite of technological Jedi Knights is intended.  Oppose

   {samurai}.


Datamation
: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, and Ed Post's "Real

   Programmers Don't Use Pascal" ten years later, but it has since

   become much more exclusively {suit}-oriented and boring.


DAU
:DAU:  /dow/ [German Fidonet] n. German acronym for D"ummster

   Anzunehmender User (stupidest imaginable user).  From the

   engin-eering-slang GAU for Gr"osster Anzunehmender Unfall (worst

   foreseeable accident, esp. of a LNG tank farm plant or something

   with similarly disastrous consequences).See {cretin}, {fool},

   {loser} and {weasel}.


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


dd
:dd:  /dee-dee/ [UNIX: from IBM {JCL}] vt. Equivalent to

   {cat} or {BLT}.  Originally the name of a UNIX copy command

   with special options suitable for block-oriented devices; it was

   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 an elaborate DD

   `Dataset Definition' specification for I/O devices); 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).  The term has been

   displaced by {BLT} or simple English `copy'.


DDT
: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

   `adb', `sdb', `dbx', or `gdb'.  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 that 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 abbreviation.

     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'.

   The history above is known to many old-time hackers.  But there's

   more: Peter Samson, compiler of the original {TMRC} lexicon,

   reports that he named `DDT' after a similar tool on the TX-0

   computer, the direct ancestor of the PDP-1 built at MIT's Lincoln

   Lab in 1957.  The debugger on that ground-breaking machine (the

   first transistorized computer) rejoiced in the name FLIT

   (FLexowriter Interrogation Tape).


de-rezz
: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. The

   Macintosh resource decompiler.  On a Macintosh, many program

   structures (including the code itself) are managed in small

   segments of the program file known as `resources'; `Rez' and

   `DeRez' are a pair of utilities for compiling and decompiling

   resource files.  Thus, decompiling a resource is `derezzing'.

   Usage: very common.


dead
:dead:  adj. 1. Non-functional; {down}; {crash}ed.  Especially

   used of hardware.  2. At XEROX PARC, software that is working but

   not undergoing continued development and support.


dead code
: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.

   (Sometimes it simply means that an *extremely* defensive

   programmer has inserted {can't happen} tests which really can't

   happen --- yet.)  Syn. {grunge}.


DEADBEEF
: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
: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', in which 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 move the same way at the

   same time.


deadly embrace
:deadly embrace:  n. Same as {deadlock}, though usually used only when

   exactly two processes are involved.  This is the more popular term in

   Europe, while {deadlock} predominates in the United States.


death code
:death code:  n. A routine whose job is to set everything in the

   computer --- registers, memory, flags, everything --- to zero,

   including that portion of memory where it is running; its last act

   is to stomp on its own "store zero" instruction.  Death code

   isn't very useful, but writing it is an interesting hacking

   challenge on architectures where the instruction set makes it

   possible, such as the PDP-8 (it has also been done on the DG Nova).

   Perhaps the ultimate death code is on the TI 990 series, where all

   registers are actually in RAM, and the instruction "store

   immediate 0" has the opcode "0". The PC will immediately wrap

   around core as many times as it can until a user hits HALT.  Any

   empty memory location is death code.  Worse, the manufacturer

   recommended use of this instruction in startup code (which would be

   in ROM and therefore survive).


Death Star
: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' to describe 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
:dec:  /dek/ v. Common verbal shorthand for decrement, i.e.

   `decrease by one' (one doesn't tend to see the sbbreviation in

   writing or email).  Especially used by assembly programmers, as many

   assembly languages (including those for Intel chips) have a

   `dec' mnemonic.  Antonym: {inc}.


DEC Wars
: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.


decay
:decay:  [from nuclear physics] n.,vi. An automatic conversion which

   is applied to most array-valued expressions in {C}; they `decay

   into' pointer-valued expressions pointing to the array's first

   element.  This term is borderline techspeak, but is not used in the

   official standard for the language.


DEChead
:DEChead:  /dek'hed/ n. 1. A DEC {field servoid}.  Not flattering.

   2. [from `deadhead'] A Grateful Dead fan working at DEC.


deckle
:deckle:  /dek'l/ [from dec- and {nybble}; the original

   spelling seems to have been `decle'] 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.


DED
:DED:  /D-E-D/ n.  Dark-Emitting Diode (that is, a burned-out

   LED).  Compare {SED}, {LER}, {write-only memory}.  In the

   early 1970s both Signetics and Texas instruments released DED spec

   sheets as {AFJ}s (suggested uses included "as a power-off

   indicator").


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


deep magic
:deep magic:  [poss. from C. S. Lewis's "Narnia" books] n. An

   awesomely arcane technique central to a program or system, esp. one

   neither generally published nor 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
: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
:defenestration:  [from the traditional Czechoslovakian 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
:defined as:  adj. In the role of, usually in an organization-chart

   sense.  "Pete is currently defined as bug prioritizer."  Compare

   {logical}.


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


delint
:delint:  /dee-lint/ v. To modify code to remove problems detected

   when {lint}ing.  Confusingly, this process is also referred to

   as `linting' code.


delta
: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
: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
: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
: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.  "I've gotta give a demo of the drool-proof interface;

   how does it work again?"  3. n. Esp. as `demo version', can

   refer either to an early, barely-functional version of a program

   which can be used for demonstration purposes as long as the

   operator uses *exactly* the right commands and skirts its numerous

   bugs, deficiencies, and unimplemented portions, or to a special

   version of a program (frequently with some features crippled) which

   is distributed at little or no cost to the user for enticement

   purposes.


demo mode
: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 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
: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.  2. [outside MIT] Often used

   equivalently to {daemon} --- especially in the {UNIX} world,

   where the latter spelling and pronunciation is considered mildly

   archaic.

   Demons in sense 1 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.


depeditate
: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
: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.  This term appears with

   distressing frequency in standards documents when the committees

   writing the documents realize that large amounts of extant (and

   presumably happily working) code depend on the feature(s) that have

   passed out of favor.  See also {dusty deck}.


deserves to lose
: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

   the same thing of {UNIX}; many still do.)  See also {screw},

   {chomp}, {bagbiter}.


desk check
: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}.


despew
:despew:  /d*-spyoo'/ [USENET] v. To automatically generate a

   large amount of garbage to the net, esp. from an automated posting

   program gone wild.  See {ARMM}.


Devil Book
: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, ISBN 0-201-06196-1) --- 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
:devo:  /dee'voh/ [orig. in-house jargon at Symbolics] n. A person in a

   development group.  See also {doco} and {mango}.


dickless workstation
: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; typically, they cannot even {boot} themselves without

   help (in the form of some kind of {breath-of-life packet}) from

   the server.


dictionary flame
: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.  Compare {spelling flame}.


diddle
: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}.


die
:die:  v. Syn. {crash}.  Unlike {crash}, which is used

   primarily of hardware, this verb is used of both hardware and

   software.  See also {go flatline}, {casters-up mode}.


die horribly
:die horribly:  v. The software equivalent of {crash and burn},

   and the preferred emphatic form of {die}.  "The converter

   choked on an FF in its input and died horribly".


diff
: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.  3. v. To compare (whether or not by use of automated

   tools on machine-readable files); see also {vdiff},

   {mod}.


digit
:digit:  n. An employee of Digital Equipment Corporation.  See also

   {VAX}, {VMS}, {PDP-10}, {TOPS-10}, {DEChead}, {double}

   {DECkers}, {field circus}.


dike
: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. the heavy-duty metal-cutting version, 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
: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:  /dink/ adj. 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 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.  See {macdink}.


dinosaur
: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 liquid-cooled 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
: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
: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 in

   1991 AT&T absorbed NCR.  More such earth-shaking unions of doomed

   giants seem inevitable.


dirtball
:dirtball:  [XEROX PARC] n. A small, perhaps struggling outsider;

   not in the major or even the minor leagues.  For example, "Xerox

   is not a dirtball company".

   [Outsiders often observe in the PARC culture an institutional

   arrogance which usage of this term exemplifies.  The brilliance and

   scope of PARC's contributions to computer science have been such

   that this superior attitude is not much resented.  --- ESR]


dirty power
: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

   (these are collectively known as {power hit}s).


disclaimer
:disclaimer:  n. [USENET] n. Statement ritually appended to many USENET

   postings (sometimes automatically, by the posting software) reiterating

   the fact (which should be obvious, but is easily forgotten) that the

   article reflects its author's opinions and not necessarily those of

   the organization running the machine through which the article

   entered the network.


Discordianism
:Discordianism:  /dis-kor'di-*n-ism/ n. The veneration of

   {Eris}, a.k.a. Discordia; widely popular among hackers.

   Discordianism was popularized by Robert Shea and Robert Anton

   Wilson's novel `{Illuminatus!}' 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 {Religion} under {Appendix B}, {Church of the}

   {SubGenius}, and {ha ha only serious}.


disk farm
:disk farm:  n. (also {laundromat}) A large room or rooms filled

   with disk drives (esp. {washing machine}s).


display hack
: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
: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}.  The algorithm starts by printing any N

   consecutive words (or letters) in the text.  Then at every step it

   searches for any random occurrence in the original text of the

   last N words (or letters) already printed and then prints

   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
: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
: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
:doc:  /dok/ n. Common spoken and written shorthand for

   `documentation'.  Often used in the plural `docs' and in the

   construction `doc file' (i.e., documentation available on-line).


doco
:doco:  /do'koh/ [orig. in-house jargon at Symbolics] n. A

   documentation writer.  See also {devo} and {mango}.


documentation
: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 predilection is "You can't {grep} dead trees".  See

   {drool-proof paper}, {verbiage}, {treeware}.


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


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


dogwash
: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
: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, esr@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 term is now (1993) semi-obsolete, as most sites have

   converted.


Don't do that, then!
: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
: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.  Common

   variations on this theme have used parallel or even joystick

   ports.  See {dongle-disk}.

   [Note: in early 1992, advertising copy from Rainbow Technologies (a

   manufacturer of dongles) included a claim that the word derived from

   "Don Gall", allegedly the inventor of the device.  The company's

   receptionist will cheerfully tell you that the story is a myth

   invented for the ad copy.  Nevertheless, I expect it to haunt my

   life as a lexicographer for at least the next ten years. --- ESR]


dongle-disk
:dongle-disk:  /don'gl disk/ n.  A special floppy disk that is

   required in order to perform some task.  Some contain special

   coding that allows an application to identify it uniquely, others

   *are* special code that does something that normally-resident

   programs don't or can't.  (For example, AT&T's "Unix PC" would

   only come up in {root mode} with a special boot disk.)  Also

   called a `key disk'.  See {dongle}.


donuts
:donuts:  n.obs. A collective noun for any set of memory bits.  This

   usage 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
: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
:dot file:  [UNIX] n. A file that is not visible by default 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.  (Therefore, dot

   files tend to {creep} --- with every nontrivial application

   program defining at least one, a user's home directory can be

   filled with scores of dot files, of course without the user's

   really being aware of it.)  See also {rc file}.


double bucky
: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 0-671-21036-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
:double DECkers:  n. Used to describe married couples in which both

   partners work for Digital Equipment Corporation.


doubled sig
: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
: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

   term 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

   "System going 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
: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 `down'

   and the reverse `up' 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
: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
: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 one last person 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.  Hackish usage has been kept alive by the Common LISP function

   of the same name.


DPer
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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.  Folklore had it that PRIME

   adopted the reversed-8-bit convention in order to save 25 cents per

   serial line per machine; PRIME old-timers, on the other hand, claim

   they inherited the disease from Honeywell via customer NASA's

   compatibility requirements and struggled heroicly to cure it.

   Whoever was responsible, this probably qualifies as one of the

   most {cretinous} design tradeoffs ever made.  See {meta bit}.

   A few other machines have exhibited similar brain damage.


DRECNET
:DRECNET:  /drek'net/ [from Yiddish/German `dreck', meaning

   filth] 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
: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 world and the computerized typesetting world in

   general, a program that translates some device-independent or other

   common format to something a real device can actually

   understand.


droid
:droid:  n. A person (esp. a low-level bureaucrat or

   service-bus-i-ness employee) exhibiting most of the following

   characteristics: (a) naive trust in the wisdom of the parent

   organization or `the system'; (b) a blind-faith propensity to

   believe obvious nonsense emitted by authority figures (or

   computers!); (c) a rule-governed mentality, one unwilling or unable

   to look beyond the `letter of the law' in exceptional

   situations; (d), a paralyzing fear of official reprimand or worse

   if Procedures are not followed No Matter What; and (e) no interest

   no interest in doing anything above or beyond the call of a very

   narrowly-interpreted duty, or in particular 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;

   problems arise 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
: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
: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
: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}, sense 2.


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

   (one cause of such behavior under UNIX when a bad connection to a

   modem swamps the processor with spurious character interrupts; see

   {screaming tty}).  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
: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.


drum
:drum:  adj, n.  Ancient techspeak term referring to slow,

   cylindrical magnetic media that were once state-of-the-art

   mass-storage devices.  Under BSD UNIX the disk partition used for

   swapping is still called `/dev/drum'; this has led to

   considerable humor and not a few straight-faced but utterly bogus

   `explanations' getting foisted on {newbie}s.  See also "{The}

   {Story of Mel, a Real Programmer}" in {Appendix A}.


drunk mouse syndrome
:drunk mouse syndrome:  (also `mouse on drugs') 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.


Duff's device
:Duff's device:  n. The most dramatic use yet seen of {fall}

   {through} in C, invented by Tom Duff when he was at Lucasfilm.

   Trying to {bum} all the instructions he could out of an inner

   loop that copied data serially onto an output port, he decided to

   {unroll} it.  He then realized that the unrolled version could

   be implemented by *interlacing* the structures of a switch and

   a loop:

        register n = (count + 7) / 8;      /* count > 0 assumed */

        switch (count % 8)

        {

        case 0:        do { *to = *from++;

        case 7:              *to = *from++;

        case 6:              *to = *from++;

        case 5:              *to = *from++;

        case 4:              *to = *from++;

        case 3:              *to = *from++;

        case 2:              *to = *from++;

        case 1:              *to = *from++;

                           } while (--n > 0);

        }

   Shocking though it appears to all who encounter it for the first

   time, the device is actually perfectly valid, legal C.  C's default

   {fall through} in case statements has long been its most

   controversial single feature; Duff observed that "This code forms

   some sort of argument in that debate, but I'm not sure whether it's

   for or against."

   [For maximal obscurity, the outermost pair of braces above could be

   actually be removed --- GLS]


dumb terminal
:dumb terminal:  n. A terminal that is one step above a {glass tty},

   having a minimally addressable cursor but no on-screen editing or

   other features normally supported by a {smart terminal}.  Once upon a

   time, when glass ttys were common and addressable cursors were

   something special, what is now called a dumb terminal could pass for

   a smart terminal.


dumbass attack
: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
: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
: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 such tedium uncommon, and the

   term `dump' now has a faintly archaic flavor.  2. A backup.  This

   usage is typical only at large timesharing installations.


dumpster diving
:dumpster diving:  /dump'-ster di:'-ving/ n. 1. The practice of

   sifting refuse from an office or technical installation to extract

   confidential data, especially security-compromising information

   (`dumpster' is an Americanism for what is elsewhere called a

   `skip').  Back in AT&T's monopoly days, before paper shredders

   became common office equipment, phone phreaks (see {phreaking})

   used to organize regular dumpster runs against phone company plants

   and offices.  Discarded and damaged copies of AT&T internal manuals

   taught them much.  The technique is still rumored to be a favorite

   of crackers operating against careless targets.  2. The practice of

   raiding the dumpsters behind buildings where producers and/or

   consumers of high-tech equipment are located, with the expectation

   (usually justified) of finding discarded but still-valuable

   equipment to be nursed back to health in some hacker's den.

   Experienced dumpster-divers not infrequently accumulate basements

   full of moldering (but still potentially useful) {cruft}.


dup killer
: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
:dup loop:  /d[y]oop loop/ (also `dupe loop') [FidoNet] n. An

   infinite stream of duplicated, near-identical messages on a FidoNet

   {echo}, the only difference being unique or mangled identification

   information applied by a faulty or incorrectly configured system or

   network gateway, thus rendering {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
:dusty deck:  n. Old software (especially applications) which one is

   obliged to remain compatible with, or to maintain ({DP} types

   call this `legacy code', a term hackers consider smarmy and

   excessively reverent).  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};

   compare {crawling horror}.


DWIM
: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.  Some victims of DWIM thus claimed that

   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 disgruntled victim 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
:dynner:  /din'r/ 32 bits, by analogy with {nybble} and

   {byte}.  Usage: rare and extremely silly.  See also {playte},

   {tayste}, {crumb}.


earthquake
: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
:Easter egg:  [from the custom of the Easter Egg hunt observed in

   the U.S. and many parts of Europe] 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
:Easter egging:  [IBM] n. The act of replacing unrelated components

   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.  See also the jokes

   under {field circus}.  Compare {shotgun debugging}.


eat flaming death
:eat flaming death:  imp. A construction popularized among hackers by

   the infamous {CPU Wars} comic; supposedly 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
:EBCDIC:  /eb's*-dik/, /eb'see`dik/, or /eb'k*-dik/ [abbreviation,

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

   system.  Compare {newsgroup}.


eighty-column mind
: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

   1402 and 1622 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 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-ol'/)

   means `royal'; El Camino Real is `the royal road'.  In the FORTRAN

   language, a `real' quantity is a number typically precise to seven

   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
: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} and {Great Worm, the}.


elegant
:elegant:  [from mathematical usage] adj. Combining simplicity,

   power, and a certain ineffable grace of design.  Higher praise than

   `clever', `winning', or even {cuspy}.

   The French aviator, adventurer, and author Antoine de

   Saint-Exup'ery, probably best known for his classic children's

   book `The Little Prince', was also an aircraft designer.  He

   gave us perhaps the best definition of engineering elegance when he

   said "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there

   is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take

   away."


elephantine
: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
:elevator controller:  n. An 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
: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 by Joseph Weizenbaum,

   which simulated a Rogerian psychoanalyst by re-phrasing 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
: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 intrigued

   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
:EMACS:  /ee'maks/ [from Editing MACroS] n. The ne plus ultra of

   hacker editors, a programmable text editor with an entire LISP

   system inside it.  It was originally written by Richard Stallman in

   {TECO} under {ITS} at the MIT AI lab; AI Memo 554 described

   it as "an advanced, self-documenting, customizable, extensible

   real-time display editor".  It has since been reimplemented any

   number of times, by various hackers, and versions exist that run

   under most major operating systems.  Perhaps the most widely used

   version, also written by Stallman and now called "{GNU} EMACS"

   or {GNUMACS}, runs principally 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.  Other variants include {GOSMACS}, CCA EMACS, UniPress

   EMACS, Montgomery EMACS, jove, epsilon, and MicroEMACS.

   Some EMACS 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
:email:  /ee'mayl/ (also written `e-mail') 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
:emoticon:  /ee-moh'ti-kon/ n. An ASCII glyph used to indicate an

   emotional state in email or news.  Although originally intended

   mostly as jokes, emoticons (or some other explicit humor

   indication) are virtually required under certain circumstances in

   high-volume text-only communication forums such as USENET; the lack

   of verbal and visual cues can otherwise cause what were intended to

   be humorous, sarcastic, ironic, or otherwise non-100%-serious

   comments to be badly misinterpreted (not always even by

   {newbie}s), resulting in arguments and {flame war}s.

   Hundreds of emoticons 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 two 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
:empire:  n. Any of a family of military simulations derived from a

   game written by Peter Langston many years ago.  Five or six

   multi-player variants of varying degrees of sophistication exist,

   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
: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
: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: 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, brain-damaged SQL 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
: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
: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
:EOF:  /E-O-F/ [abbreviation, `End Of File'] n. 1. [techspeak] The

   {out-of-band} value 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. [UNIX] The

   keyboard character (usually control-D, the ASCII EOT (End Of

   Transmission) character) that is mapped by the terminal driver into

   an end-of-file condition.  3. 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
: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
:EOU:  /E-O-U/ n. The mnemonic of a mythical ASCII control

   character (End Of User) that would make an ASR-33 Teletype explode

   on receipt.  This construction parodies 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
: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; under VMS, it's 00:00:00 GMT of November 17,

   1858 (base date of the U.S. Naval Observatory's ephemerides).

   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 at least some software

   continues to consider it signed and that word lengths don't

   increase by then.  See also {wall time}.


epsilon
: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, 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
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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.


error 33
:error 33:  [XEROX PARC] n. 1. Predicating one research effort upon

   the success of another.  2. Allowing your own research effort to be

   placed on the critical path of some other project (be it a research

   effort or not).


evil
: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

   usage 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/.  Compare {evil and rude}.


evil and rude
:evil and rude:  adj. Both {evil} and {rude}, but this phrase

   has the additional connotation that the rudeness was due to malice

   rather than incompetence.  Thus, for example: Microsoft's Windows

   NT is evil because it's a competent implementation of a bad

   design; it's rude because it's gratuitously incompatible with

   UNIX in places where compatibility would have been as easy and

   effective to do; but it's evil and rude because the

   incompatiblities are apparently there not to fix design bugs in

   UNIX but rather to lock hapless customers and developers into the

   Microsoft way. Hackish evil and rude is close to the mainstream

   sense of `evil'.


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


examining the entrails
: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.  The reference is to divination

   from the entrails of a sacrified animal.  Compare {runes},

   {incantation}, {black art}, {desk check}.


EXCH
: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 are probably thinking instead of the

   {PostScript} exchange operator (which is usually written in

   lowercase).


excl
:excl:  /eks'kl/ n. Abbreviation for `exclamation point'.  See

   {bang}, {shriek}, {ASCII}.


EXE
: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
: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 and VM/CMS shops, 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
: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.


external memory
:external memory:  n. A memo pad or written notes.  "Hold on while

   I write that to external memory".  The analogy is with store or

   DRAM versus nonvolatile disk storage on computers.


eyeball search
:eyeball search:  n.,v. 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}.


face time
: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
:factor:  n. See {coefficient of X}.


fall over
:fall over:  [IBM] vi. Yet another synonym for {crash} or {lose}.

   `Fall over hard' equates to {crash and burn}.


fall through
: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 the above 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.


fan
:fan:  n.  Without qualification, indicates a fan of science

   fiction, especially one who goes to {con}s and tends to hang out

   with other fans.  Many hackers are fans, so this term has been

   imported from fannish slang; however, unlike much fannish slang it

   is recognized by most non-fannish hackers.  Among SF fans the

   plural is correctly `fen', but this usage is not automatic to

   hackers.  "Laura reads the stuff occasionally but isn't really a

   fan."


fandango on core
: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}, {memory smash},

   {overrun screw}, {core}.


FAQ
:FAQ:  /F-A-Q/ or /fak/ [USENET] n. 1. A Frequently Asked Question.

   2. A compendium of accumulated lore, posted periodically to

   high-volume newsgroups in an attempt to forestall such questions.

   Some people prefer the term `FAQ list' or `FAQL' /fa'kl/,

   reserving `FAQ' for sense 1.

   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 FAQ

   posting.  Examples: "What is the proper type of NULL?"  and

   "What's that funny name for the `#' character?" are both

   Frequently Asked Questions.  Several FAQ lists refer readers to

   this file.


FAQ list
:FAQ list:  /F-A-Q list/ or /fak list/ [USENET] n. Syn {FAQ},

   sense 2.


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


faradize
:faradize:  /far'*-di:z/ [US Geological Survey] v. To start any

   hyper-addictive process or trend, or to continue adding current to

   such a trend.  Telling one user about a new octo-tetris game you

   compiled would be a faradizing act --- in two weeks you might find

   your entire department playing the faradic game.


farkled
:farkled:  /far'kld/ [DeVry Institute of Technology, Atlanta] adj.

   Syn. {hosed}.  Poss. owes something to Yiddish `farblondjet'.


farming
: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
: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}, although that term is global

   rather than local.


fat electrons
:fat electrons:  n. Old-time hacker David Cargill's theory on the

   causation of computer glitches.  Your typical electric utility

   draws its line current out of the big generators with a pair of

   coil taps located near the top of the dynamo.  When the normal tap

   brushes get dirty, they take them off line to clean them up, and use

   special auxiliary taps on the *bottom* of the coil.  Now,

   this is a problem, because when they do that they get not ordinary

   or `thin' electrons, but the fat'n'sloppy electrons that are

   heavier and so settle to the bottom of the generator.  These flow

   down ordinary wires just fine, but when they have to turn a sharp

   corner (as in an integrated-circuit via), they're apt to get stuck.

   This is what causes computer glitches.  [Fascinating.  Obviously,

   fat electrons must gain mass by {bogon} absorption --- ESR]

   Compare {bogon}, {magic smoke}.


faulty
:faulty:  adj. Non-functional; buggy.  Same denotation as

   {bletcherous}, {losing}, q.v., but the connotation is much

   milder.


fd leak
:fd leak:  /F-D 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
:fear and loathing:  [from Hunter S. 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
: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
:feature creature:  [poss. fr. slang `creature feature' for a

   horror movie] n. 1. One who loves to add features to designs or

   programs, perhaps at the expense of coherence, concision, or

   {taste}.  2. Alternately, a mythical being that induces

   otherwise rational programmers to perpetrate such crocks.  See also

   {feeping creaturism}, {creeping featurism}.


feature key
:feature key:  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), {splat}, or the `command

   key'.  The Mac's equivalent of an {alt} key (and so labeled omed

   on the Mac II).  The proliferation of terms for this creature may

   illustrate one subtle peril of iconic interfaces.

   Many people have been mystified by the cloverleaf-like symbol that

   appears on the feature key.  Its oldest name is `cross of St.

   Hannes', but it occurs in pre-Christian Viking art as a decorative

   motif.  Throughout Scandinavia today the road agencies use it to

   mark sites of historical interest.  Though this symbol technically

   stands for the word `sev"ardhet' (interesting feature) many of

   these are old churches; hence, the Swedish idiom for the symbol is

   `kyrka', cognate to English `church' and Scots-dialect `kirk' but

   pronounced /shir'k*/ in modern Swedish.  This is in fact where

   Apple got the symbol; Apple gives the translation "interesting

   feature"!


feature shock
: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
: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.  (Doing so 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:  /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 five seconds).  The `feeper' on a VT-52 has been

   compared to the sound of a '52 Chevy stripping its gears.  See also

   {ding}.


feeper
:feeper:  /fee'pr/ n. The device in a terminal or workstation (usually

   a loudspeaker of some kind) that makes the {feep} sound.


feeping creature
: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
: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
: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
: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 also (though slightly less frequently) used this way.

   See {zigamorph}.  2. An extra data value inserted in an array or

   other data structure in order to allow some normal test on the

   array's contents also to function as a termination test.  For

   example, a highly optimized routine for finding a value in an array

   might artificially place a copy of the value to be searched for

   after the last slot of the array, thus allowing the main search

   loop to search for the value without having to check at each pass

   whether the end of the array had been reached.  3. [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
: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. [rare] An error

   induced by unexpected regularities in input values, which can (for

   instance) completely thwart a theoretically efficient binary tree or

   hash table implementation.  (The error here involves the difference

   between expected and worst case behaviors of an algorithm.)


fepped out
: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
:FidoNet:  n. A worldwide hobbyist network of personal computers

   which exchanges 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
: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 one tire at a time 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 one tire at a time to see which one is flat.

   [See {Easter egging} for additional insight on these jokes.]

   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
: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
: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
: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
: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.  Often abbreviated `FReq'; 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.


file signature
:file signature:  n. A {magic number} sense 3.


filk
:filk:  /filk/ [from SF fandom, where a typo for `folk' was

   adopted as a new word] n.,v. 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.  Compare {grilf},

   {hing} and {newsfroup}.


film at 11
:film at 11:  [MIT: in parody of TV newscasters] 1. 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."

   2. Also widely used outside MIT to indicate that additional

   information will be available at some future time, *without*

   the implication of anything particularly ordinary about the

   referenced event.  For example, "The mail file server died this

   morning; we found garbage all over the root directory.  Film at

   11." would indicate that a major failure had occurred but that the

   people working on it have no additional information about it as

   yet; use of the phrase in this way suggests gently that the problem

   is liable to be fixed more quickly if the people doing the fixing

   can spend time doing the fixing rather than responding to

   questions, the answers to which will appear on the normal "11:00

   news", if people will just be patient.


filter
: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}).  Compare {sponge}.


Finagle's Law
: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
: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
:finger:  [WAITS, via BSD UNIX] 1. n. A program that displays

   information about 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

   (see also {Hacking X for Y}).  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
: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.


finn
:finn:  [IRC] v. To pull rank on somebody based on the amount of

   time one has spent on {IRC}.  The term derives from the fact

   that IRC was originally written in Finland in 1987.


firebottle
: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
: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.


firehose syndrome
:firehose syndrome:  n. In mainstream folklore it is observed that

   trying to drink from a firehose can be a good way to rip your lips

   off.  On computer networks, the absence or failure of flow control

   mechanisms can lead to situations in which the sending system

   sprays a massive flood of packets at an unfortunate receiving

   system, more than it can handle.  Compare {overrun}, {buffer}

   {overflow}.


firewall code
:firewall code:  n. 1. 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.

   2. Any sanity check inserted to catch a {can't happen} error.

   Wise programmers often change code to fix a bug twice: once to fix

   the bug, and once to insert a firewall which would have arrested

   the bug before it did quite as much damage.


firewall machine
: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
:fireworks mode:  n. The mode a machine is sometimes said to be in when

   it is performing a {crash and burn} operation.


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


fish
: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
: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.


FITNR
:FITNR:  // [Thinking Machines, Inc.] Fixed In the Next Release.

   A written-only notation attached to bug reports.  Often wishful

   thinking.


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

   times to be ignored.


FIXME
:FIXME:  imp. A standard tag often put in C comments near a piece of

   code that needs work.  The point of doing this is so that a

   `grep' or similar pattern-matching tool can find all such

   places quickly.

     FIXME: note this is common in {GNU} code.

   Compare {XXX}.


flag
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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.

   It is possible that the hackish sense of `flame' is much older than

   that.  The poet Chaucer was also what passed for a wizard hacker in

   his time; he wrote a treatise on the astrolabe, the most advanced

   computing device of the day.  In Chaucer's `Troilus and

   Cressida', Cressida laments her inability to grasp the proof of a

   particular mathematical theorem; her uncle Pandarus then observes

   that it's called "the fleminge of wrecches."  This phrase seems

   to have been intended in context as "that which puts the wretches

   to flight" but was probably just as ambiguous in Middle English as

   "the flaming of wretches" would be today.  One suspects that

   Chaucer would feel right at home on USENET.


flame bait
:flame bait:  n. A posting intended to trigger a {flame war}, or one

   that invites flames in reply.


flame on
: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
:flame war:  n. (var. `flamewar') An acrimonious dispute,

   especially when conducted on a public electronic forum such as

   {USENET}.


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

   {USENET} personalities.


flap
: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.  (The term could

   well be re-applied to DEC's TK50 cartridge tape drive, a

   spectacularly misengineered contraption which makes a loud flapping

   sound, almost like an old reel-type lawnmower, in one of its many

   tape-eating failure modes.)


flarp
: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
: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}).

   Note that sense 1 (at least with respect to filesystems) is usually

   used pejoratively, while sense 2 is a {Good Thing}.


flat-ASCII
: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 markup language, or output defice, and no

   {meta}-characters).  Syn. {plain-ASCII}.  Compare

   {flat-file}.


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
: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
: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
:flavorful:  adj. Full of {flavor} (sense 2); esthetically pleasing.  See

   {random} and {losing} for antonyms.  See also the entries for

   {taste} and {elegant}.


flippy
: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.


flood
:flood:  [IRC] v. To dump large amounts of text onto an {IRC}

   channel.  This is especially rude when the text is uninteresting

   and the other users are trying to carry on a serious conversation.


flowchart
: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 attitude follows

   from the observations that flowcharts (at least from a hacker's

   point of view) 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
:flower key:  [Mac users] n. See {feature key}.


flush
: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 could 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.


flypage
:flypage:  /fli:'payj/ n. (alt. `fly page') A {banner}, sense

   1.


Flyspeck 3
:Flyspeck 3:  n. Standard name for any font that is so tiny as to be

   unreadable (by analogy with names like `Helvetica 10' for

   10-point Helvetica).  Legal boilerplate is usually printed in

   Flyspeck 3.


flytrap
:flytrap:  n. See {firewall machine}.


FM
:FM:  n. *Not* `Frequency Modulation' but rather an

   abbreviation for `Fucking Manual', the back-formation from

   {RTFM}. Used to refer to the manual itself in the {RTFM}.

   "Have you seen the Networking FM lately?"


fnord
:fnord:  [from the `Illuminatus Trilogy'] n. 1. A word used in

   email and news postings to tag utterances as surrealist mind-play

   or humor, esp. in connection with {Discordianism} and elaborate

   conspiracy theories.  "I heard that David Koresh is sharing an

   apartment in Argentina with Hitler. (Fnord.)", "Where can I fnord

   get the Principia Discordia from?"  2. A metasyntactic variable,

   commonly used by hackers with ties to {Discordianism} or the

   {Church of the SubGenius}.


FOAF
:FOAF:  // [USENET] n. Acronym for `Friend Of A Friend'.  The

   source of an unverified, possibly untrue story.  This term 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:  /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 usage 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 generally does to the engine.


fold case
: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
: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}.


fontology
:fontology:  [XEROX PARC] n. The body of knowledge dealing with the

   construction and use of new fonts (e.g., for window systems and

   typesetting software).  It has been said that fontology

   recapitulates file-ogeny.

   [Unfortunately, this reference to the embryological dictum that

   "Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" is not merely a joke.  On the

   Macintosh, for example, System 7 has to go through contortions to

   compensate for an earlier design error that created a whole

   different set of abstractions for fonts parallel to `files' and

   `folders' --- ESR]


foo
: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 variable}s used in syntax examples.  See also

   {bar}, {baz}, {qux}, {quux}, {corge}, {grault},

   {garply}, {waldo}, {fred}, {plugh}, {xyzzy},

   {thud}.

   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 "The 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 has been suggested that this might be

   related to the Chinese word `fu' (sometimes transliterated

   `foo'), which can mean "happiness" when spoken with the proper

   tone (the lion-dog guardians flanking the steps of many Chinese

   restaurants are properly called "fu dogs").

   Earlier versions of this entry suggested the possibility that

   hacker usage actually sprang from `FOO, Lampoons and Parody',

   the title of a comic book first issued in September 1958, a joint

   project of Charles and Robert Crumb.  Though Robert Crumb (then in

   his mid-teens) later became one of the most important and

   influential artists in underground comics, this venture was hardly

   a success; indeed, the brothers later burned most of the existing

   copies in disgust.  The title FOO was featured in large letters on

   the front cover.  However, very few copies of this comic actually

   circulated, and students of Crumb's `oeuvre' have established

   that this title was a reference to the earlier Smokey Stover

   comics.

   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 staff of what became the MIT AI LAB was involved with

   TMRC, and probably picked the word up there.

   Very probably, hackish `foo' had no single origin and derives

   through all these channels from Yiddish `feh' and/or English

   `fooey'.


foobar
: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
: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
:fool file, the:  [USENET] n. A notional repository of all the most

   dramatically and abysmally stupid utterances ever.  An entire

   subgenre of {sig block}s 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 usage 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
: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 then 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 the company turned

   towards building smaller, slower, and much less expensive

   machines.  Unfortunately, these ran not the popular {TOPS-20}

   but a TENEX variant 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
: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
: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."  The term usually 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
: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 naive 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},

   {point-and-drool interface}, {user-friendly}.


for values of
:for values of:  [MIT] A common rhetorical maneuver at MIT is to use

   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.

   Historical note: this usage probably derives from the programming

   language MAD (Michigan Algorithm Decoder), an Algol-like language

   that was the most common choice among mainstream (non-hacker) users

   at MIT in the mid-60s.  It had a control structure FOR VALUES OF X

   = 3, 7, 99 DO ... that would repeat the indicated instructions for

   each value in the list (unlike the usual FOR that only works for

   arithmetic sequences of values).  MAD is long extinct, but similar

   for-constructs still flourish (e.g., in UNIX's shell languages).


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


foreground
:foreground:  [UNIX] vt. To bring a task 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}.


fork bomb
:fork bomb:  [UNIX] n. A particular species of {wabbit} that can

   be written in one line of C (`main() {for(;;)fork();}) or shell

   (`$0 & $0 &') on any UNIX system, or occasionally created by an

   egregious coding bug.  A fork bomb process `explodes' by

   recursively spawning copies of itself (using the UNIX system call

   `fork(2)').  Eventually it eats all the process table entries

   and effectively wedges the system.  Fortunately, fork bombs are

   relatively easy to spot and kill, so creating one deliberately

   seldom accomplishes more than to bring the just wrath of the gods

   down upon the perpetrator.  See also {logic bomb}.


forked
:forked:  [UNIX; prob. influenced by a mainstream expletive] adj.

   Terminally slow, or dead.  Originated when one system was slowed to

   a snail's pace by an inadvertent {fork bomb}.


Fortrash
:Fortrash:  /for'trash/ n. Hackerism for the FORTRAN (FORmula

   TRANslator) language, referring to its primitive design, gross and

   irregular syntax, limited control constructs, and slippery,

   exception-filled semantics.


fortune cookie
:fortune cookie:  [WAITS, via 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
: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
: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 preference to the `supported' ROM routines, which do not support

   interrupt-driven operation or setting speeds above 9600; the use of

   a semistandard FOSSIL library is preferable to the {bare metal}

   serial port programming otherwise required.  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
:four-color glossies:  1. Literature created by {marketroid}s

   that allegedly contains 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
:fragile:  adj. Syn {brittle}.


fred
: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}).  See also {barney}.  2. An acronym for

   `Flipping Ridiculous Electronic Device'; other F-verbs may be

   substituted for `flipping'.


frednet
: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
: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
: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 term.  A `feature

   freeze', for example, locks out modifications intended to introduce

   new features but still allows bugfixes and completion of existing

   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
: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 --- see {friode}, {SED} and

   {LER}.  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."


frink
:frink:  /frink/ v. The unknown ur-verb, fill in your own meaning.

   Found esp. on the USENET newsgroup alt.fan.lemur, where it is

   said that the lemurs know what `frink' means, but they aren't

   telling.  Compare {gorets}.


friode
:friode:  /fri:'ohd/ [TMRC] n. A reversible (that is, fused or

   blown) diode.  Compare {fried}; see also {SED}, {LER}.


fritterware
: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.  See also {window shopping}.


frob
: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 (sense 2).  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.  The command is actually

   `frobnicate' but is universally abbreviated to the shorter

   form.


frobnicate
: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
:frobnitz:  /frob'nits/, plural `frobnitzem' /frob'nit-zm/ or

   `frob-ni' /frob'-ni:/ [TMRC] 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'

   /fr*-boz'/ (plural: `frobbotzim' /fr*-bot'zm/) has also

   become very popular, largely through its exposure as a name via

   {Zork}.  These variants can also be applied to nonphysical

   objects, such as data structures.

   Pete Samson, compiler of the original {TMRC} lexicon, adds,

   "Under the TMRC [railroad] layout were many storage boxes, managed

   (in 1958) by David R. Sawyer.  Several had fanciful designations

   written on them, such as `Frobnitz Coil Oil'.  Perhaps DRS intended

   Frobnitz to be a proper name, but the name was quickly taken for

   the thing".  This was almost certainly the origin of the

   term.


frog
: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!"


frogging
:frogging:  [University of Waterloo] v. 1. Partial corruption of a

   text file or input stream by some bug or consistent glitch, as

   opposed to random events like line noise or media failures.  Might

   occur, for example, if one bit of each incoming character on a tty

   were stuck, so that some characters were correct and others were

   not.  See {terminak} for a historical example.  2. By extension,

   accidental display of text in a mode where the output device emits

   special symbols or mnemonics rather than conventional ASCII.  This

   often happens, for example, when using a terminal or comm program

   on a device like an IBM PC with a special `high-half' character set

   and with the bit-parity assumption wrong.  A hacker sufficiently

   familiar with ASCII bit patterns might be able to read the display

   anyway.


front end
: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
:frotz:  /frots/ 1. n. See {frobnitz}.  2. `mumble frotz': An

   interjection of mildest disgust.


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


fry
: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
: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
: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}, and {foo} for a fuller etymology.


fuck me harder
: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
: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 implicit coercion was traditionally

   accomplished 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
: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
: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
: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
: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}.


fum
:fum:  [XEROX PARC] n. At PARC, often the third of the standard

   {metasyntactic variable}s (after {foo} and {bar}).  Competes

   with {baz}, which is more common outside PARC.


funky
: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."


funny money
: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).  In New Zealand and Germany

   the odd usage `paper money' has been recorded; in Germany, the

   particularly amusing synonym `transfer ruble' commemmorates the

   funny money used for trade between COMECON countries back when the

   Soviet Bloc still existed.  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
: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
: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
: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
: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; the inevitable result is

   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, the probability of maintaining a coherent (or even

   functional) design goes infinitesimal.  See also {firefighting},

   {Mongolian Hordes technique}, {Conway's Law}.


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


garply
:garply:  /gar'plee/ [Stanford] n. Another metasyntactic variable (see

   {foo}); once popular among SAIL hackers.


gas
: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 since 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
: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
: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 techspeak for a

   particular class of strategies for dynamically but transparently

   reallocating computer memory (i.e., without requiring explicit

   allocation and deallocation by higher-level software).  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
: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 used 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
:GECOS:  /jee'kohs/ n. See {GCOS}.


gedanken
: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 it can

   be reasoned about 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 must be used with care.  It's too easy to idealize

   away some important aspect of the real world in contructing the

   `apparatus'.

   Among hackers, accordingly, the word has a pejorative connotation.

   It is typically used 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
:geef:  v. [ostensibly from `gefingerpoken'] vt. Syn. {mung}.  See

   also {blinkenlights}.


geek out
: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 or say something

   highly technical and don't have time to explain: "Pardon me while

   I geek out for a moment."  See {computer geek}; see also

   {propeller head}.


gen
:gen:  /jen/ n.,v. Short for {generate}, used frequently in both spoken

   and written contexts.


gender mender
: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 doubly

   male) or sockets on both sides (connects two males).


General Public Virus
: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 license may eliminate this problem.


generate
: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
: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.  Gensymmed names are useful

   for storing or uniquely identifying crufties (see

   {cruft}).


Get a life!
:Get a life!:  imp. Hacker-standard way of suggesting that the

   person to whom it is directed 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.  It was certainly in

   wide use among hackers for at least five years before achieving

   mainstream currency in early 1992.


Get a real computer!
: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 16 megabytes.  This is as of mid-1993; 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
: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
:gig:  /jig/ or /gig/ [SI] n. See {quantifiers}.


giga-
:giga-:  /ji'ga/ or /gi'ga/ [SI] pref. See {quantifiers}.


GIGO
:GIGO:  /gi:'goh/ [acronym] 1. `Garbage In, Garbage Out' ---

   usually said in response to {luser}s who complain that a program

   didn't "do the right thing" when given imperfect input or

   otherwise mistreated in some way.  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.


gilley
:gilley:  [USENET] n. The unit of analogical bogosity.  According to

   its originator, the standard for one gilley was "the act of

   bogotoficiously comparing the shutting down of 1000 machines for a

   day with the killing of one person".  The milligilley has been

   found to suffice for most normal conversational exchanges.


gillion
: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:  /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:  /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
:glass:  [IBM] n. Synonym for {silicon}.


glass tty
: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}; compare {dumb terminal}, {smart}

   {terminal}.  See "{TV Typewriters}" (appendix A) for an

   interesting true story about a glass tty.


glassfet
: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
: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' (also {power hit}), 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 in the electronic hardware world, where it is

   now techspeak.  A glitch can occur when 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.  If

   another circuit inspects the output at just the wrong time, reading

   the random value, the results can be very wrong and very hard to

   debug (a glitch is one of many causes of electronic {heisenbug}s).


glob
: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 single 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}.  Note that glob patterns are similar,

   but not identical, to those used in {regexp}s.

   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:  /glork/ 1. interj. Term of mild surprise, usually tinged with

   outrage, as when one attempts to save the results of two 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
: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
:gnarly:  /nar'lee/ adj. Both {obscure} and {hairy} (sense

   1).  "{Yow!} --- the tuned assembler implementation of BitBlt

   is really gnarly!"  From a similar but less specific usage in

   surfer slang.


GNU
: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
: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
: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

   about.  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
: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
:go-faster stripes:  [UK] Syn. {chrome}.  Mainstream in some

   parts of UK. .


gobble
:gobble:  vt. 1. To consume, usu. used with `up'.  "The output

   spy gobbles characters out of a {tty} output buffer."  2. To

   obtain, usu. used with `down'.  "I guess I'll gobble down a copy

   of the documentation tomorrow."  See also {snarf}.


Godzillagram
: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 is an IP datagram whose

   destination IP address is [255.255.255.255].  Fortunately, few

   gateways are foolish enough to attempt to implement this case!  2. A

   network packet of maximum size.  An IP Godzillagram has

   65,536 octets.


golden
: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
: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 little spherical frob bearing

   reversed embossed images of 88 different characters arranged on

   four parallels 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:  /gonk/ vt.,n. 1. To prevaricate or to embellish the truth

   beyond any reasonable recognition.  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
: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
: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
: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}.


gorets
:gorets:  /goh'rets/ n. The unknown ur-noun, fill in your own

   meaning.  Found esp. on the USENET newsgroup alt.gorets, which

   seems to be a running contest to redefine the word by implication

   in the funniest and most peculiar way, with the understanding that

   no definition is ever final.  [A correspondent from the Former

   Soviet Union informs me that `gorets' is Russian for `mountain

   dweller' --- ESR] Compare {frink}.


gorilla arm
: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 --- the operator looks like a gorilla while using the

   touch screen and feels like one afterwards.  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:  /gorp/ [CMU: perhaps from the canonical hiker's food, Good

   Old Raisins and Peanuts] Another {metasyntactic variable}, like

   {foo} and {bar}.


GOSMACS
: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
:Gosperism:  /gos'p*r-izm/ A hack, invention, or saying due to

   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
:gotcha:  n. A {misfeature} of a system, especially a programming

   language or environment, that tends to breed bugs or mistakes

   because it both enticingly easy to invoke and completely unexpected

   and/or unreasonable in its outcome.  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
:GPL:  /G-P-L/ n. Abbreviation for `General Public License' in

   widespread use; see {copyleft}, {General Public}

   {Virus}.


GPV
:GPV:  /G-P-V/ n. Abbrev. for {General Public Virus} in

   widespread use.


grault
:grault:  /grawlt/ n. Yet another {metasyntactic variable}, invented by

   Mike Gallaher and propagated by the {GOSMACS} documentation.  See

   {corge}.


gray goo
: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
:Great Renaming:  n. The {flag day} in 1985 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.  Used

   esp. in discussing the history of newsgroup names.  "The oldest

   sources group is comp.sources.misc; before the Great Renaming,

   it was net.sources."


Great Runes
: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 Of The Day was therefore, 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 Worm, the
:Great Worm, the:  n. The 1988 Internet {worm} perpetrated by

   {RTM}.  This is a play on Tolkien (compare {elvish},

   {elder days}).  In the fantasy history of his Middle Earth

   books, there were dragons powerful enough to lay waste to entire

   regions; two of these (Scatha and Glaurung) were known as "the

   Great Worms".  This usage expresses the connotation that the RTM

   hack was a sort of devastating watershed event in hackish history;

   certainly it did more to make non-hackers nervous about the

   Internet than anything before or since.


great-wall
: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
: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}, and the

   {White Book} (sense 2).  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', which

   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 issued by the CCITT's tenth

   plenary assembly.  These include, among other things, the

   X.400 email standard and the Group 1 through 4 fax standards.  See

   also {book titles}.


green bytes
:green bytes:  n. (also `green words') 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
:green card:  n. [after the `IBM System/360 Reference Data'

   card] A 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..


green lightning
: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} (sense 6).


green machine
: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
: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.  A refinement of the theorem states that there will be

   *exactly* one person (if there were more than one, it wouldn't be

   as bad to re-tell the story).  [The name of this theorem is a play

   on a fundamental theorem in calculus. --- ESR]


grep
: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 set of

   files looking for a particular string or pattern (when browsing

   through a large set of files, one may speak of `grepping

   around').  By extension, to look for something by pattern.  "Grep

   the bulletin board for the system backup schedule, would you?"

   See also {vgrep}.


grilf
:grilf:  // n.  Girl-friend.  Like {newsfroup} and {filk}, a

   typo incarnated as a new word.  Seems to have originated sometime

   in 1992.


grind
:grind:  vt. 1. [MIT and Berkeley] To prettify hardcopy of code,

   especially LISP code, by reindenting lines, printing keywords and

   comments in distinct fonts (if available), etc.  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.  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
: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.


gripenet
:gripenet:  [IBM] n. A wry (and thoroughly unofficial) name for IBM's

   internal VNET system, deriving from its common use by IBMers to

   voice pointed criticism of IBM management that would be taboo in

   more formal channels.


gritch
: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:  /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}, which is similar

   supernal understanding experienced 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:  /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}' (sense 2).  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
: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
: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
: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 /usr 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
: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
:gubbish:  /guhb'*sh/ [a portmanteau of `garbage' and

   `rubbish'; may have originated with SF author Philip K. Dick]

   n. Garbage; crap; nonsense.  "What is all this gubbish?"  The

   opposite portmanteau `rubbage' is also reported.


guiltware
: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
:gumby:  /guhm'bee/ [from a class of Monty Python characters,

   poss. with some influence from the 1960s claymation character] n.

   An act of minor but conspicuous stupidity, often in `gumby

   maneuver' or `pull a gumby'.


gun
: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
:gunch:  /guhnch/ [TMRC] vt. To push, prod, or poke at a device

   that has almost (but not quite) produced the desired result.

   Implies a threat to {mung}.


gurfle
: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
:guru:  n. [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}.


guru meditation
:guru meditation:  n. Amiga equivalent of `panic' in UNIX

   (sometimes just called a `guru' or `guru event').  When the

   system crashes, a cryptic message of the form "GURU MEDITATION

   #XXXXXXXX.YYYYYYYY" may appear, 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}.

   This term is (no surprise) an in-joke from the earliest days of the

   Amiga.  There used to be a device called a `Joyboard' which was

   basically a plastic board built onto a joystick-like device; it

   was sold with a skiing game cartridge for the Atari game machine.

   It is said that whenever the prototype OS crashed, the system

   programmer responsible would calm down by concentrating on a

   solution while sitting cross-legged on a Joyboard trying to keep

   the board in balance.  This position resembled that of a

   meditating guru.  Sadly, the joke was removed in AmigaOS 2.04.


gweep
:gweep:  /gweep/ [WPI] 1. v. To {hack}, usually at night.  At

   WPI, from 1977 onwards, this often indicated that the speaker could

   be found at the College Computing Center punching cards or crashing

   the {PDP-10} or, later, the DEC-20.  The term has survived the

   demise of those technologies, however, and is still alive in late

   1991.  "I'm going to go gweep for a while. See you in the

   morning" "I gweep from 8 PM till 3 AM during the week."

   2. n. One who habitually gweeps in sense 1; a {hacker}.  "He's

   a hard-core gweep, mumbles code in his sleep."


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
: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
: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}.  9. [MIT] v. To explore

   the basements, roof ledges, and steam tunnels of a large,

   institutional building, to the dismay of Physical Plant workers and

   (since this is usually performed at educational institutions) the

   Campus Police.  This activity has been found to be eerily similar

   to playing adventure games such as Dungeons and Dragons and {Zork}.

   See also {vadding}.

   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 this

   totipotent term see "{The Meaning of `Hack'}".  See

   also {neat hack}, {real hack}.


hack attack
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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, only experienced.  As Louis Armstrong once said when

   asked to explain jazz: "Man, if you gotta ask you'll never know."

   (Feminists please note Fats Waller's explanation of rhythm: "Lady,

   if you got to ask you ain't got it.")


hacked off
: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
: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
: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'.  The correct term is {cracker}.

   The term `hacker' also tends to connote membership in the global

   community defined by the net (see {network, the} and

   {Internet address}).  It also implies that the person described

   is seen to subscribe to some version of the hacker ethic (see

   {hacker ethic, the}.

   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}).  See also {wannabee}.


hacker ethic, the
:hacker ethic, the:  n. 1. The belief that information-sharing

   is a powerful positive good, and that it is an ethical duty of

   hackers to share their expertise by writing free software and

   facilitating access to information and to computing resources

   wherever possible.  2. The belief that system-cracking for fun

   and exploration is ethically OK as long as the cracker commits

   no theft, vandalism, or breach of confidentiality.

   Both of these normative ethical principles are widely, but by no

   means universally, accepted among hackers. Most hackers subscribe

   to the hacker ethic in sense 1, and many act on it by writing and

   giving away free software.  A few go further and assert that

   *all* information should be free and *any* proprietary

   control of it is bad; this is the philosophy behind the {GNU}

   project.

   Sense 2 is more controversial: some people consider the act of

   cracking itself to be unethical, like breaking and entering.

   But this principle at least moderates the behavior of people who

   see themselves as `benign' crackers (see also {samurai}).  On

   this view, it is one of the highest forms of hackerly courtesy

   to (a) break into a system, and then (b) explain to the sysop,

   preferably by email from a {superuser} account, exactly how it

   was done and how the hole can be plugged --- acting as an

   unpaid (and unsolicited) {tiger team}.

   The most reliable manifestation of either version of the hacker

   ethic is that almost all hackers are actively willing to share

   technical tricks, software, and (where possible) computing

   resources with other hackers.  Huge cooperative networks such as

   {USENET}, {FidoNet} and Internet (see {Internet address})

   can function without central control because of this trait; they

   both rely on and reinforce a sense of community that may be

   hackerdom's most valuable intangible asset.


hacking run
: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
:Hacking X for Y:  [ITS] n. Ritual phrasing of part of the

   information which ITS made publicly available about each user.

   This information (the INQUIR record) was a sort of form in which

   the user could fill out various fields.  On display, two of these

   fields were always 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
: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
: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
:hackishness:  n. The quality of being or involving a hack.  This

   term is considered mildly silly.  Syn.  {hackitude}.


hackitude
:hackitude:  n. Syn. {hackishness}; this word is considered sillier.


hair
: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
: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}.

   A well-known result in topology called the Brouwer Fixed-Point

   Theorem states that any continuous transformation of a surface into

   itself has at least one fixed point.  Mathematically literate

   hackers tend to associate the term `hairy' with the informal

   version of this theorem; "You can't comb a hairy ball smooth."

   The adjective `long-haired' is well-attested to have been in

   slang use among scientists and engineers during the early 1950s; it

   was equivalent to modern `hairy' senses 1 and 2, and was very

   likely ancestral to the hackish use.  In fact the noun

   `long-hair' was at the time used to describe a person satisfying

   sense 3.  Both senses probably passed out of use when long hair

   was adopted as a signature trait by the 1960s counterculture,

   leaving hackish `hairy' as a sort of stunted mutant relic.


HAKMEM
: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
: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}.


hammer
:hammer:  vt. Commonwealth hackish syn. for {bang on}.


hamster
: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. A

   tailless mouse; that is, one with an infrared link to a receiver on

   the machine, as opposed to the conventional cable.  3. [UK] Any

   item of hardware made by Amstrad, a company famous for its cheap

   plastic PC-almost-compatibles.


hand cruft
:hand cruft:  [pun on `hand craft'] vt. See {cruft}, sense 3.


hand-hacking
: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.


handle
:handle:  n. 1. [from CB slang] An electronic pseudonym; a `nom

   de guerre' intended to conceal the user's true identity.  Network

   and BBS handles function as the same sort of simultaneous

   concealment and display one finds on Citizen's Band radio, from

   which the term was adopted.  Use of grandiose handles is

   characteristic of {cracker}s, {weenie}s, {spod}s, and

   other lower forms of network life; true hackers travel on their own

   reputations rather than invented legendry.  2. [Mac] A pointer to a

   pointer to dynamically-allocated memory; the extra level of

   indirection allows on-the-fly memory compaction (to cut down on

   fragmentation) or aging out of unused resources, with minimal

   impact on the (possibly multiple) parts of the larger program

   containing references to the allocated memory.  Compare {snap}

   (to snap a handle would defeat its purpose); see also {aliasing}

   {bug}, {dangling pointer}.


hand-roll
:hand-roll:  [from obs. mainstream slang `hand-rolled' in

   opposition to `ready-made', referring to cigarettes] v. To

   perform a normally automated software installation or configuration

   process {by hand}; implies that the normal process failed due to

   bugs in the configurator or was defeated by something exceptional

   in the local environment.  "The worst thing about being a gateway

   between four different nets is having to hand-roll a new sendmail

   configuration every time any of them upgrades."


handshaking
: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
: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
: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
: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.

   Compare {Sturgeon's Law}.


happily
: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."


haque
:haque:  /hak/ [USENET] n. Variant spelling of {hack}, used

   only for the noun form and connoting an {elegant} hack.


hard boot
:hard boot:  n. See {boot}.


hardcoded
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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
:hat:  n. Common (spoken) name for the circumflex (`^', ASCII

   1011110) character.  See {ASCII} for other synonyms.


HCF
: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 an 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 could actually cause lines to burn

   up.


heads down
: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
: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}.


heatseeker
:heatseeker:  [IBM] n. A customer who can be relied upon to buy,

   without fail, the latest version of an existing product (not quite

   the same as a member the {lunatic fringe}).  A 1993 example of a

   heatseeker is someone who, owning a 286 PC and Windows 3.0, goes

   out and buys Windows 3.1 (which offers no worthwhile benefits

   unless you have a 386).  If all customers were heatseekers, vast

   amounts of money could be made by just fixing the bugs in each

   release (n) and selling it to them as release (n+1).


heavy metal
:heavy metal:  [Cambridge] n. Syn. {big iron}.


heavy wizardry
: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
: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 hacker's heavyweight is another's

   {elephantine} and a third's {monstrosity}.  Oppose

   `lightweight'.  Usage: now borders on techspeak, especially in

   the compound `heavyweight process'.


heisenbug
: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}, {schroedinbug}.  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
:Helen Keller mode:  n. 1. 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}.  2. On IBM PCs under DOS, refers

   to a specific failure mode in which a screen saver has kicked in

   over an {ill-behaved} application which bypasses the interrupts

   the screen saver watches for activity.  Your choices are to try to

   get from the program's current state through a successful

   save-and-exit without being able to see what you're doing, or

   re-boot the machine.  This isn't (strictly speaking) a crash.


hello, sailor!
: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!
:hello, wall!:  excl. See {wall}.


hello, world
: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
: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
: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
: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}).


HHOK
:HHOK:  See {ha ha only serious}.


HHOS
:HHOS:  See {ha ha only serious}.


hidden flag
: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
: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
: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
: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.


hing
:hing:  // [IRC] n. Fortuitous typo for `hint', now in wide

   intentional use among players of {initgame}.  Compare

   {newsfroup}, {filk}.


hirsute
:hirsute:  adj. Occasionally used humorously as a synonym for {hairy}.


HLL
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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!"


home machine
:home machine:  n. 1. Syn. {home box}.  2. The machine that

   receives your email.  These senses might be distinct, for example,

   for a hacker who owns one computer at home, but reads email at

   work.


hook
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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. A screen region that is sensitive to mouse clicks, which trigger

   some action.  Hypertext help screens are an example, in which a hot

   spot exists in the vicinity of any word for which additional

   material is available.  4. 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
: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
:HP-SUX:  /H-P suhks/ n. Unflattering hackerism for HP-UX,

   Hewlett-Packard's UNIX port, which features some truly unique bogosities

   in the filesystem internals and elsewhere (these 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 {AIDX}, {buglix}.  See also {Nominal Semidestructor},

   {Telerat}, {Open DeathTrap}, {ScumOS}, {sun-stools},

   {terminak}.


huff
: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
: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
:Humor, Hacker:  n. A distinctive style of shared intellectual

   humor found among hackers, having the following marked

   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
: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
:hungry puppy:  n. Syn. {slopsucker}.


hungus
: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
: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.


hysterical reasons
:hysterical reasons:  (also `hysterical raisins') n.  A variant on

   the stock phrase "for historical reasons", it specifically

   indicates that something must be done in some stupid way for

   backwards compatibility, and moreover that the feature it must be

   compatible with was the result of a bad design in the first place.

   "All IBM PC video adapters have to support MDA text mode for

   hysterical reasons."  Compare {bug-for-bug compatible}.


I didn't change anything!
: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.
: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.


IBM
: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
: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.


ICBM address
:ICBM address:  n. (Also `missile address') The form used to

   register a site with the USENET mapping project includes a blank

   for longitude and latitude, preferably to seconds-of-arc accuracy.

   This is actually used for generating geographically-correct maps of

   USENET links on a plotter; however, it has become traditional to

   refer to this as one's `ICBM address' or `missile address', and

   many people include it in their {sig block} with that name.


ice
:ice:  [coined by USENETter Tom Maddox, popularized by William

   Gibson's cyberpunk SF novels: a contrived 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-1993, but many hackers

   find the metaphor attractive, and each may develop a denotation in

   the future. In the meantime, the speculative usage chould be

   confused with `ICE', an acronym for "in-circuit emulator".


idempotent
:idempotent:  [from mathematical techspeak] adj. Acting as if used

   only once, even if used multiple times.  This term is often used

   with respect to {C} header files, which contain common

   definitions and declarations to be included by several source

   files.  If a header file is ever included twice during the same

   compilation (perhaps due to nested #include files), compilation

   errors can result unless the header file has protected itself

   against multiple inclusion; a header file so protected is said to

   be idempotent.  The term can also be used to describe an

   initialization subroutine that is arranged to perform some

   critical action exactly once, even if the routine is called several

   times.


If you want X, you know where to find it.
:If you want X, you know where to find it.:  There is a legend that

   Dennis Ritchie, inventor of {C}, once responded to demands for

   features resembling those of what at the time was a much more

   popular language by observing "If you want PL/I, you know where to

   find it."  Ever since, this has been hackish standard form for

   fending off requests to alter a new design to mimic some older

   (and, by implication, inferior and {baroque}) one.  The case X =

   {Pascal} manifests semi-regularly on USENET's comp.lang.c

   newsgroup.  Indeed, the case X = X has been reported in

   discussions of graphics software (see {X}).


ifdef out
:ifdef out:  /if'def owt/ v. Syn. for {condition out}, specific

   to {C}.


ill-behaved
: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
:IMHO:  // [from SF fandom via USENET; abbreviation 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).


Imminent Death Of The Net Predicted!
:Imminent Death Of The Net Predicted!:  [USENET] prov.  Since

   {USENET} first got off the ground in 1980--81, it has grown

   exponentially, approximately doubling in size every year.  On the

   other hand, most people feel the {signal-to-noise ratio} of

   USENET has dropped steadily.  These trends led, as far back as

   mid-1983, to predictions of the imminent collapse (or death) of the

   net.  Ten years and numerous doublings later, enough of these

   gloomy prognostications have been confounded that the phrase

   "Imminent Death Of The Net Predicted!" has become a running joke,

   hauled out any time someone grumbles about the {S/N ratio} or

   the huge and steadily increasing volume or the possible loss of a

   key node or link, or the potential for lawsuits when ignoramuses

   post copyrighted material, etc., etc., etc.


in the extreme
:in the extreme:  adj. A preferred superlative suffix for many hackish

   terms.  See, for example, `obscure in the extreme' under {obscure},

   and compare {highly}.


inc
:inc:  /ink/ v. Common verbal shorthand for increment, i.e.

   `increase by one' (one doesn't tend to see the sbbreviation in

   writing or email).  Especially used by assembly programmers, as many

   assembly languages (including those for Intel chips) have an

   `inc' mnemonic.  Antonym: {dec}.


incantation
: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
: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
: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
: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 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
:index:  n. See {coefficient of X}.


infant mortality
:infant mortality:  n. It is common lore among hackers (and in the

   electronics industry at large; this term is possibly techspeak by

   now) 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
: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
:infinite loop:  n. One that never terminates (that is, the machine

   {spin}s or {buzz}es forever and goes {catatonic}).  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!"


Infinite-Monkey Theorem
:Infinite-Monkey Theorem:  n. "If you put an {infinite} number

   of monkeys at typewriters, eventually one will bash out the script

   for Hamlet."  (One may also hypothesize a small number of monkeys

   and a very long period of time.)  This theorem asserts nothing about

   the intelligence of the one {random} monkey that eventually

   comes up with the script (and note that the mob will also type out

   all the possible *incorrect* versions of Hamlet).  It may be

   referred to semi-seriously when justifying a {brute force}

   method; the implication is that, with enough resources thrown at

   it, any technical challenge becomes a {one-banana problem}.

   This theorem was first popularized by the classic SF short story

   "Inflexible Logic" by Russell Maloney, many younger hackers

   know it through a reference in Douglas Adams's `Hitchhiker's

   Guide to the Galaxy'.


infinity
: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.


initgame
:initgame:  /in-it'gaym/ [IRC] n. An {IRC} version of the

   venerable trivia game "20 questions", in which one user changes

   his {nick} to the initials of a famous person or other named

   entity, and the others on the channel ask yes or no questions, with

   the one to guess the person getting to be "it" next.  As a

   courtesy, the one picking the initials starts by providing a

   4-letter hint of the form sex, nationality, life-status,

   reality-status.  For example, MAAR means "Male, American, Alive,

   Real" (as opposed to "fictional").  Initgame can be surprisingly

   addictive.  See also {hing}.


insanely great
: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
: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
: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
: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 ex-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
: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
: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 late 1992, it had grown to

   approximately two megabytes in length.


interrupts locked out
:interrupts locked out:  adj. 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 abound; "to have one's interrupt mask bit set" and

   "interrupts masked out" is also heard.  See also {spl}.


IRC
:IRC:  /I-R-C/ [Internet Relay Chat] n. A worldwide "party

   line" network that allows one to converse with others in real

   time.  IRC is structured as a network of Internet servers, each of

   which accepts connections from client programs, one per user.  The

   IRC community and the {USENET} and {MUD} communities overlap

   to some extent, including both hackers and regular folks who have

   discovered the wonders of computer networks.  Some USENET jargon

   has been adopted on IRC, as have some conventions such as

   {emoticon}s.  There is also a vigorous native jargon,

   represented in this lexicon by entries marked `[IRC]'.  See also

   {talk mode}.


iron
: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
: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
: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 cracker'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 in appendix C).  Compare {padded}

   {cell}.


ironmonger
:ironmonger:  [IBM] n. Derogatory.  A hardware specialist.  Compare

   {sandbender}, {polygon pusher}.


ITS
: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
:IWBNI:  // [abbreviation] `It Would Be Nice If'.  Compare {WIBNI}.


IYFEG
:IYFEG:  // [USENET] Abbreviation for `Insert Your Favorite Ethnic

   Group'.  Used as a meta-name when telling ethnic jokes on the net

   to avoid offending anyone.  See {JEDR}.


J. Random
: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
: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 by `J. Fred Muggs', a show-biz chimpanzee whose name was a

   household word back in the early days of {TMRC}, and was

   probably influenced by `J. Presper Eckert' (one of the co-inventors

   of the electronic computer).


jack in
:jack in:  v. To log on to a machine or connect to a network or

   {BBS}, esp. for purposes of entering a {virtual reality}

   simulation such as a {MUD} or {IRC} (leaving is "jacking

   out").  This term derives from {cyberpunk} SF, in which it was

   used for the act of plugging an electrode set into neural sockets

   in order to interface the brain directly to a virtual reality.

   It's primarily used by MUD and IRC fans and younger hackers on BBS

   systems.


jaggies
: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
: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
: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
: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, had JFCL on the license plate of his

   BMW for years.  Usage: rare except among old-time PDP-10

   hackers.


jiffy
: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.  Even more confusingly, physicists

   semi-jokingly use `jiffy' to mean the time required for light to

   travel one foot in a vacuum, which turns out to be close to one

   *nanosecond*.  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
: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
: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
: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.


jolix
:jolix:  n. /joh'liks/ n.,adj. 386BSD, the freeware port of the

   BSD Net/2 release to the Intel i386 architecture by Bill Jolitz and

   friends.  Used to differentiate from BSDI's port based on the same

   source tape, which is called BSD/386.  See {BSD}.


JR[LN]
: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} and {WAITS}; 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
: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
: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
: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}.


jupiter
:jupiter:  [IRC] vt. To kill an {IRC} {robot} or user and

   then take its place by adopting its {nick} so that it cannot

   reconnect.  Named after a particular IRC user who did this to

   NickServ, the robot in charge of preventing people from

   inadvertently using a nick claimed by another user.


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
: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
:kahuna:  /k*-hoo'nuh/ [IBM: from the Hawaiian title for a shaman] n.

   Synonym for {wizard}, {guru}.


kamikaze packet
: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
:kangaroo code:  n. Syn. {spaghetti code}.


ken
: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
:kgbvax:  /K-G-B'vaks/ n. See {kremvax}.


KIBO
:KIBO:  /ki:'boh/ 1. [acronym] Knowledge In, Bullshit Out.  A

   summary of what happens whenever valid data is passed through an

   organization (or person) that deliberately or accidentally

   disregards or ignores its significance.  Consider, for example,

   what an advertising campaign can do with a product's actual

   specifications.  Compare {GIGO}; see also {SNAFU principle}.

   2. James Parry <kibo@world.std.com>, a USENETter infamous for

   various surrealist net.pranks and an uncanny, machine-assisted

   knack for joining any thread in which his nom de guerre is

   mentioned.


kick
:kick:  [IRC] v. To cause somebody to be removed from a {IRC}

   channel, an option only available to {CHOP}s.  This is an

   extreme measure, often used to combat extreme {flamage} or

   {flood}ing, but sometimes used at the chop's whim.  Compare

   {gun}.


kill file
: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
: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
: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-
:kilo-:  [SI] pref. See {quantifiers}.


KIPS
:KIPS:  /kips/ [abbreviation, by analogy with {MIPS} using {K}] n.

   Thousands (*not* 1024s) of Instructions Per Second.  Usage:

   rare.


KISS Principle
: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
:kit:  [USENET; poss. fr. DEC slang for a full software

   distribution, as opposed to a patch or upgrade] 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
:klone:  /klohn/ n. See {clone}, sense 4.


kludge
:kludge:  /klooj/ or /kluhj/ n. Common (but incorrect) variant

   of {kluge}, q.v.


kluge
: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, reported around computers as

   far back as the mid-1950s and, at that time, used exclusively of

   *hardware* kluges.  In 1947, the `New York Folklore

   Quarterly' reported a classic shaggy-dog story `Murgatroyd the

   Kluge Maker' then current in the Armed Forces, in which a `kluge'

   was a complex and puzzling artifact with a trivial function.  Other

   sources report that `kluge' was common Navy slang in the WWII era

   for any piece of electronics that worked well on shore but

   consistently failed at sea.

   However, there is reason to believe this slang use may be a decade

   older.  Several respondents have connected it to the brand name of

   a device called a "Kluge paper feeder" dating back at least to

   1935, an adjunct to mechanical printing presses.  The Kluge feeder

   was designed before small, cheap electric motors and control

   electronics; it relied on a fiendishly complex assortment of cams,

   belts, and linkages to both power and synchronize all its

   operations from one motive driveshaft.  It was accordingly

   tempermental, subject to frequent breakdowns, and devilishly

   difficult to repair --- but oh, so clever!  One traditional

   folk etymology of `kluge' makes it the name of a design engineer;

   in fact, `Kluge' is a surname in German, and the designer of the

   Kluge feeder may well have been the man behind this myth.

   {TMRC} and the MIT hacker culture of the early '60s seems to

   have developed in a milieu that remembered and still used some WII

   military slang (see also {foobar}).  It seems likely that

   `kluge' came to MIT via alumni of the many military electronics

   projects that had been located in Cambridge (many in MIT's

   venerable Building 20, in which {TMRC} is also located) during

   the war.

   The variant `kludge' was apparently popularized by the

   {Datamation} article mentioned above; it was titled "How

   to Design a Kludge" (February 1962, pp. 30, 31).  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 1993, 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
:kluge around:  vt. To avoid a bug or difficult condition by

   inserting a {kluge}.  Compare {workaround}.


kluge up
: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
: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
:Knuth:  /nooth/ [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
: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}.  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, senior programmer at Demos and the major poster from

   there up to mid-1991, 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]

   In an even more ironic historical footnote, kremvax became an

   electronic center of the anti-communist resistance during the

   bungled hard-line coup of August 1991.  During those three days the

   Soviet UUCP network centered on kremvax became the only

   trustworthy news source for many places within the USSR.  Though

   the sysops were concentrating on internal communications,

   cross-border postings included immediate transliterations of Boris

   Yeltsin's decrees condemning the coup and eyewitness reports of the

   demonstrations in Moscow's streets.  In those hours, years of

   speculation that totalitarianism would prove unable to maintain its

   grip on politically-loaded information in the age of computer

   networking were proved devastatingly accurate --- and the original

   kremvax joke became a reality as Yeltsin and the new Russian

   revolutionaries of `glasnost' and `perestroika' made

   kremvax one of the timeliest means of their outreach to the

   West.


kyrka
:kyrka:  /shir'k*/ [Swedish] n. See {feature key}.


lace card
:lace card:  n. obs. A {punched card} with all holes punched

   (also called a `whoopee card' or `ventilator card').  Card

   readers tended to jam 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
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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).


Lasherism
:Lasherism:  [Harvard] n. A program that solves a standard problem

   (such as the Eight Queens puzzle or implementing the {life}

   algorithm) in a deliberately nonstandard way.  Distinguished from a

   {crock} or {kluge} by the fact that the programmer did it on

   purpose as a mental exercise.  Such constructions are quite popular

   in exercises such as the {Obfuscated C contest}, and

   occasionally in {retrocomputing}.  Lew Lasher was a student at

   Harvard around 1980 who became notorious for such behavior.


laundromat
:laundromat:  n. Syn. {disk farm}; see {washing machine}.


LDB
: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
: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
: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
:leaky heap:  [Cambridge] n. An {arena} with a {memory leak}.


leapfrog attack
:leapfrog attack:  n. Use of userid and password information

   obtained illicitly from one host (e.g., downloading a file of

   account IDs and passwords, tapping TELNET, etc.) to compromise

   another host.  Also, to TELNET through one or more hosts in order

   to confuse a trace (a standard cracker procedure).


legal
: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
: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
: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:  /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
:let the smoke out:  v. To fry hardware (see {fried}).  See

   {magic smoke} for the mythology behind this.


letterbomb
: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 (see {cycle}, sense

   3) 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
: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
:lexiphage:  /lek'si-fayj`/ n. A notorious word {chomper} on

   ITS.  See {bagbiter}.


life
:life:  n. 1. A cellular-automata game invented by John Horton

   Conway and first introduced publicly by Martin Gardner

   (`Scientific American', October 1970); the game's popularity

   had to wait a few years for computers on which it could reasonably

   be played, as it's no fun to simulate the cells by hand.  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!}


Life is hard
:Life is hard:  [XEROX PARC] prov. This phrase has two possible

   interpretations: (1) "While your suggestion may have some merit, I

   will behave as though I hadn't heard it."  (2) "While your

   suggestion has obvious merit, equally obvious circumstances prevent

   it from being seriously considered."  The charm of the phrase lies

   precisely in this subtle but important ambiguity.


light pipe
:light pipe:  n. Fiber optic cable.  Oppose {copper}.


lightweight
:lightweight:  adj. Opposite of {heavyweight}; usually found in

   combining forms such as `lightweight process'.


like kicking dead whales down the beach
: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
: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 666
:line 666:  [from Christian eschatological myth] n. The notational

   line of source at which a program fails for obscure reasons,

   implying either that *somebody* is out to get it (when you are

   the programmer), or that it richly deserves to be so gotten (when

   you are not). "It works when I trace through it, but seems to

   crash on line 666 when I run it."  "What happens is that whenever

   a large batch comes through, mmdf dies on the Line of the Beast.

   Probably some twit hardcoded a buffer size."


line eater, the
: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 noise
:line noise:  n. 1. [techspeak] Spurious characters due to

   electrical noise in a communications link, especially an RS-232

   serial connection.  Line noise may be induced by poor connections,

   interference or crosstalk from other circuits, electrical storms,

   {cosmic rays}, or (notionally) birds crapping on the phone

   wires.  2. Any chunk of data in a file or elsewhere that looks like

   the results of line noise in sense 1.  3. Text that is

   theoretically a readable text or program source but employs syntax

   so bizarre that it looks like line noise in senses 1 or 2.  Yes,

   there are languages this ugly.  The canonical example is {TECO};

   it is often claimed that "TECO's input syntax is indistinguishable

   from line noise."  Other non-{WYSIWYG} editors, such as Multics

   `qed' and Unix `ed', in the hands of a real hacker, also

   qualify easily, as do deliberately obfuscated languages such as

   {INTERCAL}.


line starve
: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.  ASCII 0011010, also called SUB or control-Z,

   was one common line-starve character in the days before

   microcomputers and the X3.64 terminal standard.  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} and {troff}) that suppresses a {newline} or

   other character(s) that would normally be emitted.


link farm
: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 one is maintaining several nearly identical copies of the same

   source tree --- for example, 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.  However, they can also get completely out of

   hand, becoming the filesystem equivalent of {spaghetti}

   {code}.


link-dead
:link-dead:  [MUD] adj. Said of a {MUD} character who has frozen in

   place because of a dropped Internet connection.


lint
:lint:  [from UNIX's `lint(1)', named 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
: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
: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
: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
: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.


lithium lick
:lithium lick:  n. [NeXT] n. Steve Jobs.  Employees who have gotten

   too much attention from their esteemed founder are said to have

   `lithium lick' when they begin to show signs of Jobsian fervor and

   repeat the most recent catch phrases in normal conversation --- for

   example, "It just works, right out of the box!"


little-endian
: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
: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!
: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
: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
:liveware:  /li:v'weir/ n. 1. Synonym for {wetware}.  Less

   common.  2. [Cambridge] Vermin. "Waiter, there's some liveware in

   my salad..."


lobotomy
: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.


locals, the
:locals, the:  pl.n. The users on one's local network (as opposed, say,

   to people one reaches via public Internet or UUCP connects).  The

   marked thing about this usage is how little it has to do with

   real-space distance. "I have to do some tweaking on this mail

   utility before releasing it to the locals."


locked and loaded
: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
:locked up:  adj. Syn. for {hung}, {wedged}.


logic bomb
: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
: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, including

   one infamous stretch of pavement that is simultaneously route 128

   south and Interstate 93 north, and is signed as such!)


loop through
: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.


loose bytes
:loose bytes:  n. Commonwealth hackish term for the padding bytes or

   {shim}s many compilers insert between members of a record or

   structure to cope with alignment requirements imposed by the

   machine architecture.


lord high fixer
: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
: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
:lose lose:  interj. A reply to or comment on an undesirable

   situation.  "I accidentally deleted all my files!"  "Lose,

   lose."


loser
: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
:losing:  adj. Said of anything that is or causes a {lose} or

   {lossage}.


loss
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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.


Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology
:Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology:  prov. "There is *always*

   one more bug."


lunatic fringe
:lunatic fringe:  [IBM] n. Customers who can be relied upon to accept

   release 1 versions of software.


lurker
: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
: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
: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},

   {window shopping}.


machinable
:machinable:  adj. Machine-readable.  Having the {softcopy} nature.


machoflops
: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
:Macintoy:  /mak'in-toy/ n. The Apple Macintosh, considered as a

   {toy}.  Less pejorative than {Macintrash}.


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}, {point-and-drool interface},

   {drool-proof paper}, {user-friendly}.


macro
: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-
: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
: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
:macrotape:  /ma'kroh-tayp/ n. An industry-standard reel of tape, as

   opposed to a {microtape}.


maggotbox
:maggotbox:  /mag'*t-boks/ n. See {Macintrash}.  This is even

   more derogatory.


magic
: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 {A Story About `Magic'}

   (in {Appendix A}).


magic cookie
: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 (see also {cookie}).  Some

   older terminals would leave a blank on the screen corresponding to

   mode-change magic cookies; this was also called a {glitch}.  (or

   occasionally a `turd'; compare {mouse droppings}).  See also

   {cookie}.


magic number
: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
: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}.


mailbomb
:mailbomb:  (also mail bomb) [USENET] 1. v. To send, or urge

   others to send, massive amounts of {email} to a single system or

   person, as in retaliation for a perceived serious offense.

   Mailbombing is itself widely regarded as a serious offense --- it

   can disrupt email traffic or other facilities for innocent users on

   the victim's system, and in extreme cases, even at upstream sites.

   2. n. An automatic procedure with a similar effect.  3. n. The mail

   sent.


mailing list
: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 (until they get very large,

   at which point they can become interesting torture tests for mail

   software).  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 lexicon was criticized and polished on just such a mailing

   list (called `jargon-friends'), which included all the co-authors

   of Steele-1983.


main loop
: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
:mainframe:  n. Term originally referring 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 has been common wisdom among hackers since the late 1980s 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 1993, corporate

   America is just beginning to figure this out --- the wave of

   failures, takeovers, and mergers among traditional mainframe makers

   have certainly provided sufficient omens (see {dinosaurs}

   {mating}).


management
: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 in

   {Appendix C}).


mandelbug
: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}.  See also {schroedinbug}.


manged
: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
: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
:mangler:  [DEC] n. A manager.  Compare {mango}; see also

   {management}.  Note that {system mangler} is somewhat different

   in connotation.


mango
:mango:  /mang'go/ [orig. in-house jargon at Symbolics] n. A manager.

   Compare {mangler}.  See also {devo} and {doco}.


manularity
:manularity:  /man`yoo-la'ri-tee/ [prob. fr. techspeak `manual'

   + `granularity'] n. A notional measure of the manual labor

   required for some task, particularly one of the sort that

   automation is supposed to eliminate.  "Composing English on paper

   has much higher manularity than using a text editor, especially in

   the revising stage."  Hackers tend to consider manularity a symptom

   of primitive methods; in fact, a true hacker confronted with an

   apparent requirement to do a computing task {by hand} will

   inevitably seize the opportunity to build another tool (see

   {toolsmith}).


marbles
: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
: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
: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
:marginally:  adv. Slightly.  "The ravs here are only marginally

   better than at Small Eating Place."  See {epsilon}.


marketroid
:marketroid:  /mar'k*-troyd/ alt. `marketing slime',

   `marketeer', `mar-ket-ing droid', `marketdroid'. 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
: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 also 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 at 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
: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
: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
: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
: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}).

   3. The totality of present-day computer networks.


maximum Maytag mode
:maximum Maytag mode:  What a {washing machine} or, by extension,

   any hard disk is in when it's being used so heavily that it's

   shaking like an old Maytag with an unbalanced load.  If prolonged

   for any length of time, can lead to disks becoming {walking}

   {drives}.


Mbogo, Dr. Fred
: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.  Compare {Bloggs Family,}

   {the}, see also {fred}.


meatware
:meatware:  n. Synonym for {wetware}.  Less common.


meeces
: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:  /meg/ n. See {quantifiers}.


mega-
:mega-:  /me'g*/ [SI] pref. See {quantifiers}.


megapenny
: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
: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
:meltdown, network:  n. See {network meltdown}.


meme
:meme:  /meem/ [coined by 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
: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
:memetics:  /me-met'iks/ [from {meme}] The study of memes.  As of

   mid-1993, 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 farts
:memory farts:  n. The flatulent sounds that some DOS box BIOSes

   (most notably AMI's) make when checking memory on bootup.


memory leak
: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}.  These problems were severe on older

   machines with small, fixed-size address spaces, and special "leak

   detection" tools were commonly written to root them out.  With the

   advent of virtual memory, it is unfortunately easier to be sloppy

   about wasting a bit of memory (although when you run out of memory

   on a VM machine, it means you've got a *real* leak!).  See

   {aliasing bug}, {fandango on core}, {smash the stack},

   {precedence lossage}, {overrun screw}, {leaky heap},

   {leak}.


memory smash
:memory smash:  [XEROX PARC] n. Writing through a pointer that

   doesn't point to what you think it does.  This occasionally reduces

   your machine to a rubble of bits.  Note that this is subtly

   different from (and more general than) related terms such as a

   {memory leak} or {fandango on core} because it doesn't imply

   an allocation error or overrun condition.


menuitis
: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
: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
:meta:  /me't*/ or /may't*/ or (Commonwealth) /mee't*/ [from

   analytic philosophy] adj.,pref. One level of description up.  A

   metasyntactic 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
: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}.

   Historical note: although in modern usage shaped by a universe of

   8-bit bytes the meta bit is invariably hex 80 (octal 0200), things

   were different on earlier machines with 36-bit words and 9-bit

   bytes.  The MIT and Stanford keyboards (see {space-cadet}

   {keyboard}) generated hex 100 (octal 400) from their meta keys.


metasyntactic variable
:metasyntactic variable:  n. 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.  The word {foo} is

   the {canonical} example.  To avoid confusion, hackers never

   (well, hardly ever) use `foo' or other words like it as permanent

   names for anything.  In filenames, a common convention is that any

   filename beginning with a metasyntactic-variable name is a

   {scratch} file that may be deleted at any time.

   To some extent, the list of one's preferred metasyntactic variables

   is a cultural signature.  They occur both in series (used for

   related groups of variables or objects) and as singletons.  Here

   are a few common signatures:

     {foo}, {bar}, {baz}, {quux}, quuux, quuuux...:

             MIT/Stanford usage, now found everywhere (thanks largely to early

             versions of this lexicon!).  At MIT, {baz} dropped out of use for

             a while in the 1970s and '80s. A common recent mutation of this

             sequence inserts {qux} before {quux}.

     {foo}, {bar}, thud, grunt:

             This series was popular at CMU.  Other CMU-associated variables

             include {gorp}.

     {foo}, {bar}, fum:

             This series is reported to be common at XEROX PARC.

     {fred}, {barney}:

             See the entry for {fred}.  These tend to be Britishisms.

     {toto}, titi, tata, tutu:

             Standard series of metasyntactic variables among francophones.

     {corge}, {grault}, {flarp}:

             Popular at Rutgers University and among {GOSMACS} hackers.

     zxc, spqr, {wombat}:

             Cambridge University (England).

     shme

             Berkeley, GeoWorks.  Pronounced /shmee/.

     {foo}, {bar}, zot

             Helsinki University of Technology, Finland.

     blarg, wibble

             New Zealand

   Of all these, only `foo' and `bar' are universal (and {baz}

   nearly so).  The compounds {foobar} and `foobaz' also enjoy

   very wide currency.

   Some jargon terms are also used as metasyntactic names; {barf}

   and {mumble}, for example.  See also {Commonwealth Hackish}

   for discussion of numerous metasyntactic variables found in Great

   Britain and the Commonwealth.


MFTL
:MFTL:  /M-F-T-L/ [abbreviation: `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.  See {break-even point}.

   (On a related note, Dennis Ritchie once proposed a test of the

   generality and utility of a language and the operating system under

   which it is compiled: "Is the output of a FORTRAN program compiled

   under the language acceptable as input to the FORTRAN compiler?"

   In other words, can you write programs thaat write programs? (See

   {toolsmith}.)  Alarming numbers of (language, OS) pairs fail

   this test, particularly when the language is FORTRAN; Ritchie is

   quick to point out that {UNIX} (even using FORTRAN) passes it

   handily.  That the test could ever be failed is only surprising to

   those who have had the good fortune to have worked only under

   modern systems which lack OS-supported and -imposed "file

   types".)


mickey
: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
: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-
: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
: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
:microfortnight:  n. 1/1000000 of the fundamental unit of time in

   the Furlong/Firkin/Fortnight system of measurement; 1.2096 sec.  (A

   furlong is 1/8th of a mile; a firkin is 1/4th of a barrel; the mass

   unit of the system is taken to be a firkin of water).  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
:microLenat:  /mi:-kroh-len'-*t/ n. See {bogosity}.


microReid
:microReid:  /mi:'kroh-reed/ n. See {bogosity}.


Microsloth Windows
: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
: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; another

   version of the story holds that someone discovered a conflict with

   another company's `microtape' trademark.


middle-endian
: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
: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
: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:  /mips/ [abbreviation] 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
: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
: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 that has evolved.  Since it results from a

   deliberate and properly implemented feature, a misfeature is not a

   bug.  Nor is it a simple unforeseen side effect; the term implies

   that the feature in question was carefully planned, but its

   long-term consequences were not accurately or adequately predicted

   (which is quite different from not having thought ahead at all).  A

   misfeature can be a particularly stubborn problem to resolve,

   because fixing it usually involves a substantial philosophical

   change to the structure of the system involved.

   Many misfeatures (especially in user-interface design) arise

   because the designers/implementors mistake their personal tastes

   for laws of nature.  Often a former feature becomes a misfeature

   because a trade-off was made whose parameters subsequently change

   (possibly only in the judgment of the implementors).  "Well, yeah,

   it is kind of a misfeature that file names are limited to six

   characters, but the original implementors wanted to save directory

   space and we're stuck with it for now."


Missed'em-five
: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}.


missile address
:missile address:  n. See {ICBM address}.


miswart
: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 character under the cursor with the one before it 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
: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 "{The Meaning of `Hack'}").  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 3): 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.  5. The largest

   available unit of something which is available in discrete

   increments. Thus, ordering a "moby Coke" at your favorite

   fast-food joint is not just a request for a large Coke, it's an

   explicit request for the largest size they sell.

   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 widely-used 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).


mockingbird
:mockingbird:  n. Software that intercepts communications

   (especially login transactions) between users and hosts and

   provides system-like responses to the users while saving their

   responses (especially account IDs and passwords).  A special case

   of {Trojan Horse}.


mod
: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
: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".

   In a usage much closer to techspeak, a mode is a special state

   that certain user interfaces must pass into in order to perform

   certain functions.  For example, in order to insert characters into a

   document in the UNIX editor `vi', one must type the "i" key,

   which invokes the "Insert" command.  The effect of this command

   is to put vi into "insert mode", in which typing the "i" key

   has a quite different effect (to wit, it inserts an "i" into the

   document).  One must then hit another special key, "ESC", in

   order to leave "insert mode".  Nowadays, moded interfaces are

   generally considered {losing} but survive in quite a few

   widely used tools built in less enlightened times.


mode bit
: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
:modulo:  /mo'dyu-loh/ prep. Except for.  An overgeneralization of

   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
: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
: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
: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
:monkey, scratch:  n. See {scratch monkey}.


monstrosity
: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}.


monty
:monty:  /mon'tee/ [US Geological Survey] n.  A program with a

   ludicrously complex user interface written to perform extremely

   trivial tasks.  An example would be a menu-driven, button clicking,

   pulldown, pop-up windows program for listing directories.  The

   original monty was an infamous weather-reporting program, Monty the

   Amazing Weather Man, written at the USGS.  Monty had a

   widget-packed X-window interface with over 200 buttons; and all

   monty actually *did* was {FTP} files off the network.


Moof
:Moof:  /moof/ [MAC users] 1. n. A semi-legendary creature, also

   called the `dogcow', 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.  2. adj. Used to flag software that's a hack,

   something untested and on the edge.  On one Apple CD-ROM, certain

   folders such as "Tools & Apps (Moof!)" and "Development

   Platforms (Moof!)", are so marked to indicate that they contain

   software not fully tested or sanctioned by the powers that be.

   When you open these folders you cross the boundary into

   hackerland.


Moore's Law
: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^((t - 1962)) where t

   is time in years; 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}.


moose call
:moose call:  n. See {whalesong}.


moria
: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.  The name is

   from Tolkien's Mines of Moria; compare {elder days}.

   {elvish}.  The game is extremely addictive and a major consumer

   of time better used for hacking.


MOTAS
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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
:mouse belt:  n. See {rat belt}.


mouse droppings
: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
: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
: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
: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).  The name further annoys those who know what the term {operating system} does (or ought to) connote; DOS is more properly a set of relatively simple interrupt services.  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
: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 in {Appendix C}),

   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 `Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid'

   (pointer in the Bibliography in appendix C).


MUD
: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.  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 a hack 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 and are sometimes generically called

   BartleMUDs.  There is a widespread myth (repeated,

   unfortunately, by earlier versions of this lexicon) that the name

   MUD was 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 is false --- Richard Bartle

   explicitly placed `MUD' in PD in 1985.  BT was upset at this, as

   they had already printed trademark claims on some maps and posters,

   which were released and created the myth.

   Students on the European academic networks quickly improved on the

   MUD concept, spawning several new MUDs (VAXMUD, AberMUD, LPMUD).

   Many of these had associated bulletin-board systems for social

   interaction.  Because these had an image as `research' they

   often survived administrative hostility to BBSs in general.  This,

   together with the fact that USENET feeds have been spotty and

   difficult to get in the U.K., made the MUDs 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 {bonk/oif}, {FOD}, {link-dead},

   {mudhead}, {talk mode}.


muddie
:muddie:  n. Syn. {mudhead}.  More common in Great Britain, possibly

   because system administrators there like to mutter "bloody

   muddies" when annoyed at the species.


mudhead
:mudhead:  n. Commonly used to refer to a {MUD} player who eats,

   sleeps, and breathes 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, on a MUD, or in a

   chat system, all a mudhead will talk about is three topics: the

   tactic, character, or wizard that is supposedly always unfairly

   stopping him/her from becoming a wizard or beating a favorite MUD;

   why the specific game he/she has experience with is so much better

   than any other, and the MUD he or she is writing or going to write

   because his/her design ideas are so much better than in any

   existing MUD.  See also {wannabee}.


multician
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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." 6. A conversational wild card used to designate

   something one doesn't want to bother spelling out, but which can be

   {glark}ed from context.  Compare {blurgle}.  7. [XEROX PARC]

   A colloquialism used to suggest that further discussion would be

   fruitless.


munch
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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
:mung:  /muhng/ [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!)

   Like many early hacker terms, this one seems to have originated at

   {TMRC}; it was already in use there in 1958.  Peter Samson

   (compiler of the original TMRC lexicon) thinks it may originally

   have been onomatopoeic for the sound of a relay spring (contact)

   being twanged.


munge
:munge:  /muhnj/ vt. 1. [derogatory] To imperfectly transform

   information.  2. A comprehensive rewrite of a routine, data

   structure or the whole program.

   This term is often confused with {mung} and may derive from it,

   or possibly vice-versa.


Murphy's Law
: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 (USAF project MX981).  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
: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, Pat Metheny,

   Scott Joplin, Tangerine Dream, King Sunny Ade, The Pretenders, or

   the 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
: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}.


nadger
:nadger:  /nad'jr/ [Great Britain] v. Of software or hardware (not

   people), to twiddle some object in a hidden manner, generally so

   that it conforms better to some format.  For instance, string

   printing routines on 8-bit processors often take the string text

   from the instruction stream, thus a print call looks like `jsr

   print:"Hello world"'. The print routine has to `nadger' the

   return instruction pointer so that the processor doesn't try to

   execute the text as instructions.


nagware
:nagware:  /nag'weir/ [USENET] n. The variety of {shareware}

   that displays a large screen at the beginning or end reminding you

   to register, typically requiring some sort of keystroke to continue

   so that you can't use the software in batch mode.  Compare

   {crippleware}.


nailed to the wall
:nailed to the wall:  [like a trophy] adj. Said of a bug finally

   eliminated after protracted, and even heroic, effort.


nailing jelly
:nailing jelly:  vi. See {like nailing jelly to a tree}.


naive
:naive:  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 trait 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'.


naive user
:naive 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:  /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
: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-
: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
: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
: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
:nanocomputer:  /nan'oh-k*m-pyoo'tr/ n. A computer with

   mo-lec-u-lar-sized switching elements.  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
: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
: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 took place

   in 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}.


nasal demons
:nasal demons:  n. Recognized shorthand on the USENET group

   comp.std.c for any unexpected behavior of a C compiler on

   encountering an undefined construct.  During a discussion on that

   group in early 1992, a regular remarked "When the compiler

   encounters [a given undefined construct] it is legal for it to make

   demons fly out of your nose" (the implication is that it may

   choose any arbitrarily bizarre way to interpret the code without

   violating the ANSI C standard).  Someone else followed up with a

   reference to "nasal demons", which quickly became established.


nastygram
: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
: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
:nature:  n. See {has the X nature}.


neat hack
: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 "{The Meaning of `Hack'}", appendix A).  See

   also {hack}.


neats vs. scruffies
:neats vs. scruffies:  n. The label used to refer to one of the

   continuing {holy wars} in AI research.  This conflict tangles

   together two separate issues.  One is the relationship between

   human reasoning and AI; `neats' tend to try to build systems

   that `reason' in some way identifiably similar to the way humans

   report themselves as doing, while `scruffies' profess not to

   care whether an algorithm resembles human reasoning in the least as

   long as it works.  More importantly, neats tend to believe that

   logic is king, while scruffies favor looser, more ad-hoc methods

   driven by empirical knowledge.  To a neat, scruffy methods appear

   promiscuous and successful only by accident; to a scruffy, neat

   methods appear to be hung up on formalism and irrelevant to the

   hard-to-capture `common sense' of living intelligences.


neep-neep
: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 `neeping' oapplies

   specifically to the long conversations about computers that tend to

   develop in the corners at most SF-convention parties (the term

   `neepery' is also in wide use).  Fandom has a related proverb to

   the effect that "Hacking is a conversational black hole!".


neophilia
: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}.  The opposite tendency is `neophobia'.


net.-
: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:  /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.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.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}.


NetBOLLIX
:NetBOLLIX:  [from bollix: to bungle] n. {IBM}'s NetBIOS, an

   extremely {brain-damaged} network protocol that, like {Blue}

   {Glue}, is used at commercial shops that don't know any better.


netburp
:netburp:  [IRC] n. When {netlag} gets really bad, and delays

   between servers exceed a certain threshhold, the {IRC} network

   effectively becomes partitioned for a period of time, and large

   numbers of people seem to be signing off at the same time and then

   signing back on again when things get better.  An instance of this

   is called a `netburp' (or, sometimes, {netsplit}).


netdead
:netdead:  [IRC] n. The state of someone who signs off {IRC},

   perhaps during a {netburp}, and doesn't sign back on until

   later.  In the interim, he is "dead to the net".


nethack
: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-1993) is

   nethack-bugs@linc.cis.upenn.edu.


netiquette
:netiquette:  /net'ee-ket/ or /net'i-ket/ [portmanteau from "network

   etiquette"] n. The conventions of politeness recognized on {USENET},

   such as avoidance of cross-posting to inappropriate groups or

   refraining from commercial pluggery outside the biz groups.


netlag
:netlag:  [IRC, MUD] n. A condition that occurs when the delays in

   the {IRC} network or on a {MUD} become severe enough that

   servers briefly lose and then reestablish contact, causing messages

   to be delivered in bursts, often with delays of up to a minute.

   (Note that this term has nothing to do with mainstream "jet lag",

   a condition which hackers tend not to be much bothered by.)


netnews
: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
:netrock:  /net'rok/ [IBM] n. A {flame}; used esp. on VNET,

   IBM's internal corporate network.


netsplit
:netsplit:  n. Syn. {netburp}.


netter
:netter:  n. 1. Loosely, anyone with a {network address}.  2. More

   specifically, a {USENET} regular.  Most often found in the

   plural.  "If you post *that* in a technical group, you're

   going to be flamed by angry netters for the rest of time!"


network address
: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
: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
: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
:New Jersey:  [primarily Stanford/Silicon Valley] adj. Brain-dam-aged

   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
: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
: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
:newgroup wars:  /n[y]oo'groop worz/ [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
: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
: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
:news:  n. See {netnews}.


newsfroup
: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.  Compare {hing}, {grilf},

   and {filk}.


newsgroup
: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}).


nick
:nick:  [IRC] n. Short for nickname.  On {IRC}, every user must

   pick a nick, which is sometimes the same as the user's real name or

   login name, but is often more fanciful.


nickle
: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
:night mode:  n. See {phase} (of people).


Nightmare File System
: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 situation

   snowballs very fast, and soon the entire network of machines is

   frozen --- worst of all, the user can't even abort the file access

   that started the problem!  Many of NFS's problems are excused by

   partisans as being an inevitable result of its statelessness, which

   is held to be a great feature (critics, of course, call it a great

   {misfeature}).  (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:  /nil/ No.  Used in reply to a question, particularly one

   asked using the `-P' convention.  Most hackers assume this derives

   simply from LISP terminology for `false' (see also {T}), but

   NIL as a negative reply was well-established among radio hams

   decades before the advent of LISP.  The historical connection

   between early hackerdom and the ham radio world was strong enough

   that this may have been an influence.


Ninety-Ninety Rule
:Ninety-Ninety Rule:  n. "The first 90% of the code accounts

   for the first 90% of the development time.  The remaining 10% of

   the code accounts for the other 90% of the development time."

   Attributed to Tom Cargill of Bell Labs, and popularized by Jon

   Bentley's September 1985 `Bumper-Sticker Computer Science'

   column in `Communications of the ACM'.  It was there called

   the "Rule of Credibility", a name which seems not to have stuck.


NMI
: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[1234]86.  In contrast with a

   {priority interrupt} (which might be ignored, although that is

   unlikely), an NMI is *never* ignored.


no-op
: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
: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
: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.


Nominal Semidestructor
:Nominal Semidestructor:  n. Sound-alike slang for `National

   Semiconductor', found among other places in the 4.3BSD networking

   sources.  During the late 1970s to mid-1980s this company marketed

   a series of microprocessors including the NS16000 and NS32000 and

   several variants.  At one point early in the great microprocessor

   race, the specs on these chips made them look like serious

   competition for the rising Intel 80x86 and Motorola 680x0 series.

   Unfortunately, the actual parts were notoriously flaky and never

   implemented the full instruction set promised in their literature,

   apparently because the company couldn't get any of the mask

   steppings to work as designed.  They eventually sank without trace,

   joining the Zilog Z80,000 and a few even more obscure also-rans in

   the graveyard of forgotten microprocessors.  Compare {HP-SUX},

   {AIDX}, {buglix}, {Macintrash}, {Telerat}, {Open}

   {DeathTrap}, {ScumOS}, {sun-stools}.


non-optimal solution
: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
:nonlinear:  adj. [scientific computation] 1. Behaving in an erratic

   and unpredictable fashion; unstable.  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
: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}.


not ready for prime time
:not ready for prime time:  adj.  Usable, but only just so; not very

   robust; for internal use only.  Said of a program or device.  Often

   connotes that the thing will be made more solid {Real Soon}

   {Now}.  This term comes from the ensemble name of the original cast

   of "Saturday Night Live", the "Not Ready for Prime Time

   Players".  It has extra flavor for hackers because of the special

   (though now semi-obsolescent) meaning of {prime time}.


notwork
: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-
: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.)  "Coding a BitBlt implementation 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.  Note, however, that the NP- prefix is,

   from a complexity theorist's point of view, the wrong part of

   `NP-complete' to connote extreme difficulty; it is the completeness,

   not the NP-ness, that puts any problem it describes in the

   `hard' category.


nroff
:nroff:  /en'rof/ [UNIX, from "new roff" (see {troff})] n. A

   companion program to the UNIX typesetter {troff}, accepting

   identical input but preparing output for terminals and line

   printers.


NSA line eater
:NSA line eater:  n. The National Security Agency trawling program

   sometimes assumed to be reading the net 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 (1993), 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.


nude
:nude:  adj. Said of machines delivered without an operating system

   (compare {bare metal}).  "We ordered 50 systems, but they all

   arrived nude, so we had to spend a an extra weekend with the

   install-tapes."  This usage is a recent innovation reflecting the

   fact that most PC clones are now delivered with DOS or Microsoft

   Windows pre-installed at the factory.  Other kinds of hardware are

   still normally delivered without OS, so this term is particular to

   PC support groups.


nuke
:nuke:  /n[y]ook/ 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
: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
: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
: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
: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
:nyetwork:  /nyet'werk/ [from Russian `nyet' = no] n. A network,

   when it is acting {flaky} or is {down}.  Compare {notwork}.


Ob-
: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
: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);}_OO()

     {

                 _-_-_-_

            _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

         _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

       _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

      _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

      _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

     _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

     _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

     _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

     _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

      _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

      _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

       _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

         _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

             _-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

                 _-_-_-_

     }

   Note that this program works by computing uts own area.  For more

   digits, write a bigger program.  See also {hello, world}.


obi-wan error
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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.


ogg
:ogg:  /awg/ [CMU] v. 1. In the multi-player space combat game

   Netrek, to execute kamikaze attacks against enemy ships which are

   carrying armies or occupying strategic positions.  Named during a

   game in which one of the players repeatedly used the tactic while

   playing Orion ship G, showing up in the player list as "Og".

   This trick has been roundly denounced by those who would return to

   the good old days when the tactic of dogfighting was dominant, but

   as Sun Tzu wrote, "What is of supreme importance in war is to

   attack the enemy's strategy."  However, the traditional answer to

   the newbie question "What does ogg mean?" is just "Pick up some

   armies and I'll show you."  2. In other games, to forcefully

   attack an opponent with the expectation that the resources expended

   will be renewed faster than the opponent will be able to regain his

   previous advantage.  Taken more seriously as a tactic since it has

   gained a simple name.  3. To do anything forcefully, possibly

   without consideration of the drain on future resources.  "I guess

   I'd better go ogg the problem set that's due tomorrow."  "Whoops!

   I looked down at the map for a sec and almost ogged that oncoming

   car."


old fart
: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
:Old Testament:  n. [C programmers] The first edition of {K&R}, the

   sacred text describing {Classic C}.


one-banana problem
:one-banana problem:  n. At mainframe shops, where the computers

   have operators for routine administrivia, the programmers and

   hardware people tend to look down on the operators and claim that a

   trained monkey could do their job.  It is frequently observed that

   the incentives that would be offered said monkeys can be used as a

   scale to describe the difficulty of a task.  A one-banana problem

   is simple; hence, "It's only a one-banana job at the most; what's

   taking them so long?"

   At IBM, folklore divides the world into one-, two-, and

   three-banana problems.  Other cultures have different hierarchies

   and may divide them more finely; at ICL, for example, five grapes

   (a bunch) equals a banana.  Their upper limit for the in-house

   {sysape}s is said to be two bananas and three grapes (another

   source claims it's three bananas and one grape, but observes

   "However, this is subject to local variations, cosmic rays and

   ISO").  At a complication level any higher than that, one asks the

   manufacturers to send someone around to check things.

   See also {Infinite-Monkey Theorem}.


one-line fix
: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
:one-liner wars:  n. A game popular among hackers who code in the

   language APL (see {write-only language} and {line noise}).

   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 and is now popular among

   {Perl} aficionados.

   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
:ooblick:  /oo'blik/ [from the Dr. Seuss title `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}.


op
:op:  /op/ n. 1 [IRC] Someone who is endowed with privileges on

   {IRC}, not limited to a particular channel.  These are generally

   people who are in charge of the IRC server at their particular

   site.  Sometimes used interchangeably with {CHOP}.  Compare

   {sysop}.  2. In England and Ireland, common verbal abbreviation

   for `operator', as in system operator.  Less common in the U.S.,

   where {sysop} seems to be preferred.


open
: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 DeathTrap
:Open DeathTrap:  n. Abusive hackerism for the Santa Cruz

   Operation's `Open DeskTop' product, a Motif-based graphical

   interface over their UNIX.  The funniest part is that this was

   coined by SCO's own developers...compare {AIDX},

   {terminak}, {Macintrash} {Nominal Semidestructor},

   {ScumOS}, {sun-stools}, {HP-SUX}.


open switch
:open switch:  [IBM: prob. from railroading] n. An unresolved

   question, issue, or problem.


operating system
: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).


optical diff
:optical diff:  n. See {vdiff}.


optical grep
:optical grep:  n. See {vgrep}.


optimism
:optimism:  n. What a programmer is full of after fixing what is

   presumably the last bug and just before actually discovering a next

   last bug . Fred Brooks's book `The Mythical Man-Month' (See

   `Brooks's Law'.) contains the following paragraph that describes

   this extremely well:

     All programmers are optimists. Perhaps this

     modern sorcery especially attracts those who believe in happy

     endings and fairy god-mothers. Perhaps the hundreds of nitty

     frustrations drive away all but those who habitually focus on the

     end goal. Perhaps it is merely that computers are young,

     programmers are younger, and the young are always optimists. But

     however the selection process works, the result is indisputable:

     "This time it will surely run," or "I just found the last bug.".

   See also {Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic Entomology}.


Orange Book
: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 C1, and can be upgraded to

   about C2 without excessive pain.  See also {crayola books},

   {book titles}.


oriental food
: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
:orphan:  [UNIX] n. A process whose parent has died; one inherited by

   `init(1)'.  Compare {zombie}.


orphaned i-node
: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 no

   longer serving a useful function within some organization, esp.

   {lion food} without subordinates.


orthogonal
: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
:OS:  /O-S/ 1. [Operating System] n. An abbreviation heavily used in email,

   occasionally in speech.  2. n.,obs. On ITS, an output spy.  See

   "{OS and JEDGAR}" (in {Appendix A}).


OS/2
: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
: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
: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".


overflow pdl
:overflow pdl:  [MIT] n. The place where you put things when your

   {pdl} is full.  If you don't have one and too many things get

   pushed, you forget something.  The overflow pdl for a person's

   memory might be a memo pad.  This usage inspired the following

   doggerel:

     Hey, diddle, diddle

     The overflow pdl

        To get a little more stack;

     If that's not enough

     Then you lose it all,

        And have to pop all the way back.

                                    --The Great Quux

   The term {pdl} seems to be primarily an MITism; outside MIT this

   term is replaced by `overflow {stack}'.


overrun
: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!"  Compare {firehose syndrome}. 3. More

   loosely, may refer to a {buffer overflow} not necessarily

   related to processing time (as in {overrun screw}).


overrun screw
:overrun screw:  [C programming] n. A variety of {fandango on}

   {core} produced by scribbling past the end of an array (C

   implementations typically have no checks for this error).  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}, {memory}

   {smash}, {aliasing bug}, {precedence lossage}, {fandango on}

   {core}, {secondary damage}.


P-mail
:P-mail:  n. Physical mail, as opposed to {email}.  Synonymous

   with {snail-mail}.


P.O.D.
: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
: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 naivet'e (see

   {naive}).  Also `padded cell environment'.


page in
: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
: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
:pain in the net:  n. A {flamer}.


paper-net
:paper-net:  n. Hackish way of referring to the postal service,

   analogizing it to a very slow, low-reliability network.  USENET

   {sig block}s sometimes include a "Paper-Net:" header just

   before the sender's postal address; common variants of this are

   "Papernet" and "P-Net".  Note that the standard {netiquette}

   guidelines discourage this practice as a waste of bandwidth, since

   netters are quite unlikely to casually use postal addresses.

   Compare {voice-net}, {snail-mail}, {P-mail}.


param
:param:  /p*-ram'/ n. Shorthand for `parameter'.  See also

   {parm}; compare {arg}, {var}.


PARC
:PARC:  n. See {XEROX PARC}.


parent message
:parent message:  n. See {followup}.


parity errors
: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
: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:  /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
: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
: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 turned down by the

   technical journals but circulated widely via photocopies.  It was

   eventually published in "Comparing and Assessing Programming

   Languages", edited by Alan Feuer and Narain Gehani (Prentice-Hall,

   1984).  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.


pastie
:pastie:  /pay'stee/ n. An adhesive-backed label designed to be

   attached to a key on a keyboard to indicate some non-standard

   character which can be accessed through that key.  Pasties are

   likely to be used in APL environments, where almost every key is

   associated with a special character.  A pastie on the R key, for

   example, would remind the user that it is used to generate the rho

   character.  The term properly refers to nipple-concealing devices

   formerly worn by strippers in concession to indecent-exposure

   laws; compare {tits on a keyboard}.


patch
: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.  5. [UNIX] the

   `patch(1)' program, written by Larry Wall, which automatically

   applies a patch (sense 3) to a set of source code.

   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
: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
: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
: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
:payware:  /pay'weir/ n. Commercial software.  Oppose {shareware}

   or {freeware}.


PBD
: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
: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
: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
:PDL:  1. n. `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}.  2. v. To design using a program design

   language.  "I've been pdling so long my eyes won't focus beyond 2

   feet." 3. n. `Page Description Language'.  Refers to any language

   which is used to control a graphics device, usually a laserprinter.

   The most common example is, of course, Adobe's {PostScript}

   language, but there are many others, such as Xerox InterPress,

   etc.


pdl
:pdl:  /pid'l/ or /puhd'l/ [abbreviation for `Push Down List']

   1. n. In ITS days, the preferred MITism for {stack}.  See

   {overflow pdl}.  2. n. Dave Lebling, one of the co-authors of

   {Zork}; (his {network address} on the ITS machines was at one

   time pdl@dms). 2. Rarely, sny sense of {PDL}, as these are not

   invariably capitalized.


PDP-10
: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
: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
: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}).

   Since a {real operating system} provides useful, higher-level

   services for the tasks commonly performed with peeks and pokes on

   micros, and real languages tend not to encourage low-level memory

   groveling, a question like "How do I do a peek in C?" is

   diagnostic of the {newbie}.  (Of course, OS kernels often have to

   do exactly this; a real C hacker would unhesitatingly, if

   unportably, assign an absolute address to a pointer variable and

   indirect through it.)


pencil and paper
: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
: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
: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:  /perf/ n. See {chad} (sense 1).  The term `perfory'

   /per'f*-ree/ is also heard. The term {perf} may also refer to

   the perforations themselves, rather than the chad they produce when

   torn.


perfect programmer syndrome
: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:  /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.


person of no account
:person of no account:  [University of California at Santa Cruz] n.

   Used when referring to a person with no {network address}, frequently

   to forestall confusion.  Most often as part of an introduction:

   "This is Bill, a person of no account, but he used to be

   bill@random.com".  Compare {return from the dead}.


pessimal
: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
: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-
:peta-:  /pe't*/ [SI] pref. See {quantifiers}.


PETSCII
: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.


phage
:phage:  n. A program that modifies other programs or databases in

   unauthorized ways; esp. one that propagates a {virus} or

   {Trojan horse}.  See also {worm}, {mockingbird}.  The

   analogy, of course, is with phage viruses in biology.


phase
: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
: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.


phase-wrapping
:phase-wrapping:  [MIT] n. Syn. {wrap around}, sense 2.


phreaking
:phreaking:  /freek'ing/ [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) (see {cracking}).

   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-
: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
:pig, run like a:  v. To run very slowly on given hardware, said of

   software.  Distinct from {hog}.


pilot error
: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
: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."  5. n. A quantum packet of

   happiness.  People who are very happy tend to exude pings;

   furthermore, one can intentionally create pings and aim them at a

   needy party (e.g., a depressed person).  This sense of ping may

   appear as an exclamation; "Ping!" (I'm happy; I am emitting a

   quantum of happiness; I have been struck by a quantum of

   happiness).  The form "pingfulness", which is used to describe

   people who exude pings, also occurs.  (In the standard abuse of

   language, "pingfulness" can also be used as an exclamation, in

   which case it's a much stronger exclamation than just "ping"!).

   Oppose {blargh}.

   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
: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:  /pip/ [Peripheral Interchange Program] vt.,obs. To copy;

   from the program PIP on CP/M, RSX-11, RSTS/E, TOPS-10, 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'; this played on

   the Nahuatl word `atlatl' for a spear-thrower, with connotations

   of utility and primitivity that were no doubt quite intentional).


pistol
: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
: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
: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}.


plaid screen
:plaid screen:  [XEROX PARC] n. A `special effect' that occurs

   when certain kinds of {memory smash}es overwrite the control

   blocks or image memory of a bit-mapped display.  The term "salt and

   pepper" may refer to a different pattern of similar origin.

   Though the term as coined at PARC refers to the result of an error,

   some of the {X} demos induce plaid-screen effects deliberately

   as a {display hack}.


plain-ASCII
:plain-ASCII:  /playn-as'kee/ Syn. {flat-ASCII}.


plan file
: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}.

   A recent innovation in plan files has been the introduction of

   "scrolling plan files" which are one-dimensional animations made

   using only the printable ASCII character set, carriage return and

   line feed, avoiding terminal specific escape sequences, since the

   {finger} command will (for security) not pass the escape

   character.

   Scrolling .plan files have become art forms in miniature, and some

   sites have started competitions to find who can create the longest

   running, funniest, and most original animations.  Various animation

   characters include:

     Centipede:

          mmmmme

     Lorry/Truck:

          oo-oP

     Andalusian Video Snail:

          _@/

   and a compiler (ASP) is available on USENET for producing them.


platinum-iridium
: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
:playpen:  [IBM] n. A room where programmers work.  Compare {salt}

   {mines}.


playte
:playte:  /playt/ 16 bits, by analogy with {nybble} and

   {byte}.  Usage: rare and extremely silly.  See also {dynner}

   and {crumb}.


plingnet
:plingnet:  /pling'net/ n. Syn. {UUCPNET}.  Also see

   {Commonwealth Hackish}, which uses `pling' for {bang} (as in

   {bang path}).


plokta
: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.

   A slightly more directed form of plokta can often be seen in mail

   messages or USENET articles from new users --- the text might end

   with

             q

             quit

             :q

             ^C

             end

             x

             exit

             ZZ

             ^D

             ?

             help

   as the user vainly tries to find the right exit sequence, with the

   incorrect tries piling up at the end of the message....


plonk
:plonk:  [USENET: possibly influenced by British slang `plonk' for

   cheap booze, or `plonker' for someone behaving stupidly] 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
:plugh:  /ploogh/ [from the {ADVENT} game] v. See {xyzzy}.


plumbing
: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.  A few other OSs such as IBM's VM/CMS support similar

   facilities.  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
: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
:pnambic:  /p*-nam'bik/ [Acronym from the scene in the film

   version of `The Wizard of Oz' in which the 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
:pod:  [allegedly from abbreviation 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.


point-and-drool interface
:point-and-drool interface:  n. Parody of the techspeak term

   `point-and-shoot interface', describing a windows, icons, and

   mice-based interface such as is found on the Macintosh.  The

   implication, of course, is that such an interface is only suitable

   for idiots.  See {for the rest of us}, {WIMP environment},

   {Macintrash}, {drool-proof paper}.  Also `point-and-grunt

   interface'.


poke
:poke:  n.,vt. See {peek}.


poll
: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
: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
:POM:  /P-O-M/ n. Common abbreviation for {phase of the moon}.  Usage:

   usually in the phrase `POM-dependent', which means {flaky}.


pop
: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
: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}.


post
: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?"


postcardware
:postcardware:  n. {Shareware} that borders on {freeware}, in

   that the author requests only that satisfied users send a postcard

   of their home town or something.  (This practice, silly as it might

   seem, serves to remind users that they are otherwise getting

   something for nothing, and may also be psychologically related to

   real estate `sales' in which $1 changes hands just to keep the

   transaction from being a gift.)


posting
: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
: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}.  The Internet standard for electronic mail

   ({RFC}-822) requires each machine to have a `postmaster' address;

   usually it is aliased to this person.


PostScript
:PostScript:  n. A Page Description Language ({PDL}), based on

   work originally done by John Gaffney at Evans and Sutherland in

   1976, evolving through `JaM' (`John and Martin', Martin Newell) at

   {XEROX PARC}, and finally implemented in its current form by

   John Warnock et al. after he and Chuck Geschke founded Adobe

   Systems Incorporated in 1982.  PostScript gets its leverage by

   using a full programming language, rather than a series of

   low-level escape sequences, to describe an image to be printed on a

   laser printer or other output device (in this it parallels

   {EMACS}, which exploited a similar insight about editing

   tasks).  It is also noteworthy for implementing on-the fly

   rasterization, from Bezier curve descriptions, of high-quality

   fonts at low (e.g.  300 dpi) resolution (it was formerly believed

   that hand-tuned bitmap fonts were required for this task).  Hackers

   consider PostScript to be among the most elegant hacks of all time,

   and the combination of technical merits and widespread availability

   has made PostScript the language of choice for graphical

   output.


pound on
:pound on:  vt.  Syn. {bang on}.


power cycle
: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 "{A Selection of AI Koans}" (in

   {Appendix A}) about Tom Knight and the novice.


power hit
:power hit:  n. A spike or drop-out in the electricity supplying

   your machine; a power {glitch}.  These can cause crashes and

   even permanent damage to your machine(s).


PPN
: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
: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},

   {memory smash}, {smash the stack}, {fandango on core},

   {overrun screw}.


prepend
: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
: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
: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
: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
:pretzel key:  [Mac users] n. See {feature key}.


prime time
: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.


printing discussion
:printing discussion:  [PARC] n. A protracted, low-level,

   time-consuming, generally pointless discussion of something only

   peripherally interesting to all.


priority interrupt
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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).


programming fluid
:programming fluid:  n. 1. Coffee.  2. Cola.  3. Any caffeinacious

   stimulant.  Many hackers consider these essential for those

   all-night hacking runs.  See {unleaded}, {wirewater}.


propeller head
: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
:propeller key:  [Mac users] n. See {feature key}.


proprietary
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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
:psychedelicware:  /si:`k*-del'-ik-weir/ [UK] n. Syn.

   {display hack}.  See also {smoking clover}.


psyton
: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
: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
: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
: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.  There is a widespread myth

   that it was designed to fit in the currency trays used for that

   era's larger dollar bills, but recent investigations have falsified

   this.

   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
: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
:Purple Book:  n. 1. The `System V Interface Definition'.  The

   covers of the first editions were an amazingly nauseating shade of

   off-lavender.  2. Syn. {Wizard Book}.  See also {book}

   {titles}.


purple wire
:purple wire:  [IBM] n. Wire installed by Field Engineers to work

   around problems discovered during testing or debugging.  These are

   called `purple wires' even when (as is frequently the case) their

   actual physical color is yellow....  Compare {blue wire},

   {yellow wire}, and {red wire}.


push
: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}.


quad
: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

   Oxford types are said to associate it with nostalgic memories of

   dear old University.


quadruple bucky
: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
: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 SI magnifying prefixes, along with the corresponding

   binary interpretations in common 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

     zetta-  1000^7   1024^7 = 2^70 = 1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424

     yotta-  1000^8   1024^8 = 2^80 = 1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176

   Here are the SI 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)

     zepto-  1000^-7     (not used in jargon---yet)

     yocto-  1000^-8     (not used in jargon---yet)

   The prefixes zetta-, yotta-, zepto-, and yocto- have been included

   in these tables purely for completeness and giggle value; they were

   adopted in 1990 by the `19th Conference Generale des Poids et

   Mesures'.  The binary peta- and exa- loadings, though well

   established, are not in jargon use either --- yet.  The prefix

   milli-, denoting multiplication by 1000^(-1), has always

   been rare in jargon (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 that 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 or M as though they were suffix or

   numeric multipliers rather than a prefix; thus "2K dollars", "2M

   of disk space".  This is also true (though less commonly) of G.

   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}.

   One example of this: it is common to refer to the capacity of the

   3.5" {microfloppies} now ubiquitous in the PC world as `1.44 MB'

   In fact, this is a completely {bogus} number.  The correct size

   is 1440 KB, that is, 1440 * 1024 = 1474560 bytes.  So the `mega'

   in `1.44 MB' is compounded of two `kilos', one of which is 1024

   and the other of which is 1000.  The correct number of megabytes would

   of course be 1440 / 1024 = 1.40625.  Alas, this fine point is probably

   lost on the world forever.

   [1993 update: hacker Morgan Burke has proposed, to general

   approval on USENET, the following additional prefixes:

groucho

     10^-30

harpo

     10^-27

harpi

     10^27

grouchi

     10^30

   We observe that this would leave the prefixes zeppo-, gummo-, and

   chico- available for future expansion.  Sadly, there is little

   immediate prospect that Mr. Burke's eminently sensible proposal

   will be ratified.]


quantum bogodynamics
: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
:quarter:  n. Two bits.  This in turn comes from the `pieces of

   eight' famed in pirate movies --- Spanish silver crowns 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
: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
: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}.


quine
:quine:  [from the name of the logician Willard V. Quine, via

   Douglas Hofstadter] n. A program that generates a copy of its own

   source text as its complete output.  Devising the shortest possible

   quine in some given programming language is a common hackish

   amusement.  Here is one classic quine:

     ((lambda (x)

       (list x (list (quote quote) x)))

      (quote

         (lambda (x)

           (list x (list (quote quote) x)))))

   This one works in LISP or Scheme.  It's relatively easy to write

   quines in other languages such as Postscript which readily handle

   programs as data; much harder (and thus more challenging!) in

   languages like C which do not.  Here is a classic C quine for ASCII

   machines:

     char*f="char*f=%c%s%c;main()

     {printf(f,34,f,34,10);}%c";

     main(){printf(f,34,f,34,10);}

   For excruciatingly exact quinishness, remove the interior line

   breaks.  Some infamous {Obfuscated C Contest} entries have been

   quines that reproduced in exotic ways.


quote chapter and verse
:quote chapter and verse:  [by analogy with the mainstream phrase]

   v. To cite 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
:quotient:  n. See {coefficient of X}.


quux
: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 naive 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
:qux:  /kwuhks/ The fourth of the standard {metasyntactic}

   {variable}, 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
: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.


rabbit job
:rabbit job:  [Cambridge] n. A batch job that does little, if any,

   real work, but creates one or more copies of itself, breeding like

   rabbits.  Compare {wabbit}, {fork bomb}.


rain dance
: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}.


rainbow series
:rainbow series:  n. Any of several series of technical manuals

   distinguished by cover color.  The original rainbow series was the

   NCSC security manuals (see {Orange Book}, {crayola books});

   the term has also been commonly applied to the PostScript reference

   set (see {Red Book}, {Green Book}, {Blue Book}, {White}

   {Book}).  Which books are meant by "`the' rainbow series"

   unqualified is thus dependent on one's local technical culture.


random
: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
: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, study the `Principia Discordia',

   `{The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy}', `The Joy

   of Sex', and the Christian Bible (Revelation 13:18).  See also

   {Discordianism} or consult your pineal gland.  See also {for}

   {values of}.


randomness
:randomness:  n. 1. An inexplicable misfeature; gratuitous

   inelegance.  2. 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!"  3. Of people, synonymous with

   `flakiness'. The connotation is that the person so described is

   behaving weirdly, incompetently, or inappropriately for reasons

   which are (a) too tiresome to bother inquiring into, (b) are

   probably as inscrutable as quantum phenomena anyway, and (c) are

   likely to pass with time. "Maybe he has a real complaint, or maybe

   it's just randomness.  See if he calls back."


rape
: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.

   3. [CMU/Pitt] To mass-copy files from an anonymous ftp site.

   "Last night I raped Simtel's dskutl directory."


rare mode
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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!
: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
: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
:raw mode:  n. A mode that allows a program to transfer bits

   directly to or from an I/O device (or, under {bogus} systems

   that make a distinction, a disk file) without any processing,

   abstraction, or interpretation by the operating system.  Compare

   {rare mode}, {cooked mode}.  This is techspeak under UNIX,

   jargon elsewhere.


rc file
: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
:RE:  /R-E/ n. Common spoken and written shorthand for {regexp}.


read-only user
: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
: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.

   In the Mac and PC worlds, software is not usually distributed in

   source form and a README is more likely to contain user-oriented

   material like last-minute documentation changes, error workarounds,

   and restrictions.  When asked, hackers invariably relate the README

   convention 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
:real:  adj. Not simulated.  Often used as a specific antonym to

   {virtual} in any of its jargon senses.


real estate
: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
:real hack:  n. A {crock}.  This is sometimes used affectionately;

   see {hack}.


real operating system
:real operating system:  n. The sort the speaker is used to.  People

   from the BSDophilic 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
: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, a Real Programmer}" in {Appendix A}.  The term itself

   was popularized by a 1983 Datamation article "Real

   Programmers Don't Use Pascal" by Ed Post, still circulating on

   USENET and Internet in on-line form.


Real Soon Now
: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
: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
: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
: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.  It is also noteworthy that on the

   campus of Cambridge University in England, there is a gaily-painted

   lamp-post which bears the label `REALITY CHECKPOINT'.  It marks the

   boundary between university and the Real World; check your notions

   of reality before passing.  This joke is funnier because the

   Cambridge `campus' is actually coextensive with the center of

   Cambridge.  See also {fear and loathing}, {mundane}, and

   {uninteresting}.


reality check
: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
:reaper:  n. A {prowler} that {GFR}s files.  A file removed in

   this way is said to have been `reaped'.


rectangle slinger
:rectangle slinger:  n. See {polygon pusher}.


recursion
:recursion:  n. See {recursion}.  See also {tail recursion}.


recursive acronym
:recursive acronym:  pl.n. A hackish (and especially MIT) tradition

   is to choose acronyms/abbreviations that refer humorously to

   themselves or to other acronyms/abbreviations.  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
: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, or the 1990 second edition ISBN 0-201-18127-4); the

   others are known as the {Green Book}, the {Blue Book}, and

   the {White Book} (sense 2).  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.  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}.


red wire
:red wire:  [IBM] n. Patch wires installed by programmers who have

   no business mucking with the hardware.  It is said that the only

   thing more dangerous than a hardware guy with a code patch is a

   {softy} with a soldering iron.... Compare {blue wire},

   {yellow wire}, {purple wire}.


regexp
: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>.


register dancing
:register dancing:  n. Many older processor architectures suffer

   from a serious shortage of general-purpose registers.  This is

   especially a problem for compiler-writers, because their generated

   code needs places to store temporaries for things like intermediate

   values in expression evaluation.  Some designs with this problem,

   like the Intel 80x86, do have a handful of special-purpose

   registers that can be pressed into service, providing suitable care

   is taken to avoid unpleasant side effects on the state of the

   processor: while the special-purpose register is being used to hold

   an intermediate value, a delicate minuet is required in which the

   previous value of the register is saved and then restored just before

   the official function (and value) of the special-purpose register is

   again needed.


reincarnation, cycle of
:reincarnation, cycle of:  n. See {cycle of reincarnation}.


reinvent the wheel
: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.


religion of CHI
:religion of CHI:  n. /ki:/ [Case Western Reserve University] n.

   Yet another hackish parody religion (see also {Church of the}

   {SubGenius}, {Discordianism}).  In the mid-70s, the canonical

   "Introduction to Programming" courses at CWRU were taught in

   Algol, and student exercises were punched on cards and run on a

   Univac 1108 system using a homebrew operating system named CHI.

   The religion had no doctrines and but one ritual: whenever the

   worshipper noted that a digital clock read 11:08, he or she would

   recite the phrase "It is 11:08; ABS, ALPHABETIC, ARCSIN, ARCCOS,

   ARCTAN."  The last five words were the first five functions in the

   appropriate chapter of the Algol manual; note the special

   pronunciations /obz/ and /ark'sin/ rather than the more common

   /abz/ and /ark'si:n/.  Using an alarm clock to warn of 11:08's

   arrival was {considered harmful}.


religious issues
: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
:replicator:  n. Any construct that acts to produce copies of

   itself; this could be a living organism, an idea (see {meme}), a

   program (see {quine}, {worm}, {wabbit}, {fork bomb},

   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
:reply:  n. See {followup}.


restriction
: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
:retcon:  /ret'kon/ [short for `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.  For

   example, 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."

   "Darth Vader was retconned into Luke Skywalker's father in

   "The Empire Strikes Back".

   [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]

   [1993 update: some comics fans on the net now claim that retcon was

   independently in use in comics fandom before rec.arts.comics.

   In lexicography, nothing is ever simple. --- ESR]


RETI
:RETI:  v. Syn. {RTI}


retrocomputing
: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,

   written mostly for {hack value}, 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.


return from the dead
:return from the dead:  v. To regain access to the net after a long

   absence.  Compare {person of no account}.


RFC
:RFC:  /R-F-C/ [Request For Comment] n. One of a long-es-tab-lished

   series of numbered Internet standards widely followed by commercial

   software and freeware 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.

   The RFC tradition of pragmatic, experience-driven, after-the-fact

   standard writing done by individuals or small working groups has

   important advantages over the more formal, committee-driven process

   typical of ANSI or ISO.  Emblematic of some of these is the

   existence of a flourishing tradition of `joke' RFCs; usually at

   least one a year is published, usually on April 1st.  Well-known

   joke RFCs have included 527 ("ARPAWOCKY", R. Merryman, UCSD; 22

   June 1973), 748 ("Telnet Randomly-Lose Option", Mark R. Crispin;

   1 April 1978), and 1149 ("A Standard for the Transmission of IP

   Datagrams on Avian Carriers", D. Waitzman, BBN STC; 1 April 1990).

   The first was a Lewis Carroll pastiche; the second a parody of the

   TCP-IP documentation style, and the third a deadpan skewering of

   standards-document legalese, describing protocols for transmitting

   Internet data packets by carrier pigeon.

   The RFCs are most remarkable for how well they work --- they manage to

   have neither the ambiguities that are usually rife in informal

   specifications, nor the committee-perpetrated misfeatures that often

   haunt formal standards, and they define a network that has grown to

   truly worldwide proportions.


RFE
:RFE:  /R-F-E/ n. 1. [techspeak] Request For Enhancement (compare

   {RFC}).  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
: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
: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
: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
:RL:  // [MUD community] n. Real Life.  "Firiss laughs in RL"

   means that Firiss's player is laughing.  Oppose {VR}.


roach
:roach:  [Bell Labs] vt. To destroy, esp. of a data structure.  Hardware

   gets {toast}ed or {fried}, software gets roached.


robot
:robot:  [IRC, MUD] n. An {IRC} or {MUD} user who is actually

   a program.  On IRC, typically the robot provides some useful

   service.  Examples are NickServ, which tries to prevent random

   users from adopting {nick}s already claimed by others, and

   MsgServ, which allows one to send asynchronous messages to be

   delivered when the recipient signs on.  Also common are

   "annoybots", such as KissServ, which perform no useful function

   except to send cute messages to other people.  Service robots are

   less common on MUDs; but some others, such as the `Julia' robot

   active in 1990--91, have been remarkably impressive Turing-test

   experiments, able to pass as human for as long as ten or fifteen

   minutes of conversation.


robust
: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
: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.  Alan Perlis said: "Every program eventually

   becomes rococo, and then rubble."  Compare {critical}

   {mass}.


rogue
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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}.


round tape
:round tape:  n. Industry-standard 1/2-imch magnetic tape (7- or

   9-track) on traditional circular reels; oppose {square tape}.


RSN
:RSN:  /R-S-N/ adj. See {Real Soon Now}.


RTBM
:RTBM:  /R-T-B-M/ [UNIX] imp. Commonwealth Hackish variant of

   {RTFM}; expands to `Read The Bloody Manual'.  RTBM is often the

   entire text of the first reply to a question from a {newbie};

   the *second* would escalate to "RTFM".


RTFAQ
: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.


RTFB
:RTFB:  /R-T-F-B/ [UNIX] imp. Acronym for `Read The Fucking

   Binary'.  Used when neither documentation nor the the source for the

   problem at hand exists, and the only thing to do is use some

   debugger or monitor and directly analyze the assembler or even

   the machine code.  "No source for the buggy port driver?  Aaargh! I

   *hate* proprietary operating systems.  Time to RTFB."


RTFM
: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 {FM},

   {RTFAQ}, {RTFB}, {RTFS}, {RTM}, all of which mutated

   from RTFM, and compare {UTSL}.


RTFS
:RTFS:  /R-T-F-S/ [UNIX] 1. imp. Acronym for `Read The Fucking

   Source'.  Stronger form of {RTFM}, used when the problem

   at hand is not necessarily obvious and not available from

   the manuals --- or the manuals are not yet written and maybe

   never will be.  For even more tricky situations, see {RTFB}.

   2. imp. `Read The Fucking Standard'; this oath can only be used when

   the problem area (e.g., a language or operating system interface) has

   actually been codified in a ratified standards document.  The

   existence of these standards documents (and the technically

   inappropriate but politically mandated compromises that they

   inevitably contain, and the stifling language in which they are

   invariably written, and the unbelievably tedious bureaucratic process

   by which they are produced) can be unnerving to hackers, who are used

   to a certain amount of ambiguity in the specifications of the systems

   they use.  (Hackers feel that such ambiguities are acceptable as long

   as the {Right Thing} to do is obvious to any thinking observer;

   sadly, this casual attitude towards specifications becomes unworkable

   when a system becomes popular in the {Real World}.)  Since a hacker

   is likely to feel that a standards document is both unnecessary and

   technically deficient, the deprecation inherent in this term may be

   directed as much against the standard as against the person who ought

   to read it.


RTI
: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
:RTM:  /R-T-M/ [USENET: abbreviation for `Read The Manual']

   1. Politer variant of {RTFM}.  2. Robert T. Morris Jr.,

   perpetrator of the great Internet worm of 1988 (see {Great Worm,}

   {the}); villain to many, naive 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
: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.  Oppose {cuspy}.

   3. Anything that manipulates a shared resource without regard for

   its other users in such a way as to cause a (non-fatal) problem is

   said to be `rude'.  Examples: programs that change tty modes

   without resetting them on exit, or windowing programs that keep

   forcing themselves to the top of the window stack.  Compare

   {all-elbows}.


runes
: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
: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
:rusty iron:  n. Syn. {tired iron}.  It has been claimed that this

   is the inevitable fate of {water MIPS}.


rusty memory
: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/N ratio
:S/N ratio:  // n. (also `s/n ratio', `s:n ratio').  Syn.

   {signal-to-noise ratio}.  Often abbreviated `SNR'.


sacred
: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
: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 Avenue, 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 Avenue;

     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 Avenue.  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!"

   [My spies on the West Coast inform me that there is a close relative

   of the raspberry found out there called an `ollalieberry' --- ESR]

   [Ironic footnote: it appears that the {meme} about ginger vs.

   rotting meat may be an urban legend.  It's not borne out by an

   examination of medieval recipes or period purchase records for

   spices, and appears full-blown in the works of Samuel Pegge, a

   gourmand and notorious flake case who originated numerous food

   myths. --- ESR]


sagan
: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
: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, XEROX PARC, 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
: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.  [Some versions add:

        ...and probably knows how to drive.]

   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}.


salt mines
: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
: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
: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}.


samurai
:samurai:  n. A hacker who hires out for legal cracking jobs,

   snooping for factions in corporate political fights, lawyers

   pursuing privacy-rights and First Amendment cases, and other

   parties with legitimate reasons to need an electronic locksmith.

   In 1991, mainstream media reported the existence of a loose-knit

   culture of samurai that meets electronically on BBS systems, mostly

   bright teenagers with personal micros; they have modeled

   themselves explicitly on the historical samurai of Japan and on the

   "net cowboys" of William Gibson's {cyberpunk} novels.  Those

   interviewed claim to adhere to a rigid ethic of loyalty to their

   employers and to disdain the vandalism and theft practiced by

   criminal crackers as beneath them and contrary to the hacker ethic;

   some quote Miyamoto Musashi's `Book of Five Rings', a classic

   of historical samurai doctrine, in support of these principles.

   See also {Stupids}, {social engineering}, {cracker},

   {hacker ethic, the}, and {dark-side hacker}.


sandbender
:sandbender:  [IBM] n. A person involved with silicon lithography and

   the physical design of chips.  Compare {ironmonger}, {polygon}

   {pusher}.


sandbox
:sandbox:  n. 1. (also `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}.  2. Syn. {link farm}


sanity check
: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
: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
: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.


scag
:scag:  vt. To destroy the data on a disk, either by corrupting the

  filesystem or by causing media damage.  "That last power hit scagged

  the system disk."  Compare {scrog}, {roach}.


scanno
:scanno:  /skan'oh/ n. An error in a document caused by a scanner

   glitch, analogous to a typo or {thinko}.


schroedinbug
:schroedinbug:  /shroh'din-buhg/ [MIT: from the Schroedinger's Cat

   thought-experiment in quantum physics] n. A design or

   implementation bug in a program that doesn't manifest until someone

   reading source or using the program in an unusual way notices that

   it never should have worked, at which point the program promptly

   stops working for everybody until fixed.  Though (like {bit}

   {rot}) this sounds impossible, it happens; some programs have

   harbored latent schroedinbugs for years.  Compare {heisenbug},

   {Bohr bug}, {mandelbug}.


science-fiction fandom
: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},

   {phage}, {virus}, {wetware}, {wirehead}, and {worm}

   originated in SF stories.


scram switch
: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}.  (See also {molly-guard}.)


scratch
: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
: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.  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 a DEC engineer troubleshooting a crash on the program's VAX

   inadvertently interfered with some custom hardware that was wired

   to Mabel.

   It is reported 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.

   [There is a version of this story, complete with reported dialogue

   between one of the project people and DEC field service, that has

   been circulating on Internet since 1986.  It is hilarious and

   mythic, but gets some facts wrong.  For example, it reports the

   machine as a PDP-11 and alleges that Mabel's demise occurred when

   DEC {PM}ed the machine.  Earlier versions of this entry were

   based on that story; this one has been corrected from an interview

   with the hapless sysop. --- ESR]


scream and die
:scream and die:  v. Syn. {cough and die}, but connotes that an

   error message was printed or displayed before the program crashed.


screaming tty
:screaming tty:  [UNIX] n. A terminal line which is either

   disconnected or connected to a powered-off terminal which, due to

   misconfiguration, misimplementation, or simple bad luck, acts as a

   source of an infinite number of random characters.  A screaming tty

   or two can seriously degrade the performance of a vanilla UNIX

   system; the arriving "characters" are treated as userid/password

   pairs and tested as such.  The UNIX password encryption algorithm

   is designed to be computationally intensive in order to foil

   brute-force crack attacks, so though none of the logins succeeds;

   the overhead of rejecting them all can be substantial.


screw
: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
: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
: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
: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".  Compare {scag}; possibly the two are related.  Equivalent

   to {scribble} or {mangle}.


scrool
: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
: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!"


scruffies
:scruffies:  n. See {neats vs. scruffies}.


SCSI
: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.


ScumOS
:ScumOS:  /skuhm'os/ or /skuhm'O-S/ n. Unflattering hackerism

   for SunOS, the UNIX variant supported on Sun Microsystems's UNIX

   workstations (see also {sun-stools}), and compare {AIDX},

   {terminak}, {Macintrash}, {Nominal Semidestructor},

   {Open DeathTrap}, {HP-SUX}.  Despite what this term might

   suggest, Sun was founded by hackers and still enjoys excellent

   relations with hackerdom; usage is more often in exasperation than

   outright loathing.


search-and-destroy mode
: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
: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
: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
:security through obscurity:  alt. `security by obscurity' n. A

   term 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

   "strategy" never works for long and occasionally sets the world

   up for debacles like the {RTM} worm of 1988 (see {Great Worm,}

   {the}), 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: There are conflicting stories about the origin of

   this term.  It has been claimed that it 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).  {ITS} fans, on the

   other hand, say it was coined years earlier in opposition to the

   incredibly paranoid {Multics} people down the hall, for whom

   security was everything.  In the ITS culture it referred to (1) the

   fact that that by the time a tourist figured out how to make

   trouble he'd generally gotten over the urge to make it, because he

   felt part of the community; and (2) (self-mockingly) the poor

   coverage of the documentation and obscurity of many commands.  One

   instance of *deliberate* security through obscurity is

   recorded; the command to allow patching the running ITS system

   ({altmode} altmode control-R) echoed as $$^D.  If you actually

   typed alt alt ^D, that set a flag that would prevent patching the

   system even if you later got it right.


SED
:SED:  [TMRC, from `Light-Emitting Diode'] /S-E-D/ n.

   Smoke-emitting diode.  A {friode} that lost the war. See

   {LER}.


segfault
:segfault:  n.,vi. Syn. {segment}, {seggie}.


seggie
:seggie:  /seg'ee/ [UNIX] n. Shorthand for {segmentation fault}

   reported from Britain.


segment
: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
: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
:segv:  /seg'vee/ n.,vi. Yet another synonym for {segmentation}

   {fault} (actually, in this case, `segmentation violation').


self-reference
:self-reference:  n. See {self-reference}.


selvage
:selvage:  /sel'v*j/ [from sewing] n. See {chad} (sense 1).


semi
: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
:semi-infinite:  n. See {infinite}.


senior bit
:senior bit:  [IBM] n. Syn. {meta bit}.


server
: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
: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.  The RCA 1802 chip used in the

   early Elf and SuperElf personal computers had a `SEt X register'

   SEX instruction, but this seems to have had little folkloric

   impact.

   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 (on some theoretical level) have sex with a

   dragon, but you can't have sex with an apple.


sex changer
:sex changer:  n. Syn. {gender mender}.


shambolic link
:shambolic link:  /sham-bol'ik link/ n. A UNIX symbolic link,

   particularly when it confuses you, points to nothing at all, or

   results in you ending up in some completely unexpected part of the

   filesystem....


sharchive
:sharchive:  [UNIX and USENET; from /bin/sh archive] n. A {flatten}ed

   representation of a set of one or more files, with the unique

   property that it can be unflattened (the original files restored) by

   feeding it through a standard UNIX shell; thus, a sharchive can be

   distributed to anyone running UNIX, and no special unpacking software is

   required.  Sharchives are also intriguing in that they are

   typically created by shell scripts; the script that produces

   sharchives is thus a script which produces self-unpacking scripts,

   which may themselves contain scripts.  (The downsides of sharchives

   are that they are an ideal venue for {Trojan horse} attacks and that,

   for recipients not running UNIX, no simple un-sharchiving program is

   possible; sharchives can and do make use of arbitrarily-powerful

   shell features.)


Share and enjoy!
:Share and enjoy!:  imp. 1. Commonly found at the end of software

   release announcements and {README file}s, this phrase indicates

   allegience to the hacker ethic of free information sharing (see

   {hacker ethic, the}, sense 1).  2. The motto of the Sirius

   Cybernetics Corporation (the ultimate gaggle of incompetent

   {suit}s) in Douglas Adams's `Hitch Hiker's Guide to the

   Galaxy'.  The irony of using this as a cultural recognition signal

   appeals to freeware hackers.


shareware
: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 also {careware}, {charityware},

   {crippleware}, {guiltware}, {postcardware}, and

   {-ware}; compare {payware}.


shelfware
: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
: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
: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
: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}.


shim
:shim:  n. A small piece of data inserted in order to achieve a

   desired memory alignment or other addressing property.  For

   example, the PDP-11 UNIX linker, in split I&D (instructions and

   data) mode, inserts a two-byte shim at location 0 in data space so

   that no data object will have an address of 0 (and be confused with

   the C null pointer). See also {loose bytes}.


shitogram
:shitogram:  /shit'oh-gram/ n. A *really* nasty piece of email.

   Compare {nastygram}, {flame}.


short card
: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
: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.


shovelware
:shovelware:  n. Extra software dumped onto a CD-ROM or tape to fill

   up the remaining space on the medium after the software distribution

   it's intended to carry, but not integrated with the distribution.


showstopper
: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
:shriek:  n. See {excl}.  Occasional CMU usage, also in common use

   among APL fans and mathematicians, especially category theorists.


Shub-Internet
: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
: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 design

   rules.  If it worked with any other peripherals, it was by

   {magic}.


SIG
:SIG:  /sig/ n. (also common as a prefix in combining forms) The

   Association for Computing Machinery traditionally sponsors Special

   Interest Groups in various technical areas; well-known ones include

   SIGPLAN (the Special Interest Group on Programming Languages),

   SIGARCH (the Special Interest Group for Computer Architecture) and

   SIGGRAPH (the Special Interest Group for Computer Graphics).

   Hackers, not surprisingly, like to overextend this naming

   convention to less formal associations like SIGBEER (at ACM

   conferences) and SIGFOOD (at University of Illinois).


sig block
: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, the}); 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 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."


sig virus
:sig virus:  n. A parasitic {meme} embedded in a {sig block}.

   There was a {meme plague} or fad for these on USENET in late

   1991.  Most were equivalents of "I am a .sig virus.  Please reproduce

   me in your .sig block.".  Of course, the .sig virus's memetic hook

   is the giggle value of going along with the gag; this, however,

   was a self-limiting phenomenon as more and more people picked up

   on the idea.  There were creative variants on it; some people

   stuck `sig virus antibody' texts in their sigs, and there was at

   least one instance of a sig virus eater.


signal-to-noise ratio
: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
:silicon:  n. Hardware, esp. ICs or microprocessor-based computer

   systems (compare {iron}).  Contrasted with software.  See also

   {sandbender}.


silly walk
: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
: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
: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
:since time T equals minus infinity:  adv. 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
: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
:skrog:  v. Syn. {scrog}.


skulker
:skulker:  n. Syn. {prowler}.


slack
:slack:  n. 1. Space allocated to a disk file but not actually used

   to store useful information.  The techspeak equivalent is `internal

   fragmentation'.  2. In the theology of the {Church of the}

   {SubGenius}, a mystical substance or quality that is the

   prerequisite of all human happiness.

   Since UNIX files are stored compactly, except for the unavoidable

   wastage in the last block or fragment, it might be said that "Unix

   has no slack".  See {ha ha only serious}.


slap on the side
: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
:slash:  n. Common name for the slant (`/', ASCII 0101111)

   character.  See {ASCII} for other synonyms.


sleep
: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
:slim:  n. A small, derivative change (e.g., to code).


slop
: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
: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'

   or `bottom feeder'.  One common variety of slopsucker hunts for

   large prime numbers.  Compare {background}.


slurp
: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
: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
:smart terminal:  n. 1. 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}.  2. obs. Any terminal with an

   addressable cursor; the opposite of a {glass tty}.  Today, a

   terminal with merely an addressable cursor, but with none of the

   more-powerful features mentioned in sense 1, is called a {dumb}

   {terminal}.

   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
: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
: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}, {memory smash},

   {precedence lossage}, {overrun screw}.


smiley
:smiley:  n. See {emoticon}.


smoke
:smoke:  1. vi. To {crash}, blow up, usually spectacularly. "The

   new version smoked, just like the last one."  Used for both hardware

   (where it often describes an actual physical event), and software

   (where it's merely colorful).  2. vi. [from automotive slang] To be

   conspicuously fast.  "That processor really smokes."


smoke and mirrors
:smoke and mirrors:  n. Marketing deceptions.  The term is

   mainstream in this general sense.  Among hackers it's strongly

   associated with bogus demos and crocked {benchmark}s (see also

   {MIPS}, {machoflops}).  "They claim their new box cranks 50

   MIPS for under $5000, but didn't specify the instruction mix ---

   sounds like smoke and mirrors to me."  The phrase has been said to

   derive from carnie slang for magic acts and `freak show' displays

   that depend on `trompe l'oeil' effects, but also calls to mind

   the fierce Aztec god Tezcatlipoca (lit. "Smoking Mirror") for

   whom the hearts of huge numbers of human sacrificial victims were

   regularly cut out.  Upon hearing about a rigged demo or yet another

   round of fantasy-based marketing promises, hackers often feel

   analogously disheartened.


smoke test
: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
: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
: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 an 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.


smurf
:smurf:  /smerf/ [from the soc.motss newsgroup on USENET,

   after some obnoxiously gooey cartoon characters] n. A newsgroup

   regular with a habitual style that is irreverent, silly, and

   cute.  Like many other hackish terms for people, this one may

   be praise or insult depending on who uses it.  In general, being

   referred to as a smurf is probably not going to make your day

   unless you've previously adopted the label yourself in a spirit of

   irony.  Compare {old fart}.


SNAFU principle
:SNAFU principle:  /sna'foo prin'si-pl/ [from a WWII Army

   ac-ro-nym 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
:snail:  vt. To {snail-mail} something. "Snail me a copy of those

   graphics, will you?"


snail-mail
: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
: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:  /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...." 5. [GEnie] To spray

   food or {programming fluid}s due to laughing at the wrong

   moment.  "I was drinking coffee, and when I read your post I

   snarfed all over my desk." "If I keep reading this topic, I think

   I'll have to snarf-proof my computer with a keyboard {condom}."

   [This sense appears to be widespread among mundane teenagers ---

   ESR]


snarf & barf
: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
: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
: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
: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' or `Shoenet'.


sniff
:sniff:  v.,n. Synonym for {poll}.


snivitz
: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
: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 engineering
:social engineering:  n. Term used among {cracker}s and

   {samurai} for cracking techniques that rely on weaknesses in

   {wetware} rather than software; the aim is to trick people into

   revealing passwords or other information that compromises a target

   system's security.  Classic scams include phoning up a mark who has

   the required information and posing as a field service tech or a

   fellow employee with an urgent access problem.  See also the

   {tiger team} story in the {patch} entry.


social science number
: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
:soft boot:  n. See {boot}.


softcopy
:softcopy:  /soft'ko-pee/ n. [by analogy with `hardcopy'] A

   machine-readable form of corresponding hardcopy.  See {bits},

   {machinable}.


software bloat
: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 laser
:software laser:  n. A laser works by bouncing photons back and

   forth between two mirrors, one totally reflective and one partially

   reflective.  If the lasing material (usually a crystal) has the

   right properties, photons scattering off the atoms in the crystal

   will excite cascades of more photons, all in lockstep.  Eventually

   the beam will escape through the partially-reflective mirror.  One

   kind of {sorcerer's apprentice mode} involving {bounce message}s

   can produce closely analogous results, with a {cascade} of

   messages escaping to flood nearby systems.  By mid-1993 there had

   been at least two publicized incidents of this kind.


software rot
: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
: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
:softy:  [IBM] n. Hardware hackers' term for a software expert who

   is largely ignorant of the mysteries of hardware.


some random X
: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
:sorcerer's apprentice mode:  [from Friedrich Schiller's `Der

   Zauberlehrling' via 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}, {software}

   {laser}, {ARMM}..


SOS
: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
: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
:space-cadet keyboard:  n. A now-legendary device used on MIT LISP

   machines, which inspired several still-current jargon terms and

   influenced the design of {EMACS}.  It was 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.  By pressing 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}.

   Note: early versions of this entry incorrectly identified the

   space-cadet keyboard with the `Knight keyboard'.  Though both

   were designed by Tom Knight, the latter term was properly applied

   only to a keyboard used for ITS on the PDP-10 and modeled

   on the Stanford keyboard (as described under {bucky bits}).  The

   true space-cadet keyboard evolved from the Knight keyboard.


SPACEWAR
: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 nine years after that, SPACEWAR was commercialized as one of

   the first video games; descendants are still {feep}ing in video

   arcades everywhere.


spaghetti code
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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 GE 600 (later Honeywell 6000)

   actually had an *analog* speedometer on the front panel,

   calibrated in instructions executed per second.


spell
:spell:  n. Syn. {incantation}.


spelling flame
:spelling flame:  [USENET] n.  A posting ostentatiously correcting a

   previous article's spelling as a way of casting scorn on the point

   the article was trying to make, instead of actually responding to

   that point (compare {dictionary flame}).  Of course, people who

   are more than usually slovenly spellers are prone to think

   *any* correction is a spelling flame.


spiffy
: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.


spike
:spike:  v. To defeat a selection mechanism by introducing a

   (sometimes temporary) device that forces a specific result.  The

   word is used in several industries; telephone engineers refer to

   spiking a relay by inserting a pin to hold the relay in either the

   closed or open state, and railroaders refer to spiking a

   track switch so that it cannot be moved.  In programming

   environments it normally refers to a temporary change, usually for

   testing purposes (as opposed to a permanent change, which would be

   called {hardwired}).


spin
:spin:  vi. Equivalent to {buzz}.  More common among C and UNIX

   programmers.


spl
: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}.


splash screen
:splash screen:  [Mac] n. Syn. {banner}, sense 3.


splat
: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 {feature 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}.


spod
:spod:  [Great Britain] n. A lower form of life found on {talker}

   {system}s and {MUD}s.  The spod has few friends in {RL} and

   uses talkers instead, finding communication easier and preferable

   over the net.  He has all the negative traits of the {computer}

   {geek} without having any interest in computers per se.  Lacking any

   knowledge of or interest in how networks work, and considering his

   access a God-given right, he is a major irritant to sysadmins,

   clogging up lines in order to reach new MUDs, following passed-on

   instructions on how to sneak his way onto Internet ("Wow!  It's in

   America!") and complaining when he is not allowed to use busy

   routes.  A true spod will start any conversation with "Are you

   male or female?" (and follow it up with "Got any good

   numbers/IDs/passwords?") and will not talk to someone physically

   present in the same terminal room until they log onto the same

   machine that he is using and enter talk mode.  Compare {newbie},

   {tourist}, {weenie}, {twink}, {terminal junkie}.


spoiler
:spoiler:  [USENET: sci.math and rec.puzzles] n. Any remark

   which telegraphs the solution of a problem or puzzle, thus denying

   the reader the pleasure of working out the correct answer (see also

   {interesting}).  Readily forms compounds like `total spoiler',

   `quasi-spoiler' and even `pseudo-spoiler'.


sponge
: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 a 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}.


spoo
:spoo:  n. Variant of {spooge}, sense 1.


spooge
: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
:spool:  [from early IBM `Simultaneous Peripheral Operation

   On-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.  Without qualification, the spooler 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) and occasionally even for input devices.  See

   also {demon}.


spool file
:spool file:  n. Any file to which data is {spool}ed to await the

   next stage of processing.  Especially used in circumstances where

   spooling the data copes with a mismatch between speeds in two

   devices or pieces of software.  For example, when you send mail

   under UNIX, it's typically copied to a spool file to await a

   transport {demon}'s attentions.  This is borderline techspeak.


square tape
:square tape:  n. Mainframe magnetic tape cartridges for use with

   IBM 3480 or compatible tape drives; or QIC tapes used on

   workstations and micros.  The term comes from the square (actually

   rectangular) shape of the cartridges; contrast {round tape}.


stack
: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
: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
:stale pointer bug:  n. Synonym for {aliasing bug} used esp. among

   microcomputer hackers.


state
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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).


stone knives and bearskins
:stone knives and bearskins:  [ITS, prob. from the Star Trek Classic

   episode "The City on the Edge of Forever"] n. A term

   traditionally used by {ITS} fans to describe (and deprecate)

   computing environments they regard as less advanced, with the

   (often correct) implication that said environments were grotesquely

   primitive in light of what is known about good ways to design

   things.  As in "Don't get too used to the facilities here.  Once

   you leave MIT it's stone knives and bearskins as far as the eye can

   see".  Compare {steam-powered}.


stoppage
: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
:store:  [prob. from techspeak `main store'] n. In some

   varieties of Commonwealth hackish, the referred 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
:stroke:  n. Common name for the slant (`/', ASCII 0101111)

   character.  See {ASCII} for other synonyms.


strudel
:strudel:  n. Common (spoken) name for the at-sign (`@', ASCII

   1000000) character.  See {ASCII} for other synonyms.


stubroutine
:stubroutine:  /stuhb'roo-teen/ [contraction of `stub

   subroutine'] n. Tiny, often vacuous placeholder for a subroutine

   that is to be written or fleshed out later.


studlycaps
: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
:stunning:  adj. Mind-bogglingly stupid.  Usually used in sarcasm.

   "You want to code *what* in ADA?  That's ... a stunning

   idea!"


stupid-sort
:stupid-sort:  n. Syn. {bogo-sort}.


Stupids
:Stupids:  n. Term used by {samurai} for the {suit}s who

   employ them; succinctly expresses an attitude at least as common,

   though usually better disguised, among other subcultures of

   hackers.  There may be intended reference here to an SF story

   originally published in 1952 but much anthologized since, Mark

   Clifton's `Star, Bright'.  In it, a super-genius child

   classifies humans into a very few `Brights' like herself, a huge

   majority of `Stupids', and a minority of `Tweens', the merely

   ordinary geniuses.


Sturgeon's Law
:Sturgeon's Law:  prov. "Ninety percent of everything is crap".  Derived

   from a quote by science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon, who once

   said, "Sure, 90% of science fiction is crud. That's because 90% of

   everything is crud."  Oddly, when Sturgeon's Law is cited, the

   final word is almost invariably changed to `crap'.  Compare

   {Hanlon's Razor}.  Though this maxim originated in SF fandom,

   most hackers recognize it and are all too aware of its truth.


sucking mud
: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
:sufficiently small:  adj. Syn. {suitably small}.


suit
: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}, {Stupids}, {SNAFU}

   {principle}, and {brain-damaged}.  English, by the way, is

   relatively kind; our Moscow correspondent informs us that the

   corresponding idiom in Russian hacker jargon is `sovok', lit. a

   tool for grabbing garbage.


suitable win
:suitable win:  n. See {win}.


suitably small
: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 lounge
:sun lounge:  [Great Britain] n. The room where all the Sun

   workstations live.  The humor in this term comes from the fact

   that it's also in mainstream use to describe a solarium, and all

   those Sun workstations clustered together give off an amazing

   amount of heat.


sun-stools
: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
: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
: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 naive 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
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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
:swapped in:  n. See {swap}.  See also {page in}.


swapped out
:swapped out:  n. See {swap}.  See also {page out}.


swizzle
: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
: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 salt
:syntactic salt:  n. The opposite of {syntactic sugar}, a feature

   designed to make it harder to write bad code.  Specifically,

   syntactic salt is a hoop the programmer must jump through just to

   prove that he knows what's going on, rather than to express a

   program action.  Some programmers consider required type

   declarations to be syntactic salt.  A requirement to write

   `end if', `end while', `end do', etc. to terminate

   the last block controlled by a control construct (as opposed to

   just `end') would definitely be syntactic salt. Syntactic salt

   is like the real thing in that it tends to raise hackers' blood

   pressures in an unhealthy way..


syntactic sugar
:syntactic sugar:  [coined by Peter Landin] n. Features added to a

   language or other formalism to make it `sweeter' for humans,

   which 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 variants `syntactic saccharin' and `syntactic syrup' are

   also recorded.  These denotes something even more gratuitous, in

   that syntactic sugar serves a purpose (making something more

   acceptable to humans), but syntactic saccharin or syrup serves no

   purpose at all.  Compare {candygrammar}, {syntactic salt}.


sys-frog
:sys-frog:  /sis'frog/ [the PLATO system] n. Playful variant of

   `sysprog', which is in turn short for `systems programmer'.


sysadmin
:sysadmin:  /sis'ad-min/ n. Common contraction of `system

   admin'; see {admin}.


sysape
:sysape:  /sysape/ n. A rather derogatory term for a computer

   operator; a play on {sysop} common at sites that use the banana

   hierarchy of problem complexity (see {one-banana}

   {problem}).


sysop
: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
: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
:systems jock:  n. See {jock}, (sense 2).


system mangler
: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.


SysVile
:SysVile:  /sis-vi:l'/ n. See {Missed'em-five}.


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}. 5. A dialect of {LISP} developed at Yale.


tail recursion
:tail recursion:  n. If you aren't sick of it already, see {tail}

   {recursion}.


talk mode
: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))

     FWIW

          for what it's worth

     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 form 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

     NHOH

          Never Heard of Him/Her (often used in {initgame})

     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

     TTYL

          talk to you later

     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:

     CU l8er

          see you later (mutant of `CU l8tr')

     FOAD

          fuck off and die (use of this is generally OTT)

     OTT

          over the top (excessive, uncalled for)

     ppl

          abbrev for "people"

     THX

          thanks (mutant of `TNX'; clearly this comes in batches of 1138

          (the Lucasian K)).

     UOK?

          are you OK?

   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
:talker system:  n. British hackerism for software that enables

   real-time chat or {talk mode}.


tall card
: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
: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.


TANSTAAFL
:TANSTAAFL:  /tan'sto-fl/ [acronym, from Robert Heinlein's

   classic `The Moon is a Harsh Mistress'.]  "There Ain't No

   Such Thing As A Free Lunch", often invoked when someone is balking

   at an ugly design requirement or the prospect of using an

   unpleasantly {heavyweight} technique.  "What? Don't tell me I

   have to implement a database back end to get my address book

   program to work!"  "Well, TANSTAAFL you know."  This phrase owes

   some of its popularity to the high concentration of science-fiction

   fans and political libertarians in hackerdom (see Appendix

   B).


tar and feather
: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
: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
:tayste:  /tayst/ n. Two bits; also as {taste}.  Syn. {crumb},

   {quarter}.  Compare {byte}, {dynner}, {playte},

   {nybble}, {quad}.


TCB
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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'.


teledildonics
:teledildonics:  /tel`*-dil-do'-niks/ n. Sex in a computer

   simulated virtual reality, esp. computer-mediated sexual

   interaction between the {VR} presences of two humans.  This

   practice is not yet possible except in the rather limited form of

   erotic conversation on {MUD}s and the like.  The term, however,

   is widely recognized in the VR community as a {ha ha only}

   {serious} projection of things to come.  "When we can sustain a

   multi-sensory surround good enough for teledildonics, *then*

   we'll know we're getting somewhere."


Telerat
:Telerat:  /tel'*-rat/ n. Unflattering hackerism for `Teleray', a

   line of extremely losing terminals.  Compare {AIDX}, {terminak},

   {Macintrash} {Nominal Semidestructor}, {Open DeathTrap},

   {ScumOS}, {sun-stools}, {HP-SUX}.


TELNET
:TELNET:  /tel'net/ vt. To communicate with another Internet host

   using the {TELNET} protocol (usually using a program of the same

   name).  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
: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
: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
: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-
:tera-:  /te'r*/ [SI] pref. See {quantifiers}.


teraflop club
: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
: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 {AIDX},

   {Nominal Semidestructor}, {Open DeathTrap}, {ScumOS},

   {sun-stools}, {Telerat}, {HP-SUX}.


terminal brain death
: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
: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
: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
: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 some early OSes and hardware, no

   characters would be printed until a complete line was formed, so

   this operation terminated the line and emitted the output.


test
: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
: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 {Knuth}, also

   {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-1993.  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.

   TeX{} has also been a noteworthy example of free, shared, but

   high-quality software.  Knuth used to offer monetary awards to people

   who found and reported bugs in it; as the years wore on and the few

   remaining bugs were fixed (and new ones even harder to find), the

   bribe went up.  Though well-written, TeX{} is so large (and so full of

   cutting edge technique) that it is said to have unearthed at least

   one bug in every Pascal it has been compiled with.


text
: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
: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}.


That's not a bug, that's a feature!
:That's not a bug, that's a feature!:  The {canonical} first

   parry in a debate about a purported bug.  The complainant, if

   unconvinced, is likely to retort that the bug is then at best a

   {misfeature}.  See also {feature}.


the X that can be Y is not the true X
: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
: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
: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
: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}; see also {brain fart}.

   Compare {mouso}.


This can't happen
:This can't happen:  Less clipped variant of {can't happen}.


This time, for sure!
: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
: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
:thread:  n. [USENET, GEnie, CompuServe] Common abbreviation of

   `topic thread', a more or less continuous chain of postings on a

   single topic.  To `follow a thread' is to read a series of USENET

   postings sharing a common subject or (more correctly) which are

   connected by Reference headers.  The better newsreaders present

   news in thread order.


three-finger salute
:three-finger salute:  n. Syn. {Vulcan nerve pinch}.


thud
:thud:  n. 1. Yet another {metasyntactic 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.


thumb
:thumb:  n. The slider on a window-system scrollbar.  So called

   because moving it allows you to browse through the contents of a

   text window in a way analogous to thumbing through a book.


thunk
: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
: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
: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
: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
:tiger team:  [U.S. military jargon] n. 1. Originally, 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).

   2. Recently, and more generally, any official inspection team or

   special {firefighting} group called in to look at a problem.

   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 bomb
:time bomb:  n. A subspecies of {logic bomb} that is triggered by

   reaching some preset time, either once or periodically.  There are

   numerous legends about time bombs set up by programmers in their

   employers' machines, to go off if the programmer is fired or laid

   off and is not present to perform the appropriate suppressing

   action periodically.

   Interestingly, the only such incident for which we have been

   pointed to documentary evidence took place in the Soviet Union in

   1986!  A disgruntled programmer at the Volga Automobile Plant

   (where the Fiat clones called Ladas were manufactured) planted a

   time bomb which, a week after he'd left on vacation, stopped the

   entire main assembly line for a day.  The case attracted lots of

   attention in the Soviet Union because it was the first cracking

   case to make it to court there.  The perpetrator got 3 years in

   jail.


time sink
:time sink:  [poss. by analogy with `heat sink' or `current sink'] n.

   A project that consumes unbounded amounts of time.


time T
: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 was a Chinese restaurant in Palo Alto

   that was 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
: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 scheduling uncertainty factor

   is usually at least 2.


tip of the ice-cube
: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 at all

   important.


tired iron
: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
: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; but

   the Mac, perverse as usual, has them on the `D' and `K'

   keys).


TLA
:TLA:  /T-L-A/ [Three-Letter Acronym] n. 1. Self-describing

   abbreviation 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
: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

   that became basics of the hackish vocabulary (see esp. {foo},

   {mung}, and {frob}).

   By 1962, TMRC's legendary layout was already a marvel of complexity

   (and has grown in the thirty years since; all the features

   described here are still present).  The control system alone

   featured about 1200 relays.  There were {scram switch}es located

   at numerous places around the room that could be thwacked 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, which was itself something of

   a wonder in those bygone days before cheap LEDS and seven-segment

   displays (no model railroad can begin to approximate the scale

   distances between towns and stations, so model railroad timetables

   assume a fast clock so that it seems to take about the right amount

   of time for a train to complete its journey).  When someone hit a

   scram switch the clock stopped and the display was replaced with the

   word `FOO'; at TMRC the scram switches are therefore called `foo

   switches'.

   Steven Levy, in his book `Hackers' (see the Bibliography in

   {Appendix C}), 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.


TMRCie
:TMRCie:  /tmerk'ee/, [MIT] n. A denizen of {TMRC}.


to a first approximation
: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
:to a zeroth approximation:  [from `to a first approximation'] A

   *really* sloppy approximation; a wild guess.  Compare

   {social science number}.


toast
: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
: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
:toeprint:  n. A {footprint} of especially small size.


toggle
: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
: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
: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.  Many hackers consider this

   more fun than applications per se; to understand why, see

   {uninteresting}.  Jon Bentley, in the "Bumper-Sticker Computer

   Science" chapter of his book `More Programming Pearls',

   quotes Dick Sites from DEC as saying "I'd rather write programs to

   write programs than write programs".


topic drift
: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
:topic group:  n. Syn. {forum}.


TOPS-10
: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-20:  /tops-twen'tee/ n. See {TWENEX}.


toto
:toto:  /toh'toh/ n. This is reported to be the default scratch

   file name among French-speaking programmers --- in other words, a

   francophone {foo}.  It is reported that the phonetic mutations

   "titi", "tata", and "tutu" canonically follow `toto',

   analogously to {bar}, {baz} and {quux} in English.


tourist
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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
:trap door:  alt. `trapdoor' n. 1. Syn. {back door} --- a

   {Bad Thing}.  2. [techspeak] A `trap-door function' is one

   which is easy to compute but very difficult to compute the inverse

   of.  Such functions are {Good Thing}s with important

   applications in cryptography, specifically in the construction of

   public-key cryptosystems.


trash
: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}.


trawl
:trawl:  v. To sift through large volumes of data (e.g., USENET

   postings, FTP archives, or the Jargon File) looking for something

   of interest.


tree-killer
: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.  The negative

   loading of this term may reflect the epithet `tree-killer'

   applied by Treebeard the Ent to the Orcs in J.R.R. Tolkien's

   `Lord of the Rings' (see also {elvish}, {elder}

   {days}).


treeware
:treeware:  n. Printouts, books, and other information media made

   from pulped dead trees.  Compare {tree-killer}, see

   {documentation}.


trit
: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
: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}.


troff
:troff:  /tee'rof/ or /trof/ [UNIX] n. The gray eminence of UNIX

   text processing; a formatting and phototypesetting program, written

   originally in PDP-11 assembler and then in barely-structured early

   C by the late Joseph Ossanna, modeled after the earlier ROFF which

   was in turn modeled after Multics' RUNOFF by Jerome Saltzer

   (*that* name came from the expression "to run off a copy").  A

   companion program, `nroff', formats output for terminals and

   line printers.

   In 1979, Brian Kernighan modified `troff' so that it could

   drive phototypesetters other than the Graphic Systems CAT.  His

   paper describing that work ("A Typesetter-independent troff,"

   AT&T CSTR #97) explains troff's durability.  After discussing the

   program's "obvious deficiencies --- a rebarbative input syntax,

   mysterious and undocumented properties in some areas, and a

   voracious appetite for computer resources" and noting the ugliness

   and extreme hairiness of the code and internals, Kernighan

   concludes:

     None of these remarks should be taken as denigrating

     Ossanna's accomplishment with TROFF.  It has proven a

     remarkably robust tool, taking unbelievable abuse from a

     variety of preprocessors and being forced into uses that

     were never conceived of in the original design, all with

     considerable grace under fire.

   The success of {TeX} and desktop publishing systems have

   reduced `troff''s relative importance, but this tribute

   perfectly captures the strengths that secured `troff' a place

   in hacker folklore; indeed, it could be taken more generally as an

   indication of those qualities of good programs that, in the long

   run, hackers most admire.


troglodyte
: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
: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
: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}, {phage}, {mockingbird}.


tron
:tron:  [NRL, CMU; prob. fr. the movie `Tron'] v. To become

   inaccessible except via email or `talk(1)', especially when

   one is normally available via telephone or in person.  Frequently

   used in the past tense, as in: "Ran seems to have tronned on us

   this week" or "Gee, Ran, glad you were able to un-tron

   yourself".  One may also speak of `tron mode'; compare

   {spod}.


true-hacker
: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
: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.  3. [UNIX] Any

   serial port, whether or not the device connected to it is a

   terminal; so called because under UNIX such devices have names of

   the form tty*.  Ambiguity between senses 2 and 3 is common but

   seldom bothersome.


tube
: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
: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
: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

   using 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
: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
:turbo nerd:  n. See {computer geek}.


Turing tar-pit
:Turing tar-pit:  n. 1. A place where anything is possible but

   nothing of interest is practical.  Alan Turing helped lay the

   foundations of computer science by showing that all machines and

   languages capable of expressing a certain very primitive set of

   operations are logically equivalent in the kinds of computations

   they can carry out, and in principle have capabilities that differ

   only in speed from those of the most powerful and elegantly

   designed computers.  However, no machine or language exactly

   matching Turing's primitive set has ever been built (other than

   possibly as a classroom exercise), because it would be horribly

   slow and far too painful to use.  A `Turing tar-pit' is any

   computer language or other tool that shares this property.  That

   is, it's theoretically universal --- but in practice, the harder

   you struggle to get any real work done, the deeper its inadequacies

   suck you in.  Compare {bondage-and-discipline language}.  2. The

   perennial {holy wars} over whether language A or B is the "most

   powerful".


turist
:turist:  /too'rist/ n. Var. sp. of {tourist}, q.v.  Also in

   adjectival form, `turistic'.  Poss. influenced by {luser} and

   `Turing'.


tweak
: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.


tweeter
:tweeter:  [University of Waterloo] n. Syn. {perf}, {chad}

   (sense 1).  This term (like {woofer}) has been in use at

   Waterloo since 1972 but is elsewhere unknown.  In audio jargon, the

   word refers to the treble speaker(s) on a hi-fi.


TWENEX
: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

   someone objected that `krans' meant `funeral wreath' in Swedish

   (though some Swedish speakers have since said it means simply

   `wreath'; this part of the story may be apocryphal).  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
: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}).


twilight zone
:twilight zone:  [IRC] n. Notionally, the area of cyberspace where {IRC}

   operators live.  An {op} is said to have a "connection to the

   twilight zone".


twink
: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 (compare

   mainstream `chick').


two pi
: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
: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
: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.


UBD
: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
: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 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
: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
: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
:undocumented feature:  n. See {feature}.


uninteresting
: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 (and, it must be admitted,

   occasionally turning a molehill into a mountain, or a mountain into

   a tectonic plate).  See {WOMBAT}, {SMOP}; compare {toy}

   {problem}, oppose {interesting}.


UNIX
: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.  By 1991, UNIX was 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
: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
: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
: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
: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}.


unleaded
:unleaded:  adj. Said of decaffeinated coffee, Diet Coke, and other

   imitation {programming fluid}s.  "Do you want regular or

   unleaded?"  Appears to be widespread among programmers associated

   with the oil industry in Texas (and probably elsewhere).  Usage:

   silly, and probably unintelligible to the next generation of

   hackers.


unroll
:unroll:  v. To repeat the body of a loop several times in succession.

   This optimization technique reduces the number of times the

   loop-termination test has to be executed.  But it only works if

   the number of iterations desired is a multiple of the number of

   repetitions of the body.  Something has to be done to take care

   of any leftover iterations --- such as {Duff's device}.


unswizzle
:unswizzle:  v. See {swizzle}.


unwind the stack
: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
: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
: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
: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.  Those who are convinced that such patterns and

   algorithms capture the complete essence of the self view this

   prospect with approbation.


upthread
:upthread: adv. Earlier in the discussion (see {thread}), i.e.,

   `above'. "As Joe pointed out upthread, ..."  See also

   {followup}.


urchin
:urchin:  n. See {munchkin}.


USENET
: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 1993, it hosts well over 1200

   {newsgroup}s and an average of 40 megabytes (the equivalent of

   several thousand paper pages) of new technical articles, news,

   discussion, chatter, and {flamage} every day.


user
: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 some

   extent 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
: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
: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
: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
: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.

   Until recently, this objurgation was in theory 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) were so ubiquitous that one could utter

   at almost anyone on the network without concern.

   Nowadays, free UNIX clones are becomming common enough that almost

   anyone can read source legally.  The most widely distributed is

   probably Linux, with 386BSD (aka {jolix}) running second.  Cheap

   commercial UNIXes with source such as BSD/386 and Mach386 are

   accelerating this trend.


UUCPNET
: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}.


vadding
: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}; see

   also {hack}, sense 9).  This term dates from the late 1970s,

   before which such activity was simply called `hacking'; the older

   usage is still prevalent at MIT.

   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
: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
: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
:vaporware:  /vay'pr-weir/ n. Products announced far in advance of

   any release (which may or may not actually take place).  See also

   {brochureware}.


var
:var:  /veir/ or /var/ n. Short for `variable'.  Compare {arg},

   {param}.


VAX
: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.    It is even sometimes

   claimed 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.

   It is sometimes claimed that this 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...").

   It's been reliably confirmed that Electrolux actually did use this

   slogan in the late 1960s; they're a Belgian company, and it apparently

   has become a classic example (used in textbooks) of the perils of

   not knowing the local idiom.

   It appears, however, that the Vax people thought the slogan a

   sufficiently good idea to copy it.  Several British hackers report

   that their promotions used it in 1986--1987, and we have one

   report from a New Zealander that it surfaced there in TV ads for

   the product as recently as 1992!


VAXectomy
: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
: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
:vaxherd:  n. /vaks'herd/ [from `oxherd'] A VAX operator.


vaxism
:vaxism:  /vak'sizm/ n. A piece of code that exhibits

   {vaxocentrism} in critical areas.  Compare {PC-ism},

   {unixism}.


vaxocentrism
: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 PDP-11s, 286-based systems and even on 386 and 68000

     systems under some compilers.

 14. The assumption that `argv[]' is writable.  Problem: this fails in

     many embedded-systems C environments and even under a few flavors

     of UNIX.

   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
: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, and is sometimes more

   specifically used for the act of superimposing two nearly identical

   printouts on one another and holding them up to a light to spot

   differences.  Though this method is poor for detecting omissions in

   the `rear' file, it can also be used with printouts of graphics, a

   claim few if any diff programs can make.  See {diff}.


veeblefester
: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}.


ventilator card
:ventilator card:  n. Syn. {lace card}.


Venus flytrap
:Venus flytrap:  [after the insect-eating plant] n. See {firewall}

   {machine}.


verbage
: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
: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
: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
:vgrep:  /vee'grep/ v.,n. Visual grep.  The operation of finding

   patterns in a file optically rather than digitally (also called an

   `optical grep').  See {grep}; compare {vdiff}.


vi
:vi:  /V-I/, *not* /vi:/ and *never* /siks/ [from

   `Visual Interface'] n. A screen editor crufted together by Bill Joy

   for an early {BSD} release.  Became the de facto standard

   UNIX editor and a nearly undisputed hacker favorite outside of MIT

   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 the bulkier versions of

   EMACS).  See {holy wars}.


videotex
: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
: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
:virtual:  [via the technical term `virtual memory', prob. from

   the term `virtual image' in optics] adj. 1. Common alternative

   to {logical}; often used to refer to the artificial objects

   created by a computer system to help the system control access to

   shared resources.  2. Simulated; performing the functions of

   something that isn't really there.  An imaginative child's doll may

   be a virtual playmate.  Oppose {real}.


virtual Friday
:virtual Friday:  n. (also `logical Friday') 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
: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}.


virtual shredder
:virtual shredder:  n. The jargonic equivalent of the {bit bucket}

   at shops using IBM's VM/CMS operating system.  VM/CMS officially

   supports a whole bestiary of virtual card readers, virtual

   printers, and other phantom devices; these are used to supply some

   of the same capabilities UNIX gets from pipes and I/O redirection.


virus
: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}).  See {phage}; compare {back door};

   see also {UNIX conspiracy}.


visionary
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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
:VR:  // [MUD] n. On-line abbrev for {virtual reality}, as

   opposed to {RL}.


Vulcan nerve pinch
: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
: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.


wabbit
: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; this may

   have descended (if only by inspiration) from hack called RABBITS

   reported from 1969 on a Burroughs 55000 at the University of

   Washington Computer Center.  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 {fork bomb} and

   {rabbit job}, see also {cookie monster}.


WAITS
: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
: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 metasyntactic variable and general

   nonsense word.  See {foo}, {bar}, {foobar}, {quux}.


walk
: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
: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
: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
:wall:  [WPI] interj. 1. An indication of confusion, usually spoken

   with a quizzical tone:  "Wall??"  2. A request for further

   explication.  Compare {octal forty}.  3. [UNIX] v. To send a message

   to everyone currently logged in, esp. with the wall(8) utility.

   It is said that sense 1 came from the idiom `like talking to a

   blank wall'.  It was originally 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
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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 (1993) 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.


warlording
:warlording:  [from the USENET group alt.fan.warlord] v. The act

   of excoriating a bloated, ugly, or derivative {sig block}.

   Common grounds for warlording include the presence of a signature

   rendered in a {BUAF}, over-used or cliched {sig quote}s, ugly

   {ASCII art}, or simply excessive size.  The original `Warlord'

   was a {BIFF}-like {newbie} c.1991 who featured in his sig a

   particularly large and obnoxious ASCII graphic resembling the sword

   of Conan the Barbarian in the 1981 John Milius movie; the group

   name alt.fan.warlord was sarcasm, and the characteristic mode

   of warlording is devastatingly sarcastic praise.


warm boot
:warm boot:  n. See {boot}.


wart
: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 for obtaining ASCII characters in a foreign

   environment is a wart.  See also {miswart}.


washing machine
: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
: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
: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
:weasel:  n. [Cambridge] A naive user, one who deliberately or

   accidentally does things that are stupid or ill-advised.  Roughly

   synonymous with {loser}.


wedged
:wedged:  adj. 1. To be stuck, incapable of proceeding without help.

   This is different from having crashed.  If the system has crashed,

   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).  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.

   There is some dispute over the origin of this term.  It is usually

   thought to derive from a common description of recto-cranial

   inversion; however, it may actually have originated with older

   `hot-press' printing technology in which physical type elements

   were locked into type frames with wedges driven in by mallets.

   Once this had been done, no changes in the typesetting for that

   page could be made.


wedgie
:wedgie:  [Fairchild] n. A bug.  Prob. related to {wedged}.


wedgitude
:wedgitude:  /wedj'i-t[y]ood/ n. The quality or state of being

   {wedged}.


weeble
:weeble:  /weeb'l/ [Cambridge] interj. Used to denote frustration,

   usually at amazing stupidity.  "I stuck the disk in upside down."

   "Weeble...." Compare {gurfle}.


weeds
: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
:weenie:  n. 1. [on BBSes] Any of a species of luser resembling a

   less amusing version of {BIFF} that infests many {BBS}

   systems.  The typical weenie is a teenage boy with poor social

   skills travelling under a grandiose {handle} derived from

   fantasy or heavy-metal rock lyrics.  Among sysops, `the weenie

   problem' refers to the marginally literate and profanity-laden

   {flamage} weenies tend to spew all over a newly-discovered BBS.

   Compare {spod}, {computer geek}, {terminal junkie}.

   2. [Among hackers] 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}.  3. The semicolon character, `;' (ASCII

   0111011).


Weenix
: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
: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
: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
: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}.


whack
:whack:  v. According to arch-hacker James Gosling, to "...modify a

   program with no idea whatsoever how it works." (See {whacker}.)

   It is actually possible to do this in nontrivial circumstances if

   the change is small and well-defined and you are very good at

   {glark}ing things from context.  As a trivial example, it is

   relatively easy to change all `stderr' writes to `stdout'

   writes in a piece of C filter code which remains otherwise

   mysterious.


whacker
: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
:whales:  n. See {like kicking dead whales down the beach}.


whalesong
:whalesong:  n. The peculiar clicking and whooshing sounds made by a

   PEP modem such as the Telebit Trailblazer as it tries to

   synchronize with another PEP modem for their special high-speed

   mode.  This sound isn't anything like the normal two-tone handshake

   between conventional modems and is instantly recognizable to anyone

   who has heard it more than once.  It sounds, in fact, very much

   like whale songs.  This noise is also called "the moose call" or

   "moose tones".


What's a spline?
:What's a spline?:  [XEROX PARC] This phrase expands to: "You have

   just used a term that I've heard for a year and a half, and I feel

   I should know, but don't.  My curiosity has finally overcome my

   guilt."  The PARC lexicon adds "Moral: don't hesitate to ask

   questions, even if they seem obvious."


wheel
:wheel:  [from slang `big wheel' for a powerful person] n. A

   person who has an active {wheel bit}.  "We need to find a

   wheel to unwedge the hung tape drives." (see {wedged}, sense

   1.)


wheel bit
: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
: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
:White Book:  n. 1. Syn. {K&R}.  2. Adobe's fourth book in the

   PostScript series, describing the previously-secret format of Type

   1 fonts; `Adobe Type 1 Font Format, version 1.1',

   (Addison-Wesley, 1990, ISBN 0-201-57044-0). See also {Red Book},

   {Green Book}, {Blue Book}.


whizzy
:whizzy:  [Sun] adj. (alt. `wizzy') Describes a {cuspy} program;

   one that is feature-rich and well presented.


WIBNI
:WIBNI:  // [Bell Labs: Wouldn't It Be Nice If] n. What most

   requirements documents and specifications consist entirely of.

   Compare {IWBNI}.


widget
: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
: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
: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, esp. as

   described by a hacker who prefers command-line interfaces for their

   superior flexibility and extensibility.  However, it is used

   without negative connotations; one must pay attention to voice tone

   and other signals to interpret correctly.  See {menuitis},

   {user-obsequious}.


win
: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
:win big:  vi. To experience serendipity.  "I went shopping and won

   big; there was a 2-for-1 sale." See {big win}.


win win
:win win:  interj. Expresses pleasure at a {win}.


Winchester
: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).


window shopping
:window shopping:  [US Geological Survey] n. Among users of {WIMP}

   {environment}s like {X} or the Macintosh, extended

   experimentation with new window colors, fonts, and icon shapes.

   This activity can take up hours of what might otherwise have been

   productive working time.  "I spent the afternoon window shopping

   until I found the coolest shade of green for my active window

   borders --- now they perfectly match my medium slate blue

   background."  Serious window shoppers will spend their days

   with bitmap editors, creating new and different icons and

   background patterns for all to see.  Also: `window dressing', the

   act of applying new fonts, colors, etc.  See {fritterware},

   compare {macdink}.


winged comments
: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
:winkey:  n. (alt. `winkey face')  See {emoticon}.


winnage
:winnage:  /win'*j/ n. The situation when a lossage is corrected, or

   when something is winning.


winner
: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
: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
:wired:  n. See {hardwired}.


wirehead
: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.


wirewater
:wirewater:  n. Syn. {programming fluid}.  This melds the

   mainstream slang adjective `wired' (stimulated, up, hyperactive)

   with `firewater'.


wish list
: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
:within delta of:  adj. See {delta}.


within epsilon of
:within epsilon of:  adj. See {epsilon}.


wizard
: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
:Wizard Book:  n. Hal Abelson's, Jerry Sussman's and Julie 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.  Also, less commonly, known as the {Purple Book}.


wizard mode
: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
:wizardly:  adj. Pertaining to wizards.  A wizardly {feature} is one

   that only a wizard could understand or use properly.


womb box
: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
: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 metasyntactic variable in {Commonwealth Hackish}.


wonky
: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}.


woofer
:woofer:  [University of Waterloo] n. Some varieties of wide paper

   for printers have a perforation 8.5 inches from the left margin

   that allows the excess on the right-hand side to be torn off when

   the print format is 80 columns or less wide.  The right-hand excess

   may be called `woofer'.  This term (like {tweeter}, which see)

   has been in use at Waterloo since 1972, but is elsewhere unknown.

   In audio jargon, the word refers to the bass speaker(s) on a hi-fi.


workaround
:workaround:  n. 1. 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!"  2. A procedure to be

   employed by the user in order to do what some currently non-working

   feature should do.  Hypothetical example: "Using META-F7 {crash}es

   the 4.43 build of Weemax, but as a workaround you can type CTRL-R,

   then SHIFT-F5, and delete the remaining {cruft} by hand."


working as designed
: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
: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}, and {Great Worm, the}.


wound around the axle
:wound around the axle:  adj. In an infinite loop.  Often used by older

   computer types.


wrap around
: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).  This sense is also called {phase-wrapping}.


write-only code
: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
: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
: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
: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
: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).


wumpus
:wumpus:  /wuhm'p*s/ n. The central monster (and, in many

   versions, the name) of a famous family of very early computer games

   called "Hunt The Wumpus", dating back at least to 1972 (several

   years before {ADVENT}) on the Dartmouth Time-Sharing System.

   The wumpus lived somewhere in a cave with the topology of an

   dodecahedron's edge/vertex graph (later versions supported other

   topologies, including an icosahedron and M"obius strip). The player

   started somewhere at random in the cave with five `crooked

   arrows'; these could be shot through up to three connected rooms,

   and would kill the wumpus on a hit (later versions introduced

   the wounded wumpus, which got very angry).  Unfortunately for

   players, the movement necessary to map the maze was made hazardous

   not merely by the wumpus (which would eat you if you stepped on

   him) but also by bottomless pits and colonies of super bats that would

   pick you up and drop you at a random location (later versions added

   `anaerobic termites' that ate arrows, bat migrations, and

   earthquakes that randomly changed pit locations).

   This game appears to have been the first to use a non-random

   graph-structured map (as opposed to a rectangular grid like the

   even older Star Trek games).  In this respect, as in the

   dungeon-like setting and its terse, amusing messages, it prefigured

   {ADVENT} and {Zork} and was directly ancestral to both (Zork

   acknowledged this heritage by including a super-bat colony).

   Today, a port is distributed with SunOS and as freeware for the

   Mac.  A C emulation of the original Basic game is in circulation

   as freeware on the net.


WYSIAYG
:WYSIAYG:  /wiz'ee-ayg/ adj. Describes a user interface under

   which "What You See Is *All* You Get"; an unhappy variant of

   {WYSIWYG}.  Visual, `point-and-shoot'-style interfaces tend to

   have easy initial learning curves, but also to lack depth; they

   often frustrate advanced users who would be better served by a

   command-style interface.  When this happens, the frustrated user

   has a WYSIAYG problem.  This term is most often used of editors,

   word processors, and document formatting programs.  WYSIWYG

   `desktop publishing' programs, for example, are a clear win for

   creating small documents with lots of fonts and graphics in them,

   especially things like newsletters and presentation slides.  When

   typesetting book-length manuscripts, on the other hand, scale

   changes the nature of the task; one quickly runs into WYSIAYG

   limitations, and the increased power and flexibility of a

   command-driven formatter like {TeX} or UNIX's `troff(1)'

   becomes not just desirable but a necessity.  Compare {YAFIYGI}.


WYSIWYG
: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 that do not result in immediate

   visual feedback.  True WYSIWYG in environments supporting multiple

   fonts or graphics is a a rarely-attained ideal; there are variants

   of this term to express real-world manifestations including

   WYSIAWYG (What You See Is *Almost* What You Get) and

   WYSIMOLWYG (What You See Is More or Less What You Get).  All these

   can be mildly derogatory, as they are often used to refer to

   dumbed-down {user-friendly} interfaces targeted at

   non-programmers; a hacker has no fear of obscure commands (compare

   {WYSIAYG}).  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, WYSIWYG has already made it into the

   OED, in lower case yet. --- 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.


XEROX PARC
:XEROX PARC:  The famed Palo Alto Research Center.  For more than a

   decade, from the early 1970s into the mid-1980s, PARC yielded an

   astonishing volume of groundbreaking hardware and software

   innovations.  The modern mice, windows, and icons style of software

   interface was invented there.  So was the laser printer and the

   local-area network; and PARC's series of D machines anticipated the

   powerful personal computers of the 1980s by a decade.  Sadly, the

   prophets at PARC were without honor in their own company, so much

   so that it became a standard joke to describe PARC as a place that

   specialized in developing brilliant ideas for everyone else.

   The stunning shortsightedness and obtusity of XEROX's top-level

   {suit}s has been well anatomized in `Fumbling The Future:

   How XEROX Invented, Then Ignored, the First Personal Computer' by

   Douglas K. Smith and Robert C. Alexander (William Morrow & Co,

   1988, ISBN 0-688-09511-9).


XOFF
:XOFF:  /X'of/ n. Syn. {control-S}.


XON
:XON:  /X'on/ n. Syn. {control-Q}.


xor
: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
:xref:  /X'ref/ vt., n. Hackish standard abbreviation for

   `cross-reference'.


XXX
: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.  Compre {FIXME}.


xyzzy
: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 , 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.  In more recent 32-bit versions, by the way, AOS/VS

   responds "Twice as much happens".  See also {plugh}.


YA-
:YA-:  [Yet Another] abbrev. In hackish acronyms this almost

   invariably expands to {Yet Another}, following the precedent set

   by UNIX `yacc(1)' (Yet Another Compiler-Compiler).  See

   {YABA}.


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}.


YAFIYGI
:YAFIYGI:  /yaf'ee-y:-gee/ adj.  [coined in response to WYSIWYG]

   Describes the command-oriented ed/vi/nroff/TeX style of word

   processing or other user interface, the opposite of {WYSIWYG}.

   Stands for "You asked for it, you got it", because what you

   actually asked for is often not apparent until long after it is too

   late to do anything about it.  Used to denote perversity ("Real

   Programmers use YAFIYGI tools...and *like* it!") or, less

   often, a necessary tradeoff ("Only a YAFIYGI tool can have full

   programmable flexibility in its interface.").


YAUN
: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
:Yellow Book:  [proposed] n. The print version of this Jargon File;

   `The New Hacker's Dictionary', MIT Press, 1991 (ISBN

   0-262-68069-6).  Includes all the material in the 2.9.6 version of

   the File, plus a Foreword by Guy L. Steele Jr. 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.


yellow wire
:yellow wire:  [IBM] n. Repair wires used when connectors

   (especially ribbon connectors) got broken due to some schlemiel

   pinching them, or to reconnect cut traces after the FE mistakenly

   cut one.  Compare {blue wire}, {purple wire}, {red wire}.


Yet Another
: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 already far

   too many.  See also {YA-}, {YABA}, {YAUN}.


YKYBHTL
:YKYBHTL:  An abbreviation of `You Know You've Been Hacking Too Long'

   established on the USENET group alt.folklore.computers during

   extended discussion of the indicated entry in the Jargon File.


You are not expected to understand this
: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...
: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, including a report

   that Grace Hopper used to tell such a story about herself. --- ESR]


Your mileage may vary
: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!:  /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
: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
: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.


zap
: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' (possibly contrived from 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
: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
: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
: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
:zero-content:  adj. Syn. {content-free}.


zeroth
: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
:zigamorph:  /zig'*-morf/ n. Hex FF (11111111) when used as a

   delimiter or {fence} character.  Usage: primarily at IBM

   shops.


zip
: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
:zipperhead:  [IBM] n. A person with a closed mind.


zombie
: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:  /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."  6. [MIT] To flunk an exam or course.


Zork
: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 (as a patched,

   sourceless RT-11 FORTRAN binary; see {retrocomputing}) and

   commercialized as `The Zork Trilogy' by Infocom.  The FORTRAN

   source was later rewritten for portability and released to USENET

   under the name "Dungeon".  Both FORTRAN "Dungeon" and

   translated C versions are available at many FTP sites.


zorkmid
: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.


'Snooze
:'Snooze:  /snooz/ [FidoNet] n. Fidonews, the weekly official on-line

   newsletter of FidoNet.  As the editorial policy of Fidonews is

   "anything that arrives, we print", there are often large articles

   completely unrelated to FidoNet, which in turn tend to elicit

   {flamage} in subsequent issues.


(TM)
:(TM):  // [USENET] ASCII rendition of the trademark-superscript symbol

   appended to phrases that the author feels should be recorded for

   posterity, perhaps in future editions of this lexicon.  Sometimes

   used ironically as a form of protest against the recent spate of

   software and algorithm patents and `look and feel' lawsuits.  See

   also {UN*X}.


-oid
:-oid:  [from `android'] suff. 1. This suffix is used as in

   mainstream English to indicate a poor imitation, a counterfeit, or

   some otherwise slightly bogus resemblance.  Hackers will happily

   use it with all sorts of non-Greco/Latin stem words that wouldn't

   keep company with it in mainstream English.  For example, "He's a

   nerdoid" means that he superficially resembles a nerd but can't

   make the grade; a `modemoid' might be a 300-baud box (Real Modems

   run at 9600 or up); a `computeroid' might be any {bitty box}.

   The word `keyboid' could be used to describe a {chiclet}

   {keyboard}, but would have to be written; spoken, it would confuse

   the listener as to the speaker's city of origin.  2. There is a

   more specific sense of `-oid' as an indicator for `resembling an

   android' which in the past has been confined to science-fiction

   fans and hackers.  It too has recently (in 1991) started to go

   mainstream (most notably in the term `trendoid' for victims of

   terminal hipness).  This is probably traceable to the

   popularization of the term {droid} in "Star Wars" and its

   sequels.

   Coinages in both forms have been common in science fiction for at

   least fifty years, and hackers (who are often SF fans) have

   probably been making `-oid' jargon for almost that long

   [though GLS and I can personally confirm only that they were

   already common in the mid-1970s --- ESR].


-ware
:-ware:  [from `software'] suff. Commonly used to form jargon terms

   for classes of software.  For examples, see {careware},

   {crippleware}, {crudware}, {freeware}, {fritterware},

   {guiltware}, {liveware}, {meatware}, {payware},

   {psychedelicware}, {shareware}, {shelfware}, {vaporware},

   {wetware}.


/dev/null
:/dev/null:  /dev-nuhl/ [from the UNIX null device, used as a data

   sink] n. A notional `black hole' in any information space being

   discussed, used, or referred to.  A controversial posting, for

   example, might end "Kudos to rasputin@kremlin.org, flames to

   /dev/null".  See {bit bucket}.


0
:0:  Numeric zero, as opposed to the letter `O' (the 15th letter of

   the English alphabet).  In their unmodified forms they look a lot

   alike, and various kluges invented to make them visually distinct

   have compounded the confusion.  If your zero is center-dotted and

   letter-O is not, or if letter-O looks almost rectangular but zero

   looks more like an American football stood on end (or the reverse),

   you're probably looking at a modern character display (though the

   dotted zero seems to have originated as an option on IBM 3270

   controllers).  If your zero is slashed but letter-O is not, you're

   probably looking at an old-style ASCII graphic set descended from

   the default typewheel on the venerable ASR-33 Teletype

   (Scandinavians, for whom slashed-O is a letter, curse this

   arrangement).  If letter-O has a slash across it and the zero does

   not, your display is tuned for a very old convention used at IBM

   and a few other early mainframe makers (Scandinavians curse

   *this* arrangement even more, because it means two of their

   letters collide).  Some Burroughs/Unisys equipment displays a zero

   with a *reversed* slash.  And yet another convention common on

   early line printers left zero unornamented but added a tail or hook

   to the letter-O so that it resembled an inverted Q or cursive

   capital letter-O.  Are we sufficiently confused yet?


1TBS
:1TBS:  // n. The "One True Brace Style"; see {indent style}.


120 reset
:120 reset:  /wuhn-twen'tee ree'set/ [from 120 volts, U.S. wall

   voltage] n. To cycle power on a machine in order to reset or unjam

   it.  Compare {Big Red Switch}, {power cycle}.


2
:2:  infix. In translation software written by hackers, infix 2 often

   represents the syllable *to* with the connotation

   `translate to': as in dvi2ps (DVI to PostScript), int2string

   (integer to string), and texi2roff (Texinfo to [nt]roff).


@-party
:@-party:  /at'par`tee/ [from the @-sign in an Internet address]

   n. (alt. `@-sign party' /at'si:n par`tee/) A semi-closed

   party thrown for hackers at a science-fiction convention (esp.

   the annual Worldcon); one must have a {network address} to

   get in, or at least be in company with someone who does.  One of

   the most reliable opportunities for hackers to meet face to face

   with people who might otherwise be represented by mere phosphor

   dots on their screens.  Compare {boink}.


@Begin
:@Begin:  // See {\begin}.


\begin
:\begin:  // [from the LaTeX command] With \end, used

   humorously in writing to indicate a context or to remark on the

   surrounded text.  For example:

     \begin{flame}

     Predicate logic is the only good programming

     language.  Anyone who would use anything else

     is an idiot.  Also, all computers should be

     tredecimal instead of binary.

     \end{flame}

   The Scribe users at CMU and elsewhere used to use @Begin/@End in

   an identical way (LaTeX was built to resemble Scribe).  On USENET,

   this construct would more frequently be rendered as `<FLAME ON>'

   and `<FLAME OFF>'.


(Lexicon Entries End Here)
:(Lexicon Entries End Here):


Appendix A
:Appendix A:  Hacker Folklore

****************************

This appendix contains several legends and fables that illuminate the

meaning of various entries in the lexicon.


The Meaning of `Hack'
:The Meaning of `Hack':

=======================

"The word {hack} doesn't really have 69 different meanings", according

to MIT hacker Phil Agre.  "In fact, {hack} has only one meaning, an

extremely subtle and profound one which defies articulation.  Which

connotation is implied by a given use of the word depends in similarly

profound ways on the context.  Similar remarks apply to a couple of

other hacker words, most notably {random}."

Hacking might be characterized as `an appropriate application of

ingenuity'.  Whether the result is a quick-and-dirty patchwork job or a

carefully crafted work of art, you have to admire the cleverness that

went into it.

An important secondary meaning of {hack} is `a creative practical

joke'.  This kind of hack is easier to explain to non-hackers than the

programming kind.  Of course, some hacks have both natures; see the

lexicon entries for {pseudo} and {kgbvax}.  But here are some examples

of pure practical jokes that illustrate the hacking spirit:

     In 1961, students from Caltech (California Institute of Technology,

     in Pasadena) hacked the Rose Bowl football game.  One student posed

     as a reporter and `interviewed' the director of the University of

     Washington card stunts (such stunts involve people in the stands

     who hold up colored cards to make pictures).  The reporter learned

     exactly how the stunts were operated, and also that the director

     would be out to dinner later.

     While the director was eating, the students (who called themselves

     the `Fiendish Fourteen') picked a lock and stole a blank direction

     sheet for the card stunts.  They then had a printer run off 2300

     copies of the blank.  The next day they picked the lock again and

     stole the master plans for the stunts --- large sheets of graph

     paper colored in with the stunt pictures.  Using these as a guide,

     they made new instructions for three of the stunts on the

     duplicated blanks.  Finally, they broke in once more, replacing the

     stolen master plans and substituting the stack of diddled

     instruction sheets for the original set.

     The result was that three of the pictures were totally different.

     Instead of `WASHINGTON', the word ``CALTECH' was flashed.  Another

     stunt showed the word `HUSKIES', the Washington nickname, but

     spelled it backwards.  And what was supposed to have been a picture

     of a husky instead showed a beaver.  (Both Caltech and MIT use the

     beaver --- nature's engineer --- as a mascot.)

     After the game, the Washington faculty athletic representative

     said: "Some thought it ingenious; others were indignant."  The

     Washington student body president remarked: "No hard feelings, but

     at the time it was unbelievable.  We were amazed."

This is now considered a classic hack, particularly because revising the

direction sheets constituted a form of programming.

Here is another classic hack:

     On November 20, 1982, MIT hacked the Harvard-Yale football game.

     Just after Harvard's second touchdown against Yale, in the first

     quarter, a small black ball popped up out of the ground at the

     40-yard line, and grew bigger, and bigger, and bigger.  The letters

     `MIT' appeared all over the ball.  As the players and officials

     stood around gawking, the ball grew to six feet in diameter and

     then burst with a bang and a cloud of white smoke.

     The `Boston Globe' later reported: "If you want to know the truth,

     MIT won The Game."

     The prank had taken weeks of careful planning by members of MIT's

     Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity.  The device consisted of a weather

     balloon, a hydraulic ram powered by Freon gas to lift it out of the

     ground, and a vacuum-cleaner motor to inflate it.  They made eight

     separate expeditions to Harvard Stadium between 1 and 5 A.M.,

     locating an unused 110-volt circuit in the stadium and running

     buried wires from the stadium circuit to the 40-yard line, where

     they buried the balloon device.  When the time came to activate the

     device, two fraternity members had merely to flip a circuit breaker

     and push a plug into an outlet.

     This stunt had all the earmarks of a perfect hack: surprise,

     publicity, the ingenious use of technology, safety, and

     harmlessness.  The use of manual control allowed the prank to be

     timed so as not to disrupt the game (it was set off between plays,

     so the outcome of the game would not be unduly affected).  The

     perpetrators had even thoughtfully attached a note to the balloon

     explaining that the device was not dangerous and contained no

     explosives.

     Harvard president Derek Bok commented: "They have an awful lot of

     clever people down there at MIT, and they did it again."  President

     Paul E. Gray of MIT said: "There is absolutely no truth to the

     rumor that I had anything to do with it, but I wish there were."

The hacks above are verifiable history; they can be proved to have

happened.  Many other classic-hack stories from MIT and elsewhere,

though retold as history, have the characteristics of what Jan Brunvand

has called `urban folklore' (see {FOAF}).  Perhaps the best known of

these is the legend of the infamous trolley-car hack, an alleged

incident in which engineering students are said to have welded a trolley

car to its tracks with thermite.  Numerous versions of this have been

recorded from the 1940s to the present, most set at MIT but at least one

very detailed version set at CMU.

Brian Leibowitz has researched MIT hacks both real and mythical

extensively; the interested reader is referred to his delightful

pictorial compendium `The Journal of the Institute for Hacks,

Tomfoolery, and Pranks' (MIT Museum, 1990; ISBN 0-917027-03-5).

Finally, here is a story about one of the classic computer hacks.

     Back in the mid-1970s, several of the system support staff at

     Motorola discovered a relatively simple way to crack system

     security on the Xerox CP-V timesharing system.  Through a simple

     programming strategy, it was possible for a user program to trick

     the system into running a portion of the program in `master mode'

     (supervisor state), in which memory protection does not apply.  The

     program could then poke a large value into its `privilege level'

     byte (normally write-protected) and could then proceed to bypass

     all levels of security within the file-management system, patch the

     system monitor, and do numerous other interesting things.  In

     short, the barn door was wide open.

     Motorola quite properly reported this problem to Xerox via an

     official `level 1 SIDR' (a bug report with an intended urgency of

     `needs to be fixed yesterday').  Because the text of each SIDR was

     entered into a database that could be viewed by quite a number of

     people, Motorola followed the approved procedure: they simply

     reported the problem as `Security SIDR', and attached all of the

     necessary documentation, ways-to-reproduce, etc.

     The CP-V people at Xerox sat on their thumbs; they either didn't

     realize the severity of the problem, or didn't assign the necessary

     operating-system-staff resources to develop and distribute an

     official patch.

     Months passed.  The Motorola guys pestered their Xerox

     field-support rep, to no avail.  Finally they decided to take

     direct action, to demonstrate to Xerox management just how easily

     the system could be cracked and just how thoroughly the security

     safeguards could be subverted.

     They dug around in the operating-system listings and devised a

     thoroughly devilish set of patches.  These patches were then

     incorporated into a pair of programs called `Robin Hood' and `Friar

     Tuck'.  Robin Hood and Friar Tuck were designed to run as `ghost

     jobs' (daemons, in UNIX terminology); they would use the existing

     loophole to subvert system security, install the necessary patches,

     and then keep an eye on one another's statuses in order to keep the

     system operator (in effect, the superuser) from aborting them.

     One fine day, the system operator on the main CP-V software

     development system in El Segundo was surprised by a number of

     unusual phenomena.  These included the following:

        * Tape drives would rewind and dismount their tapes in the

          middle of a job.

        * Disk drives would seek back and forth so rapidly that they

          would attempt to walk across the floor (see {walking}

          {drives}).

        * The card-punch output device would occasionally start up of

          itself and punch a {lace card}.  These would usually jam in

          the punch.

        * The console would print snide and insulting messages from

          Robin Hood to Friar Tuck, or vice versa.

        * The Xerox card reader had two output stackers; it could be

          instructed to stack into A, stack into B, or stack into A

          (unless a card was unreadable, in which case the bad card was

          placed into stacker B).  One of the patches installed by the

          ghosts added some code to the card-reader driver... after

          reading a card, it would flip over to the opposite stacker.

          As a result, card decks would divide themselves in half when

          they were read, leaving the operator to recollate them

          manually.

     Naturally, the operator called in the operating-system developers.

     They found the bandit ghost jobs running, and X'ed them... and were

     once again surprised.  When Robin Hood was X'ed, the following

     sequence of events took place:

          !X id1

          id1: Friar Tuck... I am under attack!  Pray save me!

          id1: Off (aborted)

          id2: Fear not, friend Robin!  I shall rout the Sheriff

               of Nottingham's men!

          id1: Thank you, my good fellow!

     Each ghost-job would detect the fact that the other had been

     killed, and would start a new copy of the recently slain program

     within a few milliseconds.  The only way to kill both ghosts was to

     kill them simultaneously (very difficult) or to deliberately crash

     the system.

     Finally, the system programmers did the latter --- only to find

     that the bandits appeared once again when the system rebooted!  It

     turned out that these two programs had patched the boot-time OS

     image (the kernel file, in UNIX terms) and had added themselves to

     the list of programs that were to be started at boot time.

     The Robin Hood and Friar Tuck ghosts were finally eradicated when

     the system staff rebooted the system from a clean boot-tape and

     reinstalled the monitor.  Not long thereafter, Xerox released a

     patch for this problem.

     It is alleged that Xerox filed a complaint with Motorola's management

     about the merry-prankster actions of the two employees in question.

     It is not recorded that any serious disciplinary action was taken

     against either of them.


TV Typewriters
:TV Typewriters:  A Tale of Hackish Ingenuity

============================================

Here is a true story about a glass tty: One day an MIT hacker was in a

motorcycle accident and broke his leg.  He had to stay in the hospital

quite a while, and got restless because he couldn't {hack}.  Two of his

friends therefore took a terminal and a modem for it to the hospital, so

that he could use the computer by telephone from his hospital bed.

Now this happened some years before the spread of home computers, and

computer terminals were not a familiar sight to the average person.

When the two friends got to the hospital, a guard stopped them and asked

what they were carrying.  They explained that they wanted to take a

computer terminal to their friend who was a patient.

The guard got out his list of things that patients were permitted to

have in their rooms: TV, radio, electric razor, typewriter, tape player,

... no computer terminals.  Computer terminals weren't on the list, so

the guard wouldn't let it in.  Rules are rules, you know.  (This guard

was clearly a {droid}.)

Fair enough, said the two friends, and they left again.  They were

frustrated, of course, because they knew that the terminal was as

harmless as a TV or anything else on the list... which gave them an

idea.

The next day they returned, and the same thing happened: a guard stopped

them and asked what they were carrying.  They said: "This is a TV

typewriter!"  The guard was skeptical, so they plugged it in and

demonstrated it.  "See?  You just type on the keyboard and what you type

shows up on the TV screen."  Now the guard didn't stop to think about

how utterly useless a typewriter would be that didn't produce any paper

copies of what you typed; but this was clearly a TV typewriter, no doubt

about it.  So he checked his list: "A TV is all right, a typewriter is

all right ... okay, take it on in!"

[Historical note: Many years ago, `Popular Electronics' published

solder-it-yourself plans for a TV typewriter.  Despite the essential

uselessness of the device, it was an enormously popular project.

Steve Ciarcia, the man behind `Byte' magazine's "Circuit Cellar"

feature, resurrected this ghost in one of his books of the early

1980s.  He ascribed its popularity (no doubt correctly) to the

feeling of power the builder could achieve by being able to decide

himself what would be shown on the TV. --- ESR]

[Antihistorical note: On September 23rd, 1992, the L.A. Times ran

the following bit of filler:

     Solomon Waters of Altadena, a 6-year-old first-grader, came home from

     his first day of school and excitedly told his mother how he had

     written on "a machine that looks like a computer -- but without the

     TV screen."  She asked him if it could have been a "typewriter."

     "Yeah! Yeah!" he said.  "That's what it was called."

I have since investigated this matter and determined that many of

today's teenagers have never seen a slide rule, either.... -- ESR]


A Story About `Magic'
:A Story About `Magic':  (by GLS)

================================

Some years ago, I was snooping around in the cabinets that housed the

MIT AI Lab's PDP-10, and noticed a little switch glued to the frame of

one cabinet.  It was obviously a homebrew job, added by one of the lab's

hardware hackers (no one knows who).

You don't touch an unknown switch on a computer without knowing what it

does, because you might crash the computer.  The switch was labeled in a

most unhelpful way.  It had two positions, and scrawled in pencil on the

metal switch body were the words `magic' and `more magic'.  The switch

was in the `more magic' position.

I called another hacker over to look at it.  He had never seen the

switch before either.  Closer examination revealed that the switch had

only one wire running to it!  The other end of the wire did disappear

into the maze of wires inside the computer, but it's a basic fact of

electricity that a switch can't do anything unless there are two wires

connected to it.  This switch had a wire connected on one side and no

wire on its other side.

It was clear that this switch was someone's idea of a silly joke.

Convinced by our reasoning that the switch was inoperative, we flipped

it.  The computer instantly crashed.

Imagine our utter astonishment.  We wrote it off as coincidence, but

nevertheless restored the switch to the `more magic' position before

reviving the computer.

A year later, I told this story to yet another hacker, David Moon as I

recall.  He clearly doubted my sanity, or suspected me of a supernatural

belief in the power of this switch, or perhaps thought I was fooling him

with a bogus saga.  To prove it to him, I showed him the very switch,

still glued to the cabinet frame with only one wire connected to it,

still in the `more magic' position.  We scrutinized the switch and its

lone connection, and found that the other end of the wire, though

connected to the computer wiring, was connected to a ground pin.  That

clearly made the switch doubly useless: not only was it electrically

nonoperative, but it was connected to a place that couldn't affect

anything anyway.  So we flipped the switch.

The computer promptly crashed.

This time we ran for Richard Greenblatt, a long-time MIT hacker, who was

close at hand.  He had never noticed the switch before, either.  He

inspected it, concluded it was useless, got some diagonal cutters and

{dike}d it out.  We then revived the computer and it has run fine ever

since.

We still don't know how the switch crashed the machine.  There is a

theory that some circuit near the ground pin was marginal, and

flipping the switch changed the electrical capacitance enough to upset

the circuit as millionth-of-a-second pulses went through it.  But

we'll never know for sure; all we can really say is that the switch

was {magic}.

I still have that switch in my basement.  Maybe I'm silly, but I

usually keep it set on `more magic'.


A Selection of AI Koans
:A Selection of AI Koans:

=========================

These are some of the funniest examples of a genre of jokes told at the

MIT AI Lab about various noted hackers.  The original koans were

composed by Danny Hillis.  In reading these, it is at least useful to

know that Minsky, Sussman, and Drescher are AI researchers of note, that

Tom Knight was one of the Lisp machine's principal designers, and that

David Moon wrote much of Lisp machine Lisp.

                                 * * *

   A novice was trying to fix a broken Lisp machine by turning the power

off and on.

   Knight, seeing what the student was doing, spoke sternly: "You cannot

fix a machine by just power-cycling it with no understanding of what is

going wrong."

   Knight turned the machine off and on.

   The machine worked.

                                 * * *

   One day a student came to Moon and said: "I understand how to make a

better garbage collector.  We must keep a reference count of the

pointers to each cons."

Moon patiently told the student the following story:

     "One day a student came to Moon and said: `I understand how to make

     a better garbage collector...

[Ed. note: Pure reference-count garbage collectors have problems with

circular structures that point to themselves.]

                                 * * *

In the days when Sussman was a novice, Minsky once came to him as he sat

hacking at the PDP-6.

   "What are you doing?", asked Minsky.

   "I am training a randomly wired neural net to play Tic-Tac-Toe"

Sussman replied.

   "Why is the net wired randomly?", asked Minsky.

   "I do not want it to have any preconceptions of how to play", Sussman

said.

   Minsky then shut his eyes.

   "Why do you close your eyes?", Sussman asked his teacher.

   "So that the room will be empty."

   At that moment, Sussman was enlightened.

                                 * * *

   A disciple of another sect once came to Drescher as he was eating his

morning meal.

   "I would like to give you this personality test", said the outsider,

"because I want you to be happy."

   Drescher took the paper that was offered him and put it into the

toaster, saying: "I wish the toaster to be happy, too."


OS and JEDGAR
:OS and JEDGAR:

===============

This story says a lot about the the ITS ethos.

On the ITS system there was a program that allowed you to see what was

being printed on someone else's terminal.  It spied on the other guy's

output by examining the insides of the monitor system.  The output spy

program was called OS.  Throughout the rest of the computer science (and

at IBM too) OS means `operating system', but among old-time ITS hackers

it almost always meant `output spy'.

OS could work because ITS purposely had very little in the way of

`protection' that prevented one user from trespassing on another's

areas.  Fair is fair, however.  There was another program that would

automatically notify you if anyone started to spy on your output.  It

worked in exactly the same way, by looking at the insides of the

operating system to see if anyone else was looking at the insides that

had to do with your output.  This `counterspy' program was called JEDGAR

(a six-letterism pronounced as two syllables: /jed'gr/), in honor of the

former head of the FBI.

But there's more.  JEDGAR would ask the user for `license to kill'.  If

the user said yes, then JEDGAR would actually {gun} the job of the

{luser} who was spying.  Unfortunately, people found that this made life

too violent, especially when tourists learned about it.  One of the

systems hackers solved the problem by replacing JEDGAR with another

program that only pretended to do its job.  It took a long time to do

this, because every copy of JEDGAR had to be patched.  To this day no

one knows how many people never figured out that JEDGAR had been

defanged.


The Story of Mel, a Real Programmer
:The Story of Mel, a Real Programmer:

=====================================

This was posted to USENET by its author, Ed Nather (utastro!nather), on

May 21, 1983.

     A recent article devoted to the *macho* side of programming

     made the bald and unvarnished statement:

         Real Programmers write in FORTRAN.

     Maybe they do now,

     in this decadent era of

     Lite beer, hand calculators, and "user-friendly" software

     but back in the Good Old Days,

     when the term "software" sounded funny

     and Real Computers were made out of drums and vacuum tubes,

     Real Programmers wrote in machine code.

     Not FORTRAN.  Not RATFOR.  Not, even, assembly language.

     Machine Code.

     Raw, unadorned, inscrutable hexadecimal numbers.

     Directly.

     Lest a whole new generation of programmers

     grow up in ignorance of this glorious past,

     I feel duty-bound to describe,

     as best I can through the generation gap,

     how a Real Programmer wrote code.

     I'll call him Mel,

     because that was his name.

     I first met Mel when I went to work for Royal McBee Computer Corp.,

     a now-defunct subsidiary of the typewriter company.

     The firm manufactured the LGP-30,

     a small, cheap (by the standards of the day)

     drum-memory computer,

     and had just started to manufacture

     the RPC-4000, a much-improved,

     bigger, better, faster --- drum-memory computer.

     Cores cost too much,

     and weren't here to stay, anyway.

     (That's why you haven't heard of the company, or the computer.)

     I had been hired to write a FORTRAN compiler

     for this new marvel and Mel was my guide to its wonders.

     Mel didn't approve of compilers.

     "If a program can't rewrite its own code",

     he asked, "what good is it?"

     Mel had written,

     in hexadecimal,

     the most popular computer program the company owned.

     It ran on the LGP-30

     and played blackjack with potential customers

     at computer shows.

     Its effect was always dramatic.

     The LGP-30 booth was packed at every show,

     and the IBM salesmen stood around

     talking to each other.

     Whether or not this actually sold computers

     was a question we never discussed.

     Mel's job was to re-write

     the blackjack program for the RPC-4000.

     (Port?  What does that mean?)

     The new computer had a one-plus-one

     addressing scheme,

     in which each machine instruction,

     in addition to the operation code

     and the address of the needed operand,

     had a second address that indicated where, on the revolving drum,

     the next instruction was located.

     In modern parlance,

     every single instruction was followed by a GO TO!

     Put *that* in Pascal's pipe and smoke it.

     Mel loved the RPC-4000

     because he could optimize his code:

     that is, locate instructions on the drum

     so that just as one finished its job,

     the next would be just arriving at the "read head"

     and available for immediate execution.

     There was a program to do that job,

     an "optimizing assembler",

     but Mel refused to use it.

     "You never know where it's going to put things",

     he explained, "so you'd have to use separate constants".

     It was a long time before I understood that remark.

     Since Mel knew the numerical value

     of every operation code,

     and assigned his own drum addresses,

     every instruction he wrote could also be considered

     a numerical constant.

     He could pick up an earlier "add" instruction, say,

     and multiply by it,

     if it had the right numeric value.

     His code was not easy for someone else to modify.

     I compared Mel's hand-optimized programs

     with the same code massaged by the optimizing assembler program,

     and Mel's always ran faster.

     That was because the "top-down" method of program design

     hadn't been invented yet,

     and Mel wouldn't have used it anyway.

     He wrote the innermost parts of his program loops first,

     so they would get first choice

     of the optimum address locations on the drum.

     The optimizing assembler wasn't smart enough to do it that way.

     Mel never wrote time-delay loops, either,

     even when the balky Flexowriter

     required a delay between output characters to work right.

     He just located instructions on the drum

     so each successive one was just *past* the read head

     when it was needed;

     the drum had to execute another complete revolution

     to find the next instruction.

     He coined an unforgettable term for this procedure.

     Although "optimum" is an absolute term,

     like "unique", it became common verbal practice

     to make it relative:

     "not quite optimum" or "less optimum"

     or "not very optimum".

     Mel called the maximum time-delay locations

     the "most pessimum".

     After he finished the blackjack program

     and got it to run

     ("Even the initializer is optimized",

     he said proudly),

     he got a Change Request from the sales department.

     The program used an elegant (optimized)

     random number generator

     to shuffle the "cards" and deal from the "deck",

     and some of the salesmen felt it was too fair,

     since sometimes the customers lost.

     They wanted Mel to modify the program

     so, at the setting of a sense switch on the console,

     they could change the odds and let the customer win.

     Mel balked.

     He felt this was patently dishonest,

     which it was,

     and that it impinged on his personal integrity as a programmer,

     which it did,

     so he refused to do it.

     The Head Salesman talked to Mel,

     as did the Big Boss and, at the boss's urging,

     a few Fellow Programmers.

     Mel finally gave in and wrote the code,

     but he got the test backwards,

     and, when the sense switch was turned on,

     the program would cheat, winning every time.

     Mel was delighted with this,

     claiming his subconscious was uncontrollably ethical,

     and adamantly refused to fix it.

     After Mel had left the company for greener pa$ture$,

     the Big Boss asked me to look at the code

     and see if I could find the test and reverse it.

     Somewhat reluctantly, I agreed to look.

     Tracking Mel's code was a real adventure.

     I have often felt that programming is an art form,

     whose real value can only be appreciated

     by another versed in the same arcane art;

     there are lovely gems and brilliant coups

     hidden from human view and admiration, sometimes forever,

     by the very nature of the process.

     You can learn a lot about an individual

     just by reading through his code,

     even in hexadecimal.

     Mel was, I think, an unsung genius.

     Perhaps my greatest shock came

     when I found an innocent loop that had no test in it.

     No test.  *None*.

     Common sense said it had to be a closed loop,

     where the program would circle, forever, endlessly.

     Program control passed right through it, however,

     and safely out the other side.

     It took me two weeks to figure it out.

     The RPC-4000 computer had a really modern facility

     called an index register.

     It allowed the programmer to write a program loop

     that used an indexed instruction inside;

     each time through,

     the number in the index register

     was added to the address of that instruction,

     so it would refer

     to the next datum in a series.

     He had only to increment the index register

     each time through.

     Mel never used it.

     Instead, he would pull the instruction into a machine register,

     add one to its address,

     and store it back.

     He would then execute the modified instruction

     right from the register.

     The loop was written so this additional execution time

     was taken into account ---

     just as this instruction finished,

     the next one was right under the drum's read head,

     ready to go.

     But the loop had no test in it.

     The vital clue came when I noticed

     the index register bit,

     the bit that lay between the address

     and the operation code in the instruction word,

     was turned on ---

     yet Mel never used the index register,

     leaving it zero all the time.

     When the light went on it nearly blinded me.

     He had located the data he was working on

     near the top of memory ---

     the largest locations the instructions could address ---

     so, after the last datum was handled,

     incrementing the instruction address

     would make it overflow.

     The carry would add one to the

     operation code, changing it to the next one in the instruction set:

     a jump instruction.

     Sure enough, the next program instruction was

     in address location zero,

     and the program went happily on its way.

     I haven't kept in touch with Mel,

     so I don't know if he ever gave in to the flood of

     change that has washed over programming techniques

     since those long-gone days.

     I like to think he didn't.

     In any event,

     I was impressed enough that I quit looking for the

     offending test,

     telling the Big Boss I couldn't find it.

     He didn't seem surprised.

     When I left the company,

     the blackjack program would still cheat

     if you turned on the right sense switch,

     and I think that's how it should be.

     I didn't feel comfortable

     hacking up the code of a Real Programmer.

This is one of hackerdom's great heroic epics, free verse or no.  In a

few spare images it captures more about the esthetics and psychology of

hacking than all the scholarly volumes on the subject put together.  For

an opposing point of view, see the entry for {real programmer}.

[1992 postscript --- the author writes: "The original submission to

the net was not in free verse, nor any approximation to it --- it was

straight prose style, in non-justified paragraphs.  In bouncing around

the net it apparently got modified into the `free verse' form now

popular.  In other words, it got hacked on the net.  That seems

appropriate, somehow."]


Appendix B
:Appendix B:  A Portrait of J. Random Hacker

*******************************************

This profile reflects detailed comments on an earlier `trial balloon'

version from about a hundred USENET respondents.  Where comparatives are

used, the implicit `other' is a randomly selected segment of the

non-hacker population of the same size as hackerdom.

An important point: Except in some relatively minor respects such as

slang vocabulary, hackers don't get to be the way they are by imitating

each other.  Rather, it seems to be the case that the combination of

personality traits that makes a hacker so conditions one's outlook on

life that one tends to end up being like other hackers whether one wants

to or not (much as bizarrely detailed similarities in behavior and

preferences are found in genetic twins raised separately).


General Appearance
:General Appearance:

====================

Intelligent.  Scruffy.  Intense.  Abstracted.  Surprisingly for a

sedentary profession, more hackers run to skinny than fat; both

extremes are more common than elsewhere.  Tans are rare.


Dress
:Dress:

=======

Casual, vaguely post-hippie; T-shirts, jeans, running shoes,

Birk-enstocks (or bare feet).  Long hair, beards, and moustaches are

common.  High incidence of tie-dye and intellectual or humorous `slogan'

T-shirts (only rarely computer related; that would be too obvious).

A substantial minority prefers `outdoorsy' clothing --- hiking boots

("in case a mountain should suddenly spring up in the machine room", as

one famous parody put it), khakis, lumberjack or chamois shirts, and the

like.

Very few actually fit the `National Lampoon' Nerd stereotype, though it

lingers on at MIT and may have been more common before 1975.  These

days, backpacks are more common than briefcases, and the hacker `look'

is more whole-earth than whole-polyester.

Hackers dress for comfort, function, and minimal maintenance hassles

rather than for appearance (some, perhaps unfortunately, take this to

extremes and neglect personal hygiene).  They have a very low tolerance

of suits and other `business' attire; in fact, it is not uncommon for

hackers to quit a job rather than conform to a dress code.

Female hackers almost never wear visible makeup, and many use none at

all.


Reading Habits
:Reading Habits:

================

Omnivorous, but usually includes lots of science and science fiction.

The typical hacker household might subscribe to `Analog', `Scientific

American', `Co-Evolution Quarterly', and `Smithsonian'.  Hackers often

have a reading range that astonishes liberal arts people but tend not to

talk about it as much.  Many hackers spend as much of their spare time

reading as the average American burns up watching TV, and often keep

shelves and shelves of well-thumbed books in their homes.


Other Interests
:Other Interests:

=================

Some hobbies are widely shared and recognized as going with the culture:

science fiction, music, medievalism (in the active form practiced by the

Society for Creative Anachronism and similar organizations), chess, go,

backgammon, wargames, and intellectual games of all kinds.

(Role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons used to be extremely

popular among hackers but they lost a bit of their luster as they moved

into the mainstream and became heavily commercialized.)  Logic puzzles.

Ham radio.  Other interests that seem to correlate less strongly but

positively with hackerdom include linguistics and theater teching.


Physical Activity and Sports
:Physical Activity and Sports:

==============================

Many (perhaps even most) hackers don't follow or do sports at all and

are determinedly anti-physical.  Among those who do, interest in

spectator sports is low to non-existent; sports are something one

*does*, not something one watches on TV.

Further, hackers avoid most team sports like the plague (volleyball is a

notable exception, perhaps because it's non-contact and relatively

friendly).  Hacker sports are almost always primarily self-competitive

ones involving concentration, stamina, and micromotor skills: martial

arts, bicycling, auto racing, kite flying, hiking, rock climbing,

aviation, target-shooting, sailing, caving, juggling, skiing, skating

(ice and roller).  Hackers' delight in techno-toys also tends to draw

them towards hobbies with nifty complicated equipment that they can

tinker with.


Education
:Education:

===========

Nearly all hackers past their teens are either college-degreed or

self-educated to an equivalent level.  The self-taught hacker is often

considered (at least by other hackers) to be better-motivated, and may

be more respected, than his school-shaped counterpart.  Academic areas

from which people often gravitate into hackerdom include (besides the

obvious computer science and electrical engineering) physics,

mathematics, linguistics, and philosophy.


Things Hackers Detest and Avoid
:Things Hackers Detest and Avoid:

=================================

IBM mainframes.  Smurfs, Ewoks, and other forms of offensive cuteness.

Bureaucracies.  Stupid people.  Easy listening music.  Television

(except for cartoons, movies, the old "Star Trek", and the new

"Simpsons").  Business suits.  Dishonesty.  Incompetence.

Boredom.  COBOL. BASIC.  Character-based menu interfaces.


Food
:Food:

======

Ethnic.  Spicy.  Oriental, esp. Chinese and most esp. Szechuan, Hunan,

and Mandarin (hackers consider Cantonese vaguely d'eclass'e).  Hackers

prefer the exotic; for example, the Japanese-food fans among them will

eat with gusto such delicacies as fugu (poisonous pufferfish) and

whale.  Thai food has experienced flurries of popularity.  Where

available, high-quality Jewish delicatessen food is much esteemed.  A

visible minority of Southwestern and Pacific Coast hackers prefers

Mexican.

For those all-night hacks, pizza and microwaved burritos are big.

Interestingly, though the mainstream culture has tended to think of

hackers as incorrigible junk-food junkies, many have at least mildly

health-foodist attitudes and are fairly discriminating about what they

eat.  This may be generational; anecdotal evidence suggests that the

stereotype was more on the mark 10--15 years ago.


Politics
:Politics:

==========

Vaguely left of center, except for the strong libertarian contingent

which rejects conventional left-right politics entirely.  The only safe

generalization is that hackers tend to be rather anti-authoritarian;

thus, both conventional conservatism and `hard' leftism are rare.

Hackers are far more likely than most non-hackers to either (a) be

aggressively apolitical or (b) entertain peculiar or idiosyncratic

political ideas and actually try to live by them day-to-day.


Gender and Ethnicity
:Gender and Ethnicity:

======================

Hackerdom is still predominantly male.  However, the percentage of women

is clearly higher than the low-single-digit range typical for technical

professions, and female hackers are generally respected and dealt with

as equals.

In the U.S., hackerdom is predominantly Caucasian with strong minorities

of Jews (East Coast) and Orientals (West Coast).  The Jewish contingent

has exerted a particularly pervasive cultural influence (see {Food},

above, and note that several common jargon terms are obviously mutated

Yiddish).

The ethnic distribution of hackers is understood by them to be a

function of which ethnic groups tend to seek and value education.

Racial and ethnic prejudice is notably uncommon and tends to be met with

freezing contempt.

When asked, hackers often ascribe their culture's gender- and

color-blindness to a positive effect of text-only network channels,

and this is doubtless a powerful influence.  Also, the ties many

hackers have to AI research and SF literature may have helped them to

develop an idea of personhood that is inclusive rather than exclusive

--- after all, if one's imagination readily grants full human rights to AI

programs, robots, dolphins, and extraterrestrial aliens, mere color and

gender can't seem very important any more.


Religion
:Religion:

==========

Agnostic.  Atheist.  Non-observant Jewish.  Neo-pagan.  Very commonly,

three or more of these are combined in the same person.  Conventional

faith-holding Christianity is rare though not unknown.

Even hackers who identify with a religious affiliation tend to be

relaxed about it, hostile to organized religion in general and all forms

of religious bigotry in particular.  Many enjoy `parody' religions such

as Discordianism and the Church of the SubGenius.

Also, many hackers are influenced to varying degrees by Zen Buddhism or

(less commonly) Taoism, and blend them easily with their `native'

religions.

There is a definite strain of mystical, almost Gnostic sensibility that

shows up even among those hackers not actively involved with

neo-paganism, Discordianism, or Zen.  Hacker folklore that pays homage

to `wizards' and speaks of incantations and demons has too much

psychological truthfulness about it to be entirely a joke.


Ceremonial Chemicals
:Ceremonial Chemicals:

======================

Most hackers don't smoke tobacco, and use alcohol in moderation if at

all (though there is a visible contingent of exotic-beer fanciers, and a

few hackers are serious oenophiles).  Limited use of non-addictive

psychedelic drugs, such as cannabis, LSD, psilocybin, and nitrous oxide,

etc., used to be relatively common and is still regarded with more

tolerance than in the mainstream culture.  Use of `downers' and opiates,

on the other hand, appears to be particularly rare; hackers seem in

general to dislike drugs that `dumb them down'.  On the third hand, many

hackers regularly wire up on caffeine and/or sugar for all-night hacking

runs.


Communication Style
:Communication Style:

=====================

See the discussions of speech and writing styles near the beginning of

this File.  Though hackers often have poor person-to-person

communication skills, they are as a rule extremely sensitive to nuances

of language and very precise in their use of it.  They are often better

at writing than at speaking.


Geographical Distribution
:Geographical Distribution:

===========================

In the United States, hackerdom revolves on a Bay Area-to-Boston axis;

about half of the hard core seems to live within a hundred miles of

Cambridge (Massachusetts) or Berkeley (California), although there are

significant contingents in Los Angeles, in the Pacific Northwest, and

around Washington DC.  Hackers tend to cluster around large cities,

especially `university towns' such as the Raleigh-Durham area in North

Carolina or Princeton, New Jersey (this may simply reflect the fact that

many are students or ex-students living near their alma maters).


Sexual Habits
:Sexual Habits:

===============

Hackerdom tolerates a much wider range of sexual and lifestyle variation

than the mainstream culture.  It includes a relatively large gay and bi

contingent.  Hackers are somewhat more likely to live in polygynous or

polyandrous relationships, practice open marriage, or live in communes

or group houses.  In this, as in general appearance, hackerdom

semi-consciously maintains `counterculture' values.


Personality Characteristics
:Personality Characteristics:

=============================

The most obvious common `personality' characteristics of hackers are

high intelligence, consuming curiosity, and facility with intellectual

abstractions.  Also, most hackers are `neophiles', stimulated by and

appreciative of novelty (especially intellectual novelty).  Most are

also relatively individualistic and anti-conformist.

Although high general intelligence is common among hackers, it is not

the sine qua non one might expect.  Another trait is probably even more

important: the ability to mentally absorb, retain, and reference large

amounts of `meaningless' detail, trusting to later experience to give it

context and meaning.  A person of merely average analytical intelligence

who has this trait can become an effective hacker, but a creative genius

who lacks it will swiftly find himself outdistanced by people who

routinely upload the contents of thick reference manuals into their

brains.  [During the production of the book version of this document,

for example, I learned most of the rather complex typesetting language

TeX over about four working days, mainly by inhaling Knuth's 477-page

manual.  My editor's flabbergasted reaction to this genuinely surprised

me, because years of associating with hackers have conditioned me to

consider such performances routine and to be expected. --- ESR]

Contrary to stereotype, hackers are *not* usually intellectually narrow;

they tend to be interested in any subject that can provide mental

stimulation, and can often discourse knowledgeably and even

interestingly on any number of obscure subjects --- if you can get them

to talk at all, as opposed to, say, going back to their hacking.

It is noticeable (and contrary to many outsiders' expectations) that the

better a hacker is at hacking, the more likely he or she is to have

outside interests at which he or she is more than merely competent.

Hackers are `control freaks' in a way that has nothing to do with the

usual coercive or authoritarian connotations of the term.  In the same

way that children delight in making model trains go forward and back by

moving a switch, hackers love making complicated things like computers

do nifty stuff for them.  But it has to be *their* nifty stuff.  They

don't like tedium, nondeterminism, or most of the fussy, boring,

ill-defined little tasks that go with maintaining a normal existence.

Accordingly, they tend to be careful and orderly in their intellectual

lives and chaotic elsewhere.  Their code will be beautiful, even if

their desks are buried in 3 feet of crap.

Hackers are generally only very weakly motivated by conventional rewards

such as social approval or money.  They tend to be attracted by

challenges and excited by interesting toys, and to judge the interest of

work or other activities in terms of the challenges offered and the toys

they get to play with.

In terms of Myers-Briggs and equivalent psychometric systems, hackerdom

appears to concentrate the relatively rare INTJ and INTP types; that is,

introverted, intuitive, and thinker types (as opposed to the

extroverted-sensate personalities that predominate in the mainstream

culture).  ENT[JP] types are also concentrated among hackers but are in

a minority.


Weaknesses of the Hacker Personality
:Weaknesses of the Hacker Personality:

======================================

Hackers have relatively little ability to identify emotionally with

other people.  This may be because hackers generally aren't much like

`other people'.  Unsurprisingly, hackers also tend towards

self-absorption, intellectual arrogance, and impatience with people and

tasks perceived to be wasting their time.

As cynical as hackers sometimes wax about the amount of idiocy in the

world, they tend by reflex to assume that everyone is as rational,

`cool', and imaginative as they consider themselves.  This bias often

contributes to weakness in communication skills.  Hackers tend to be

especially poor at confrontation and negotiation.

Because of their passionate embrace of (what they consider to be) the

{Right Thing}, hackers can be unfortunately intolerant and bigoted on

technical issues, in marked contrast to their general spirit of

camaraderie and tolerance of alternative viewpoints otherwise.  Old-time

{ITS} partisans look down on the ever-growing hordes of {UNIX}

hackers; UNIX aficionados despise {VMS} and {MS-DOS}; and hackers who

are used to conventional command-line user interfaces loathe

mouse-and-menu based systems such as the Macintosh.  Hackers who don't

indulge in {USENET} consider it a huge waste of time and {bandwidth};

fans of old adventure games such as {ADVENT} and {Zork} consider {MUD}s

to be glorified chat systems devoid of atmosphere or interesting

puzzles; hackers who are willing to devote endless hours to USENET or

MUDs consider {IRC} to be a *real* waste of time; IRCies think MUDs

might be okay if there weren't all those silly puzzles in the way.  And,

of course, there are the perennial {holy wars} --- {EMACS} vs. {vi},

{big-endian} vs.  {little-endian}, RISC vs. CISC, etc., etc., etc.  As

in society at large, the intensity and duration of these debates is

usually inversely proportional to the number of objective, factual

arguments available to buttress any position.

As a result of all the above traits, many hackers have difficulty

maintaining stable relationships.  At worst, they can produce the

classic {computer geek}: withdrawn, relationally incompetent, sexually

frustrated, and desperately unhappy when not submerged in his or her

craft.  Fortunately, this extreme is far less common than mainstream

folklore paints it --- but almost all hackers will recognize something

of themselves in the unflattering paragraphs above.

Hackers are often monumentally disorganized and sloppy about dealing

with the physical world.  Bills don't get paid on time, clutter piles up

to incredible heights in homes and offices, and minor maintenance tasks

get deferred indefinitely.

The sort of person who uses phrases like `incompletely socialized'

usually thinks hackers are.  Hackers regard such people with contempt

when they notice them at all.


Miscellaneous
:Miscellaneous:

===============

Hackers are more likely to have cats than dogs (in fact, it is widely

grokked that cats have the hacker nature).  Many drive incredibly

decrepit heaps and forget to wash them; richer ones drive spiffy

Porsches and RX-7s and then forget to have them washed.  Almost all

hackers have terribly bad handwriting, and often fall into the habit of

block-printing everything like junior draftsmen.


Appendix C
:Appendix C:  Bibliography

*************************

Here are some other books you can read to help you understand the hacker

mindset.


Gödel, Escher, Bach
:Gödel, Escher, Bach:  An Eternal Golden Braid:

Douglas Hofstadter

Basic Books, 1979

ISBN 0-394-74502-7

This book reads like an intellectual Grand Tour of hacker

preoccupations.  Music, mathematical logic, programming, speculations on

the nature of intelligence, biology, and Zen are woven into a brilliant

tapestry themed on the concept of encoded self-reference.  The perfect

left-brain companion to `Illuminatus'.


Illuminatus!
:Illuminatus!:

    I.   `The Eye in the Pyramid'

    II.  `The Golden Apple'

    III. `Leviathan'.

Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson

Dell, 1988

ISBN 0-440-53981-1

This work of alleged fiction is an incredible berserko-surrealist

rollercoaster of world-girdling conspiracies, intelligent dolphins, the

fall of Atlantis, who really killed JFK, sex, drugs, rock'n'roll, and

the Cosmic Giggle Factor.  First published in three volumes, but there

is now a one-volume trade paperback, carried by most chain bookstores

under SF.  The perfect right-brain companion to Hofstadter's `Gödel,

Escher, Bach'.  See {Eris}, {Discordianism}, {random numbers}, {Church}

{of the SubGenius}.


The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:

Douglas Adams

Pocket Books, 1981

ISBN 0-671-46149-4

This `Monty Python in Space' spoof of SF genre traditions has been

popular among hackers ever since the original British radio show.  Read

it if only to learn about Vogons (see {bogon}) and the significance of

the number 42 (see {random numbers}) --- and why the winningest chess

program of 1990 was called `Deep Thought'.


The Tao of Programming
:The Tao of Programming:

James Geoffrey

Infobooks, 1987

ISBN 0-931137-07-1

This gentle, funny spoof of the `Tao Te Ching' contains much that is

illuminating about the hacker way of thought.  "When you have learned to

snatch the error code from the trap frame, it will be time for you to

leave."


Hackers
:Hackers:

Steven Levy

Anchor/Doubleday 1984

ISBN 0-385-19195-2

Levy's book is at its best in describing the early MIT hackers at the

Model Railroad Club and the early days of the microcomputer revolution.

He never understood UNIX or the networks, though, and his enshrinement

of Richard Stallman as "the last true hacker" turns out (thankfully) to

have been quite misleading.  Numerous minor factual errors also mar the

text; for example, Levy's claim that the original Jargon File derived

from the TMRC Dictionary (the File originated at Stanford and was

brought to MIT in 1976; the co-authors of the first edition had never

seen the dictionary in question).  There are also numerous misspellings

in the book that inflame the passions of old-timers; as Dan Murphy, the

author of TECO, once said: "You would have thought he'd take the trouble

to spell the name of a winning editor right."  Nevertheless, this

remains a useful and stimulating book that captures the feel of several

important hackish subcultures.


The Devil's DP Dictionary
:The Devil's DP Dictionary:

Stan Kelly-Bootle

McGraw-Hill, 1981

ISBN 0-07-034022-6

This pastiche of Ambrose Bierce's famous work is similar in format to

the Jargon File (and quotes several entries from jargon-1) but somewhat

different in tone and intent.  It is more satirical and less

anthropological, and is largely a product of the author's literate and

quirky imagination.  For example, it defines `computer science' as "a

study akin to numerology and astrology, but lacking the precision of the

former and the success of the latter" and "the boring art of coping with

a large number of trivialities."


The Devouring Fungus
:The Devouring Fungus:  Tales from the Computer Age:

Karla Jennings

Norton, 1990

ISBN 0-393-30732-8

The author of this pioneering compendium knits together a great deal of

computer- and hacker-related folklore with good writing and a few

well-chosen cartoons.  She has a keen eye for the human aspects of the

lore and is very good at illuminating the psychology and evolution of

hackerdom.  Unfortunately, a number of small errors and awkwardnesses

suggest that she didn't have the final manuscript checked over by a

native speaker; the glossary in the back is particularly embarrassing,

and at least one classic tale (the Magic Switch story, retold here under

{A Story About `Magic'} in {appendix A}) is given in incomplete and

badly mangled form.  Nevertheless, this book is a win overall and can be

enjoyed by hacker and non-hacker alike.


The Soul of a New Machine
:The Soul of a New Machine:

Tracy Kidder

Little, Brown, 1981

(paperback: Avon, 1982

ISBN 0-380-59931-7)

This book (a 1982 Pulitzer Prize winner) documents the adventure of the

design of a new Data General computer, the Eclipse.  It is an amazingly

well-done portrait of the hacker mindset --- although largely the

hardware hacker --- done by a complete outsider.  It is a bit thin in

spots, but with enough technical information to be entertaining to the

serious hacker while providing non-technical people a view of what

day-to-day life can be like --- the fun, the excitement, the disasters.

During one period, when the microcode and logic were glitching at the

nanosecond level, one of the overworked engineers departed the company,

leaving behind a note on his terminal as his letter of resignation: "I

am going to a commune in Vermont and will deal with no unit of time

shorter than a season."


Life with UNIX
:Life with UNIX:  a Guide for Everyone:

Don Libes and Sandy Ressler

Prentice-Hall, 1989

ISBN 0-13-536657-7

The authors of this book set out to tell you all the things about UNIX

that tutorials and technical books won't.  The result is gossipy, funny,

opinionated, downright weird in spots, and invaluable.  Along the way

they expose you to enough of UNIX's history, folklore and humor to

qualify as a first-class source for these things.  Because so much of

today's hackerdom is involved with UNIX, this in turn illuminates many

of its in-jokes and preoccupations.


True Names ... and Other Dangers
:True Names ... and Other Dangers:

Vernor Vinge

Baen Books, 1987

ISBN 0-671-65363-6

Hacker demigod Richard Stallman believes the title story of this book

"expresses the spirit of hacking best".  This may well be true; it's

certainly difficult to recall a better job.  The other stories in this

collection are also fine work by an author who is perhaps one of today's

very best practitioners of hard SF.


Cyberpunk
:Cyberpunk:  Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier:

Katie Hafner & John Markoff

Simon & Schuster 1991

ISBN 0-671-68322-5

This book gathers narratives about the careers of three notorious

crackers into a clear-eyed but sympathetic portrait of hackerdom's dark

side.  The principals are Kevin Mitnick, "Pengo" and "Hagbard" of the

Chaos Computer Club, and Robert T. Morris (see {RTM}, sense 2) .

Markoff and Hafner focus as much on their psychologies and motivations

as on the details of their exploits, but don't slight the latter.  The

result is a balanced and fascinating account, particularly useful when

read immediately before or after Cliff Stoll's {The Cuckoo's Egg}.  It

is especially instructive to compare RTM, a true hacker who blundered,

with the sociopathic phone-freak Mitnick and the alienated, drug-addled

crackers who made the Chaos Club notorious.  The gulf between {wizard}

and {wannabee} has seldom been made more obvious.


Technobabble
:Technobabble:

John Barry

MIT Press 1991

ISBN 0-262-02333-4

Barry's book takes a critical and humorous look at the `technobabble' of

acronyms, neologisms, hyperbole, and metaphor spawned by the computer

industry.  Though he discusses some of the same mechanisms of jargon

formation that occur in hackish, most of what he chronicles is actually

suit-speak --- the obfuscatory language of press releases, marketroids,

and Silicon Valley CEOs rather than the playful jargon of hackers (most

of whom wouldn't be caught dead uttering the kind of pompous,

passive-voiced word salad he deplores).


The Cuckoo's Egg
:The Cuckoo's Egg:

Clifford Stoll

Doubleday 1989

ISBN 0-385-24946-2

Clifford Stoll's absorbing tale of how he tracked Markus Hess and the

Chaos Club cracking ring nicely illustrates the difference between

`hacker' and `cracker'.  Stoll's portrait of himself, his lady Martha,

and his friends at Berkeley and on the Internet paints a marvelously

vivid picture of how hackers and the people around them like to live and

what they think.


Wilhelm Busch
#====================== THE JARGON FILE ENDS HERE ======================#


Wilhelm Busch


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