THIS IS THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.1.1 (DRAFT) 12 JUN 1990 INTRODUCTION This `jargon file' is a collection of slang terms used by various subcultures of computer hackers. The original `jargon file' was a collection of hacker slang from technical cultures including 1) the MIT AI Lab, 2) the Stanford AI lab, 3) the old ARPANET AI/LISP/PDP-10 communities, 3) Carnegie- Mellon University, 4) Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Some entries dated back to the early 1970s. This version was published as _The_ Hacker's_Dictionary_ in 1983. This new version casts a wider net than the old jargon file; its aim is to cover not just AI but all the technical computing cultures wherein the true hacker-nature is manifested. More than half of the entries now derive from USENET and the C and UNIX communities. The present maintainers of the jargon file are Guy L. Steele (gls@think.com) and Eric S. Raymond (eric@snark.uu.net). Send all additions, corrections and correspondence relating to the jargon file to jargon@think.com. CREDITS The original jargon file was compiled by Guy L. Steele Jr., Raphael Finkel, Don Woods, and Mark Crispin, with assistance from the MIT and Stanford AI communities and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Some contributions were submitted via the ARPAnet from miscellaneous sites. The `old' jargon file was last revised in 1983; its revisions are all un-numbered and may be collectively considered `Version 1'. Version 2.1: the jargon file reorganization and massive additions were by Eric S. Raymond, approved by Guy Steele. Many items of UNIX, C, USENET and microcomputer-based slang were added at that time (as well as Appendix A, The Untimely Demise of Mabel The Monkey). Some obsolescent usages (mostly PDP-10 derived) were moved to appendix B. Our thanks to all the USENETters who contributed entries and encouragement. Special thanks to our Scandinavian correspondent Per Lindberg (per@front.se), author of the remarkable Swedish language 'zine _Hackerbladet_, for bring FOO! comics to our attention and smuggling the IBM hacker underground's own baby jargon file out to us. Also special gratitude to ace hacker/linguist Joe Keane (jkg@osc.osc.com) for helping us improve the pronunciation guides. FORMAT FOR NEW ENTRIES Try to conform to the format already being used -- 70 character lines, 3-character indentations, pronunciations in parentheses, etymologies in brackets, single-space after def'n numbers and word classes, etc. Stick to the standard ASCII character set. 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 slang! 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 slang 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 slang 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! Back to Top NOTES ON JARGON CONSTRUCTION There are some standard methods of jargonification which became established quite early (i.e before 1970), spreading from such sources as the MIT Model Railroad Club, the PDP-1 SPACEWAR hackers and John McCarthy's original crew of LISPers. These include: Verb doubling: a standard construction is to double a verb and use it as a comment on what the implied subject does. Often used to terminate a conversation. Typical examples involve WIN, LOSE, HACK, FLAME, BARF, CHOMP: "The disk heads just crashed." "Lose, lose." "Mostly he just talked about his @#!!$% crock. Flame, flame." "Boy, what a bagbiter! Chomp, chomp!" Soundalike slang: similar to Cockney rhyming slang. Often made up on the spur of the moment. Standard examples: Boston Globe => Boston Glob Herald American => Horrid (Harried) American New York Times => New York Slime Prime Time => Slime Time government property - do not duplicate (seen on keys) => government duplicity - do not propagate Often the substitution will be made in such a way as to slip in a standard jargon word: Dr. Dobb's Journal => Dr. Frob's Journal Margaret Jacks Hall => Marginal Hacks Hall Data General => Dirty Genitals 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: "Foodp?" "Yeah, I'm pretty hungry." or "T!" "State-of-the-world-P?" (Straight) "I'm about to go home." (Humorous) "Yes, the world has a state." [One of the best of these is a Gosperism (i.e., due to Bill Gosper). When we were at a Chinese restaurant, he 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] Peculiar nouns: MIT AI 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. Examples: porous => porosity generous => generosity Ergo: mysterious => mysteriosity ferrous => ferrocity Other examples: winnitude, disgustitude, hackification. Also, note that all nouns can be verbed. eg: "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. 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 in a com link. Another expression sometimes heard is "complain!", meaning "I have a complaint!" Hacker speech style: 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 is essential. One should use just enough jargon to communicate precisely and identify oneself as "in the culture"; overuse and a breathless, excessively gung-ho attitude are considered tacky and the mark of a loser. Hacker speech style (a variety of the precisionist English normally spoken by scientists, design engineers, and academics in technical fields) is fairly constant everywhere. Of the four other listed constructions, verb doubling and peculiar noun formations have become quite general; but rhyming slang is still largely confined to MIT and other large universities, and the P convention is found only where LISPers flourish. One final note. 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 BUG SCREW LOSE MISFEATURE CROCK KLUGE HACK WIN FEATURE ELEGANCE PERFECTION The last is never actually attained. PRONUNCIATION GUIDE The pronunciation keys in the jargon listing use the following simple system: 1) Syllables are hyphen-separated, except that an apostrophe or back-apostrophe follows each accented syllable (the back apostrophe 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 (but it is sometimes doubled at the end of syllables to emphasize this). The digraph `dh' is the th of `these clothes', not of `thick'. 3) Vowels are represented as follows: a back, that ah father, palm ar far, mark aw flaw, caught ay bake, rain e less, men ee easy, ski eir their, software i trip, hit ie life, sky o cot, top oh flow, sew oo loot, through or more, door ow out, how oy boy, coin uh but, some u put, foot y yet yoo few [y]oo oo with optional `fronting' as in `news' (noos or nyoos). An at-sign 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 "kul'r". Back to Top THE JARGON ITSELF = = @BEGIN [primarily CMU] with @End, used humorously in writing to indicate a context or to remark on the surrounded text. From the SCRIBE command of the same name. For example: @Begin(Flame) Predicate logic is the only good programming language. Anyone who would use anything else is an idiot. Also, computers should be tredecimal instead of binary. @End(Flame) On USENET, this construct would more frequently be rendered as (FLAME ON) and (FLAME OFF). Back to Top = A = ABEND (ab'end) n. Abnormal termination (of software); crash; lossage. Derives from an error message on the IBM 360, but has passed into more general use. ACK (ak) interj. 1. [from the ASCII mnemonic for 000110] Acknowledge. Used to register one's presence (compare mainstream "Yo!"). An appropriate response to PING. 2. [prob. from _Bloom_County_] An exclamation of surprised disgust, esp. in "Oop ack!". Semi-humorous. ADGER (adj'r) [UCLA] v. To make a bonehead move that could have been forseen with a slight amount of mental effort, i.e., "He started removing files and promptly adgered the whole project". AD-HOCKERY (ad-hok'@r-ee) [Purdue] n. Gratuitous assumptions made inside certain programs, esp. expert systems, which lead to the appearance of semi-intelligent behavior, but are in fact entirely arbitrary. ADVENT (ad'vent) n. The prototypical computer adventure game, first implemented on the PDP-10 by MIT hackers Dave Lebling, Mark Blank and Don R. Woods as a demo for a natural-language parser they were hacking on at the time. Now better known as Adventure, but the TOPS-10 operating system only permitted 6-letter filenames. "A huge green fierce snake bars the way!" ALIASING SCREW (ayl'ee-@-sing) [C programmers] n. A class of subtle programming errors which can arise in code that does dynamic allocation via malloc(3). If more than one pointer addresses ('aliases for') a given hunk of storage, it may happen that the storage is freed through one alias and then referenced through another, leading 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. See also PRECEDENCE SCREW, SMASH THE STACK, FANDANGO ON CORE, MEMORY LEAK, OVERRUN SCREW. ALT BIT (ahlt bit) [from alternate?] adj. See META BIT. ANGLE BRACKETS (ang'@l brak'@ts) [primarily MIT] n. Either of the characters "<" and ">". See BROKET. APP (ap) n. Short for `application program', as opposed to a systems program. What systems vendors are forever chasing developers to do 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 apps. Oppose TOOL, OPERATING SYSTEM. ARENA (a-ree'nuh) [UNIX] n. The area of memory attached to a process by brk(2) and sbrk(2) and used by malloc(3) as dynamic storage. So named from a semi-mythical "malloc: corrupt arena" message supposedly emitted when some early versions became terminally confused. See OVERRUN SCREW, ALIASING SCREW, MEMORY LEAK, SMASH THE STACK. ARG (arg) n. Abbreviation for "argument" (to a function), used so often as to have become a new word. Compare PARAM, VAR. ASBESTOS LONGJOHNS (as-bes't@s long'jons), UNDIES (uhn'dees), or OVERCOAT (o'vr-koht) n. Metaphoric garments often donned by USENET posters just before emitting a remark they expect will elicit FLAMAGE. ASCII (as'kee) Common slang names for ASCII characters are collected here. See individual entries for BANG, CLOSE, EXCL, OPEN, QUES, SEMI, SHRIEK, SPLAT, TWIDDLE, WHAT, WOW, and YIU-SHANG WHOLE FISH. This list is snarfed from USENET circa 1983. Single characters are listed in ASCII order, followed by multiples. For each character, "official" names appear first, then others in order of popularity (more or less). ! exclamation point, exclamation, bang, factorial, excl, ball-bat, smash, shriek, cuss, wow, hey " double quote, quote, dirk, literal mark, rabbit ears # pound sign, number sign, sharp, crunch, mesh, hex, hash, flash, grid, pig-pen, tictactoe, scratchmark, octothorp (from Bell System) $ dollar sign, currency symbol, buck, cash, string (from BASIC), escape (from TOPS-10), ding, big-money % percent sign, percent, mod, double-oh-seven & ampersand, amper, and, address (from C), andpersand ' apostrophe, single quote, quote, prime, tick, irk, pop, spark () open/close parenthesis, left/right parenthesis, paren/thesis, parenthisey, unparenthisey, open/close round bracket, ears, so/already, wax/wane * asterisk, star, splat, wildcard, gear, dingle, mult ("multiply") + plus sign, plus, add, cross, intersection , comma, tail - hyphen, dash, minus sign, worm . period, dot, decimal point, radix point, point, full stop, spot / virgule, slash, stroke, slant, diagonal, solidus, over, slat : colon, two-spot ; semicolon, semi, hybrid <> angle brackets, brokets, left/right angle, less/greater than, read from/write to, from/into, from/toward, in/out, comesfrom/ gozinta (all from UNIX), funnel, brokets, crunch/zap, suck/blow = equal sign, equals, quadrathorp, gets, half-mesh ? question mark, whatmark, what, wildchar, ques, huh, quark @ at sign, at, each, vortex, whorl, whirlpool, cyclone, snail, ape, cat V vee, book [] square brackets, left/right bracket, bracket/unbracket, bra/ket, square/unsquare, U turns \ reversed virgule, backslash, bash, backslant, backwhack, backslat, escape (from UNIX) ^ circumflex, caret, uparrow, hat, chevron, sharkfin, to ("to the power of"), fang _ underscore, underline, underbar, under, score, backarrow, flatworm ` grave accent, grave, backquote, left quote, open quote, backprime, unapostrophe, backspark, birk, blugle, back tick, push {} open/close brace, left/right brace, brace/unbrace, curly bracket, curly/uncurly, leftit/rytit, embrace/bracelet | vertical bar, bar, or, v-bar, spike, pipe, gozinta, thru, pipesinta (last four from UNIX) ~ tilde, squiggle, approx, wiggle, twiddle, swung dash, enyay ASSEMBLER (as'em-bler) 1. A program translator that allows human beings to generate machine code using mnemonics and symbolic names for memory locations rather than raw binary; distinguished from an HLL (q.v.) by the fact that a single assembler step generally maps to a single machine instruction (see also LANGUAGES OF CHOICE). 2.A NANOBOT which is a physical REPLICATOR. (This is the "official" term, coined by Eric Drexler; see NANOTECHNOLOGY). AUTOMAGICALLY (aw-toh-maj'i-klee, aw-toh-maj'i-kl-ee) adv. Automatically, but in a way which, for some reason (typically because it is too complicated, or too ugly, or perhaps even too trivial), I don't feel like explaining to you. See MAGIC. Example: Some programs which produce XGP output files spool them automagically. Back to Top = B = BACKBONE CABAL (bak'bohn k@-bawl') n. Semi-mythical group of large-site administrators who pushed through the GREAT RENAMING and reined in the chaos of USENET during most of the 1980s. The cabal mailing list disbanded in late 1988 after a bitter internal catfight, but the net hardly noticed. BACK DOOR (bak dor) n. A hole in the security of a system deliberately left in place by designers or maintainers. The motivation for this is not always sinister; some operating systems, for example, come out of the box with privileged accounts intended for use by field service or the vendor's maintenance programmers. Historically, back doors have often lurked in systems longer than any one expected or planned, and a few have become widely known. The famous RTM worm of late 1988, for example, used a back door in the BSD UNIX sendmail(1) utility. See also IRON BOX, CRACKER, WORM, LOGIC BOMB. BACKGROUND (bak'grownd) v.,adj. A task running in background is detached from the terminal where it was started and running at a lower priority (oppose FOREGROUND). Nowadays this term is primarily associated with UNIX, but it was appears first to have been used in this sense on OS/360. By extension, 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. Compare SLOPSUCKER. BAD THING (bad thing) n. Something which 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. BAGBITER (bag'biet-@r) 1. n. Equipment or program that fails, usually intermittently. 2. BAGBITING: adj. Failing hardware or software. "This bagbiting system won't let me get out of SPACEWAR." Usage: verges on obscenity. Grammatically separable; one may speak of "biting the bag". Synonyms: LOSER, LOSING, CRETINOUS, BLETCHEROUS, BARFUCIOUS. BAMF (bamf) [from comix] interj. Notional sound made by a person or object teleporting in or out of the hearer's vicinity. Often used in VIRTUAL REALITY (q.v.) electronic fora when a character wishes to make a dramatic entrance or exit. BANG (bang) 1. n. Common alternate name for EXCL (q.v.), especially at CMU and when used in pronouncing a BANG PATH (q.v.) in spoken hackish. See SHRIEK. 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 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 the path "...!bigsite!foovax!barbox!me" directs correspondents 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". See INTERNET ADDRESS and NETWORK. BAR (bar) 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. BARF (barf) [from the "layman" slang, meaning "vomit"] 1. interj. Term of disgust. See BLETCH. 2. v. Choke, as on input. May mean to give an error message. "The function `=' compares two fixnums or two flonums, and barfs on anything else." 3. BARFULOUS, BARFUCIOUS: adj. Said of something which would make anyone barf, if only for aesthetic reasons. See CHOKE, GAG. 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. BAZ (baz) 1. The third metasyntactic variable, after FOO and BAR and before QUX. "Suppose we have three functions FOO, BAR, and BAZ. FOO calls BAR, which calls BAZ..." 2. Occasionally appended to FOO to produce FOOBAZ. BELLS AND WHISTLES (belz and hwis'@lz) [by analogy with locomotives] 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. BENCHMARK (bench'mark) n. An inaccurate measure of computer performance. As in "In the computer industry, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and benchmarks." BERKLIX (ber'kliks) n.,adj. Contraction of Berkeley UNIX. See BSD. Not used at Berkeley itself. [This one, in my experience, is more common among suit-wearers attempting to sound "hip" than hackers -- ESR] BERZERKELY (b@r-zer'klee) [from the name of a now-deceased record label] n. Humorous, often-used distortion of "Berkeley" used esp. to refer to the practices or products of the BSD UNIX hackers. BIG-ENDIAN (big'-en-di-@n) adj. Describes a computer architecture in which, within a given 16- or 32-bit word, lower byte addresses have higher significance (the word is stored `big-end-first'). Most processors including the IBM 370 family and the PDP-10 and the Intel and Motorola microprocessor families and the various RISC designs current in 1990 are big-endian. See LITTLE-ENDIAN. BIG IRON (big ie'@rn) n. Large, expensive, ultra-fast computers. Used generally of number crunching supercomputers such as Crays, but can include more conventional big commercial IBMish mainframes. Believed to have originated in the title of a paper given at a Usenix, "Unix on Big Iron". Term of approval, compare DINOSAUR. BIG RED SWITCH (big red swich) [IBM] n. The power switch on a computer, esp. on an IBM-PC where it really is large and red. As in "This !@%$% BITTY BOX is hung again, time to hit the big red switch". BIGNUMS (big'nuhms) [from Macsyma] n. 1. In backgammon, large numbers on the dice. 2. Multiple-precision (sometimes infinitely extendable) integers and, through analogy, any very large numbers. 3. EL CAMINO BIGNUM: El Camino Real, a street through the San Francisco peninsula that originally extended (and still appears in places) all the way to Mexico City. It was termed "El Camino Double Precision" when someone noted it was a very long street, and then "El Camino Bignum" when it was pointed out that it was hundreds of miles long. BINARY (bie'na-ree) n. The object code for a program. BIT BANG (bit bang) n. Transmission of data on a serial line accomplished by rapidly tweaking a single output bit at the appropriate times (popular on certain early models of PRIME computers, presumably when UARTs were too expensive; and on archaic Z-80 micros with a Zilog PIO but no SIO). The technique is a simple loop with eight OUT, SHIFT, OUT etc 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 wannabees. BIT BUCKET (bit buhk'@t) n. The great data sink in the sky. Data that is discarded is said to "go to the bit bucket". On UNIX, often used for /dev/null. Sometimes amplified as THE GREAT BIT BUCKET IN THE SKY. BIT DECAY (bit d@-kay') n. See SOFTWARE ROT. People with a physics background tend to prefer this one for the analogy with particle decay. BIT ROT (bit rot) n. See SOFTWARE ROT. BITBLT (bit'blit, bit'belt) n. [from BLT, q.v.] 1. One of a closely related family of 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. An early experimental bit-mapped terminal at Bell Labs, later commercialized as the AT&T 5620. 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 for it. Especially used of small, obsolescent, single-tasking-only personal machines like the Atari 800X, Osborne, Sinclair, VIC-20, or TRS-80. 2. More generally, the opposite of `real computer' (see GET A REAL COMPUTER). Pejorative. See also MESS-DOS, TOASTER, and TOY. BIXIE (biks'ee) n. Synonym for EMOTICON used on BIX (the Byte Information Exchange); BIXers believe the emoticon was invented there. BLAST (blast) v.,n. Synonym for BLT (q.v.), used esp. for large data sends over a network or comm line. Opposite of SNARF. Usage: uncommon. BLAZER (blay'zr) n. Nickname for the Telebit Trailblazer, an expensive but extremely reliable and effective high-speed modem, popular at UNIX sites that pass large volumes of EMAIL and USENET news. BLETCH (blech) [from German "brechen", to vomit (?)] 1. interj. Term of disgust. 2. BLETCHEROUS: adj. Disgusting in design or function. "This keyboard is bletcherous!" Usage: slightly comic. BLINKENLIGHTS (blink'@n-lietz) n. Front-panel diagnostic lights on a mainframe CPU. Derives from the last word of the famous blackletter-Gothic "ACHTUNG! ALLES LOOKENSPEEPERS!" notice in mangled pseudo-German that once graced about half the computer rooms in the English-speaking world. The following text ran: "Das computermachine ist nicht fur gefingerpoken und mittengrabben. Ist easy schnappen der springenwerk, blowenfusen und poppencorken mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht fur gewerken bei das dumpkopfen. Das rubbernecken sichtseeren keepen hans in das pockets muss; relaxen und watch das blinkenlichten." This silliness dates back at least as far as the London University ATLAS site in the 1960s, but (judging by the idioms) was probably composed by an American at some still-earlier date. BLOCK (blok) [From computer science usage] 1. vi. To delay while waiting for something. "We're blocking until everyone gets here." 2. in BLOCK ON vt. To block, waiting for (something). "Lunch is blocked on Phil's arrival." BLOCK TRANSFER COMPUTATIONS (blok trans'fer kom-pyoo-tay'shns) n. From the Dr. Who television series: in the show, it referred to computations so fiendishly subtle and complex that they could not be performed by machines. Used to refer to any task that should be expressible as an algorithm in theory, but isn't. BLOW AWAY (bloh @-way') v. To remove files and directories from permanant storage with extreme prejudice, generally by accident. Oppose NUKE. BLOW OUT (bloh owt) v. Of software, to fail spectacularly; almost as serious as CRASH AND BURN. See BLOW PAST. BLOW PAST (bloh past) v. To BLOW OUT despite a safeguard. "The server blew past the 5K reserve buffer." BLT (blit, belt [very rarely]) v. To transfer a large contiguous package of information from one place to another. This usage has outlasted the PDP-10 BLock Transfer instruction for which it derives. See DD, CAT, BLAST, SNARF, Appendix B. BLUE GLUE (bloo gloo) [IBM] n. IBM's SNA (Systems Network Architecture) an incredibly losing and bletcherous protocol suite widely favored at commercial shops that don't know any better. See FEAR AND LOATHING. BLUE GOO (bloo goo) n. Term for "police" NANOBOTS intended to prevent GRAY GOO (q.v.), denature hazardous waste, destroy pollution, put ozone back into the stratosphere, prevent halitosis, and to promote truth, justice, and the American way, etc., etc. See NANOTECHNOLOGY. BNF (bee-en-ef) n. Hacker 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 postal address: ::= ::= [] ::= | "." ::= [] ::= "," 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 name-part consists of a first-name followed by an optional middle-part followed by a last-name. A middle-part consists of either a middle name or a middle initial followed by a dot. A street address consists of an optional apartment specifier followed by a street number, followed by a street name. A zip-part consts of a town-name, followed by a state code, followed by a zip code. Note that many things such as the format of a first-name, apartment specifier or zip-code are left unspecified. These are presumed to be obvious from context or detailed in another part of the specification the BNF is part of. BOA (bo'uh) [IBM] n. Any one of the fat cables that lurk under the floor in DINOSAUR PENS. It is rumored within IBM that 370 channel cables are limited to 200 feet because beyond that length the boas get dangerous... BOAT ANCHOR (boht an'kr) n. Like DOORSTOP (q.v.) but more severe, implies that the offending hardware is irreversibly dead or useless. BOGOMETER (boh-goh'm@-tr) n. An instrument to measure BOGOSITY, generally a conversational device, as in "my bogometer is reading in the red on that idea" or "I think you just bent the needle on my bogometer". BOGON (bo'gon) [by analogy with proton/electron/neutron, but doubtless reinforced by the similarity to "Vogon"] n. 1. The elementary particle of bogosity (see QUANTUM BOGODYNAMICS). For instance, "the ethernet is emitting bogons again," meaning 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 extension, used to refer metasyntactically to any bogus thing, such as "I'd like to go to lunch with you but I've got to go to the weekly staff bogon." BOGON FILTER (bo'gon fil'tr) n. Any device, software or hardware, which limits or suppresses the flow and/or emission of bogons. Example: "Engineering hacked a bogon filter between the Cray and the VAXen and now we're getting fewer dropped packets." BOGOSITY (boh-gos-@-tee) n. 1. The degree to which something is BOGUS (q.v.). At CMU, bogosity is measured with a bogometer; typical use: in a seminar, when a speaker says something bogus, a listener might raise his hand and say, "My bogometer just triggered." The agreed-upon unit of bogosity is the microLenat (uL). 2. The potential field generated by a bogon flux; see QUANTUM BOGODYNAMICS. BOGUS (boh'guhs) [WPI, Yale, Stanford] 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. Silly. "Stop writing those bogus sagas." (This word seems to have some, but not all, of the connotations of RANDOM.) [Etymological note from Lehman/Reid at CMU: "Bogus" was originally used (in this sense) at Princeton, in the late 60s. It was used not particularly in the CS department, but all over campus. It came to Yale, where one of us (Lehman) was an undergraduate, and (we assume) elsewhere through the efforts of Princeton alumni who brought the word with them from their alma mater. In the Yale case, the alumnus is Michael Shamos, who was a graduate student at Yale and is now a faculty member here. A glossary of bogus words was compiled at Yale when the word was first popularized (e.g., autobogophobia: the fear of becoming bogotified).] BOHR BUG (bor buhg) [from quantum physics] n. A repeatable BUG; one which manifests reliably under a possibly unknown but well-defined set of conditions. Antonym of HEISENBUG. BOINK (boynk) [USENET] 1. To have sex with; compare BOUNCE, sense #3. 2. After the original Peter Korn "Boinkcon" 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. BONDAGE-AND-DISCIPLINE LANGUAGE (bon'd@j @n dis'@-plin lang'w@j) A language such as Pascal, 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 or even vanilla general-purpose programming. See LANGUAGES OF CHOICE. BOOT (boot) [from "by one's bootstraps"] v.,n. To load and initialize the operating system on a machine. This usage is no longer slang (having become jargon in the strict sense), but the following variants still are. COLD BOOT: a boot from a power- off condition. WARM BOOT: a reboot with the CPU and all devices already powered up, as after a hardware reset or software crash. BOTTLENECKED (bot'l-nekt) adj. 1. Used by hackers specifically to describe hardware under which performance is usually limited by contention for one particular resource (such as disk, memory or processor CLOCKS); see BALANCED. 2. Less often, applied to the software analogue of sense #1, a slow code section or algorithm through which all computation must pass (see also HOT SPOT). BOUNCE (bowns) v. 1. [UNIX] An electronic mail message which is undeliverable and returns an error notification to the sender is said to `bounce'. See also BOUNCE MESSAGE. 2. [Stanford] To play volleyball. "Bounce, bounce! Stop wasting time on the computer and get out to the court!" 3. To engage in sexual intercourse. BOUNCE MESSAGE (bowns mes'@j) [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. BOXEN (bok'sn) pl n. [back-formation from VAXEN] Fanciful plural of `box' often encountered in the phrase `UNIX boxen', used to describe commodity UNIX hardware. The implication is that any two UNIX boxen are interchangeable. BRAIN-DAMAGED (brayn'dam-@jd) [generalization of "Honeywell Brain Damage" (HBD), a theoretical disease invented to explain certain utter cretinisms in 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. BRANCH TO FISHKILL (branch to fish'kill) [IBM, from the location of one of their facilities] n. Any unexpected jump in a program that produces catastrophic or just plain weird results. See HYPERSPACE. BREAK (brayk) v. 1. To cause to be broken (in any sense). "Your latest patch to the system broke the TELNET server." 2. (of a program) To stop temporarily, so that it may be examined for debugging purposes. The place where it stops is a BREAKPOINT. BREAKAGE (brayk'@j) [IBM] n. The extra people that must be added to an organization because its master plan has changed; used esp. of software and hardware development teams. BRITTLE (bri'tl) adj. Said of software that's easily broken. Often describes the results of a research effort that were never intended to be robust, but equally can apply commercially developed software. BROADCAST STORM (brod'kast 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. Also called NETWORK MELTDOWN. See also CHERNOBYL PACKET. BROKEN (broh'kn) adj. 1. Not working properly (of programs). 2. Behaving strangely; especially (of people), exhibiting extreme depression. BROKET (broh'k@t, broh'ket) [by analogy with "bracket": a "broken bracket"] (primarily Stanford) n. Either of the characters "<" and ">". (At MIT, and apparently in THE REAL WORLD (q.v.) as well, these are usually called ANGLE BRACKETS.) BRUTE FORCE AND IGNORANCE (broot fohrs @nd ig'nohr-ans) n. A popular design technique at many software houses. Dogmatic adherence to design methodologies tends to encourage it. Characteristic of early LARVAL STAGE programming; unfortunately, many never outgrow it. Often abbreviated BFI, as in: "Gak, they used a bubble sort! That's strictly from BFI." Compare BOGOSITY. BSD (bee-ess-dee) n. [acronym for Berkeley System Distribution] a family of UNIX versions for the DEC VAX developed by Bill Joy and others at UC Berkeley starting around 1980, incorporating TCP/IP networking enhancements and many other features. The BSD versions (4.1, 4.2, and 4.3) and commercial versions derived from them (SunOS 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. BUCKY BITS (buh'kee bits) [primarily Stanford] n. The bits produced by the CTRL and META shift keys on a Stanford (or Knight) keyboard. It is rumored that these were in fact named for Buckminster Fuller during a period when he was consulting at Stanford. Unfortunately, legend also has it that "Bucky" was Niklaus Wirth's nickname when *he* was consulting at Stanford and that he first suggested the idea of the meta key, so its bit was named after him. DOUBLE BUCKY: adj. Using both the CTRL and META keys. "The command to burn all LEDs is double bucky F." See also META BIT, COKEBOTTLE. BUFFER OVERFLOW (buhf'r oh'vr-floh) n. What typically happens when an OS or application is fed data faster than it can buffer and process it. Used metaphorically of human mental processes. Ex. "Sorry, I got four phone calls in three minutes last night and lost your message to a buffer overflow." BUG (buhg) [from telephone terminology, "bugs in a telephone cable", blamed for noisy lines] n. An unwanted and unintended property of a program, esp. one which causes it to malfunction. See FEATURE. BULLETPROOF (bul'@t-proof) adj. Used of an algorithm or implementation considered extremely robust; lossage-resistant; capable of correctly recovering from any imaginable exception condition. This is a rare and valued quality. BUM (buhm) 1. v. To make highly efficient, either in time or space, often at the expense of clarity. "I managed to bum three more instructions." 2. n. A small change to an algorithm to make it more efficient. Usage: somewhat rare. See TUNE. BUMP (buhmp) v. Synonym for increment. Has the same meaning as C's ++ operator. Used esp. of counter variables, pointers (see POINTER ARITHMETIC) and index dummies in for, while, and do-until loops. BURBLE (ber'bl) v. Like FLAME, but connotes that the source is truly clueless and ineffectual (mere flamers can be competent). A term of deep contempt. BUSY-WAIT (bi'zee-wayt) v. To wait on an event by SPINning through a tight or timed-delay loop that checks for the event on each pass, as opposed to setting up an interrupt handler and continuing execution on another part of the task. A wasteful technique, best avoided on time-sharing systems where a busy-waiting program may hog the processor. BUZZ (buhz) v. To run in a very tight loop, perhaps without guarantee of getting out. See SPIN. BWQ [bee duhb'l-yoo kyoo) [IBM] n. Buzz Word Quotient. Usually roughly proportional to BOGOSITY. See TLA. BYTESEXUAL (biet-seks'u-@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). Back to Top = C = C (see) n. 1. The third letter of the Latin alphabet. 2. The name of a programming language designed by Dennis Ritchie during the early 1970s and first used to implement UNIX (q.v.). So called because many features derived from an earlier interpreter 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 LANGUAGES OF CHOICE. CAMBRIDGE NOTATION (kaym'brij no-ta'shn) [LISP] n. The now-standard way of writing LISP expressions as nested lists, with parens and spaces; as opposed to the earlier and technically purer practice of writing full S-expressions with cons dots. Supposedly invented as a KLUGE because a full parser for S-expressions would have been harder to write. CAN (can) v. 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!". Synymous with GUN. CANONICAL (k@-nahn'i-kl) adj. The usual or standard state or manner of something. A true story: One Bob Sjoberg, new at the MIT AI Lab, expressed some annoyance at the use of jargon. Over his loud objections, we made a point of using jargon 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: "He just used `canonical' in the canonical way." CASTERS UP MODE (cas'trz uhp mohd) [IBM] n. Yet another synonym for `broken' or `down'. CAT (cat) [from UNIX cat(1)] v. To spew an entire (notionally large) file to the screen or some other output sink without pause; 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. CATATONIA (kat-@-toh'nee-uh) n. A condition of suspended animation in which the system is in a wedged (CATATONIC) state. CDR (ku'dr) [from LISP] v. With "down", to trace down a list of elements. "Shall we cdr down the agenda?" Usage: silly. CELL-REPAIR MACHINES (sel r:-peir' m:-sheens') n. An often-discussed probable consequence of NANOTECHNOLOGY; NANOBOTS specifically programmed to repair tissue at the cellular level. Possible uses include reversing freezing damage from CRYONICS procedures and correction of mutagen-damaged DNA (including eradication of retrovirii and oncogenes). 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'. CHAIN (chayn) [orig. from BASIC's CHAIN statement] v. When used of programming languages, refers to a statement that allows a parent executable to hand off execution to a child without going through the OS command interpreter. The state of the parent program is lost and there is no returning to it. Though this facility used to be common on memory-limited micros and is still widely supported for backward compatibility, the jargon usage is semi-obsolescent; in particular most UNIX programmers will think of this as an EXEC. Oppose the more modern SUBSHELL. CHAR (keir; [rarely] char) n. Shorthand for `character'. Esp. used by C programmers, as `char' is C's typename for character data. CHASE POINTERS (chays uh poyn'tr) v. 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. CHERNOBYL PACKET (cher-no'b@l pa'k@t) n. An IP Ethergram with both source and destination Ether and IP address set as the respective broadcast address. So called because it induces NETWORK MELTDOWN. CHINESE RAVS (chie'neez ravs) [MIT] n. Pot-stickers. Kuo-teh. Gyoza. Oriental dumplings, especially when pan-fried rather than steamed. A favorite hacker appetizer. See ORIENTAL FOOD, STIR-FRIED RANDOM. CHOKE (chohk) vi. To reject input, often ungracefully. Examples: "I tried building X, but cpp choked on all those #define's." See BARF, GAG. CHOMP (chomp) v. To lose; 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, consisting of the four fingers held together as if in a mitten or hand puppet, and the fingers and thumb open and close rapidly to illustrate a biting action. The gesture alone means CHOMP CHOMP (see Verb Doubling). CHRISTMAS TREE PACKET (krist'm@s tree pa'k@t) n. A packet with every single option set for whatever protocol is in use. CHROME (krohm) [from automotive slang via wargaming] n. Showy features added to attract users, but which contribute little or nothing to the power of a system. "The 3D icons in Motif are just chrome!" Distinguished from BELLS AND WHISTLES by the fact that the former are usually added to gratify developers' own desires for featurefulness. CHURCH OF THE SUB-GENIUS (cherch @v dh@ suhb-gee'-ny@s) A mutant offshoot of DISCORDIANISM launched in 1981 as a spoof of fundamentalist Christianity by the "Rev." 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 Sub-Genius theory is concerned with the acquisition of the mystical substance or quality of "slack". CLASSIC C (klas'ik see) n. The C programming language as defined in the first edition of the book ``The C Programming Language'' by ``Brian W. Kernighan and Dennis M. Ritchie'' with some small additions. It is also known as ``K & R C.'' The name came into use during the standardisation process for C by the ANSI X3J11 committee. CLOCKS (kloks) 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. CLONE (klohn) n. 1. An exact duplicate, as in "our product is a clone of their product." 2. A shoddy, spurious copy, as in "their product is a clone of our product." 3. A PC-BUS/ISA or EISA-compatible 80x86 based microcomputer (in-context shorthand for "PC clone"). 3. In the construction UNIX CLONE: An OS designed to deliver a UNIX-lookalike environment sans UNIX license fees, or with additional "mission-critical" features such as support for real-time programming. CLOSE (klohz) n. Abbreviation for "close (or right) parenthesis", used when necessary to eliminate oral ambiguity. See OPEN. CLUSTERGEEKING (kluh'ster-gee'king) [CMU] n. An activity defined by spending more time at a computer cluster doing CS homework than most people spend breathing. COBOL FINGERS (koh'bol fing'grs) n. Reported from Sweden, a (hypothetical) disease one might get from programming in COBOL. The language requires extremely voluminous code. Programming too much in COBOL causes the fingers to wear down (by endless typing), until short stubs remain. This malformity is called COBOL FINGERS. "I refuse to type in all that source code again, it will give me cobol fingers!" CODE GRINDER (kohd grien'dr) 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. This is about as far from hackerdom as you can get and still touch a computer. Connotes pity. See REAL WORLD. 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, and utter lack of imagination. CODE POLICE (kohd p@-lees') [by analogy with "thought police"] n. A mythical team of Gestapo-like storm troopers that might burst into one's office and arrest one for violating style rules. May be used either "seriously" (to underline a claim that a particular style violation is dangerous) or (more often) ironically (to suggest that the practice under discussion is condemned mainly by anal-retentive weenies). CODEWALKER (kohd'wok-r) 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. As in "This language extension would require a codewalker to implement." COKEBOTTLE (kohk'bot-l) n. Any very unusual character. 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. Since the demise of the SPACE-CADET KEYBOARD this is no longer a serious usage, but may be invoked humorously to describe an (unspecified) weird or non-intuitive keystroke command. COME FROM (kuhm fruhm) n. A semi-mythical language construct dual to the `go to'; COME FROM would cause the referenced label to act as a sort of trapdoor, so that if the program ever reached it control would quietly fall through to the statement following the COME FROM. COME FROM was first proposed in a Datamation article in 1973 that parodied the then-raging `structured programming' wars (see CONSIDERED HARMFUL). It was actually implemented for the first time seventeen years later, in C-INTERCAL (see INTERCAL, RETROCOMPUTING); knowledgeable observers are still reeling from shock. COMPRESS (k@m-pres') [UNIX] v. When used witchout a qualifier, generally refers to CRUNCHing of a file using a particular C implementation of Lempel-Ziv compression by James A. Woods et. al. and widely circulated via USENET. Use of CRUNCH (q.v.) itself in this sense is rare among UNIX hackers. COMPUTER GEEK (kuhm-pyoo-tr geek) n. One who eats [computer] bugs for a living. One who fulfills all of 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 true-hacker in LARVAL STAGE. Also called TURBO NERD, TURBO GEEK. See also CLUSTERGEEKING. COMPUTRON (kom-pyoo-tron) n. A notional unit of computing power combining instruction speed and storage capacity, dimensioned roughly in instructions-per- sec times megabytes-of-main-store types megabytes-of-mass-storage. "That machine can't run GNU Emacs, it doesn't have enough computrons!" This term is usually used 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. CONNECTOR CONSPIRACY (k@-nek'ter k@n-spi'r@h-see) [probably came into prominence with the appearance of the KL-10, none of whose connectors match anything else] n. The tendency of manufacturers (or, by extension, programmers or purveyors of anything) to come up with new products which don't fit together with the old stuff, thereby making you buy either all new stuff or expensive interface devices. CONS (kons) [from LISP] 1. v. To add a new element to a list. 2. CONS UP: v. To synthesize from smaller pieces: "to cons up an example". CONSIDERED HARMFUL (k@n-si'derd harm'fl) adj. Edsger Dijkstra's infamous March 1968 CACM note, _Goto_Statement_Considered_Harmful_, fired the first salvo in the "structured programming" wars. In the years since then a number of both serious papers and parodies have borne titles of the form "X considered Y" in reference to it. 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. COOKIE MONSTER (ku'kee mon'str) n. Any of a family of early (1970s) hacks reported on ITS and elswhere that would lock up either the victim's terminal (on a time-sharing machine) or the operator's console (on a batch mainframe), repeatedly demanding "I WANT A COOKIE". The required responses ranged in complexity from "HAVE A COOKIE" upward. See also WABBIT. COPYLEFT (kop'ee-left) n. 1. The copyright notice carried by GNU EMACS and other Free Software Foundation software granting re-use and reproduction rights to all comers. 2. By extension, any copyright notice intended to achieve similar aims. CORE (kor) n. Main storage or DRAM. Dates from the days of ferrite-core memory; now archaic, but still used in the UNIX community and by old-time hackers or those who would sound like same. CORE DUMP (kor duhmp) n. [from UNIX] 1. Catastrophic program failure due to internal error. 2. By extension, used for humans passing out or registering extreme shock. Usage: rare. CORE WARS (kohr wohrz) n. A game between "assembler" programs in a simulated machine, where the objective is to kill your opponent's program by overwriting it. This was popularized by A.K. Dewdney's column in _Scientific_American_. It is rumored that the game is a civilized version of an amusement common on pre-MMU multitasking machines. CORGE (korj) n. Yet another meta-syntactic variable, invented by Mike Galleher and propagated by the Gosmacs documentation. See GRAULT. CP/M (see-pee-em) [Control Program for Microcomputers] An early microcomputer OS written by hacker Gary Kildall for Z-80 based machines, very popular in the late 1970s until virtually wiped out by MS-DOS after the release of the IBM PC in 1981 (legend has it that Kildall's company blew their chance to write the PC's OS because Kildall decided to spend the day IBM's reps wanted to meet with him enjoying the perfect flying weather in his private plane). Many of its features and conventions strongly resemble those of early DEC operating systems such as OS9, RSTS and RSX-11. See MS-DOS, OPERATING SYSTEM. CRACKER (krak'r) n. One who breaks security on a system. Coined c. 1985 by hackers in defense against journalistic misuse of HACKER, see definition #6. CRANK (krank) [from automotive slang] v. Verb used to describe the performance of a machine, especially sustained performance. "This box cranks about 6 MegaFLOPS, with a burst mode of twice that on vectorized operations" CRASH (krash) 1. n. A sudden, usually drastic failure. Most often said of the system (q.v., definition #1), sometimes of magnetic disk drives. "Three lusers lost their files in last night's disk crash." A disk crash which entails 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". 2. v. To fail suddenly. "Has the system just crashed?" 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. Sometimes said of people hitting the sack after a long HACKING RUN, see GRONK OUT. CRASH AND BURN (krash @n bern) v.,n. A spectacular crash, in the mode of the conclusion of the car chase scene from Steve McQueen's "Bullitt". Sun-3 monitors losing the flyback transformer and lightning strikes on VAX-11/780 backplanes are notable crash and burn generators. CRAWLING HORROR (kraw'lng hor'@r) n. Ancient crufty hardware or software that forces beyond the control of the hackers at a site refuse to let die. Like DUSTY DECK or GONKULATOR, but connotes that the thing described is not just an irritation but an active menace to health and sanity. "Mostly we code new stuff in C, but they pay us to maintain one big Fortran II application from nineteen-sixty-X that's a real crawling horror...". Compare WOMBAT. CRAY (kray) n. 1. One of the line of supercomputers designed by Cray Research. 2. Any supercomputer at all. CRAYON (krayon) n. Someone who works on Cray supercomputers. More specifically implies a programmer, probably of the CDC ilk, probably male, and and almost certainly wearing a tie (irrespective of gender). Unicos systems types who have a Unix background tend not to be described as crayons. CREEPING FEATURITIS (kree'ping fee-ch@r-ie't@s) n. Describes a systematic tendency to load more CHROME onto systems at the expence of whatever ELEGANCE they may have posessed when originally designed. See FEEPING CREATURITIS. "You know, the main problem with BSD UNIX has always been creeping featuritis". CRETIN (kre'tn) 1. n. Congenital LOSER (q.v.). 2. CRETINOUS: adj. See BLETCHEROUS and BAGBITING. Usage: somewhat ad hominem. CRIPPLEWARE (krip'@l-weir) n. SHAREWARE which has some important functionality deliberately removed, so as to entice potential users to pay for a working version. See also GUILTWARE. CRLF (ker'lif, sometimes krul'lif) n. A carriage return (CR) followed by a line feed (LF). See TERPRI. CROCK (krok) [from mainstream "crock of shit"] n. 1. An awkward feature or programming technique that ought to be made cleaner. Example: Using small integers to represent error codes without the program interpreting them to the user (as in, for example, UNIX make(1)) is a crock. 2. Also, a technique that works acceptably but which is quite prone to failure if disturbed in the least, for example depending on the machine opcodes having particular bit patterns so that you can use instructions as data words too; a tightly woven, almost completely unmodifiable structure. CROSS-POST (kros'pohst) [USENET] To post an article to several newsgroups or topics. 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!" CRUFTY (kruhf'tee) [from "cruddy"] adj. 1. Poorly built, possibly overly complex. "This is stanction "file crunch(ing)" to distinguish it from "number crunch(ing)".) See COMPRESS. 3. n. The character "#". Usage: used at Xerox and CMU, among other places. See ASCII. CRUNCHA CRUNCHA CRUNCHA (kruhnchah kruhnchah kruhnchah) interj. An encouragement sometimes muttered to a machine bogged down in serious GROVELLING. Also describes a notional sound made by grovelling hardware. See WUGGA WUGGA. CRYONICS (kry-o'niks) n. The practice of freezing oneself in hopes of being revived in the future by CELL REPAIR MACHINES. A possible route to technological immortality already taken by 1990 by more than a handful of persons with terminal illnesses. CTSS (see-tee-ess-ess) n. Compatible Time-Sharing System. An early (1963) experiment in the design of interactive time-sharing operating systems. Cited here because it was ancestral to MULTICS, UNIX, and ITS (q.v.). CUBING (kyoo'bing) [parallel with "tubing"] v. 1. Hacking on an IPSC (Intel Personal SuperComputer) hypercube. "Louella's gone cubing AGAIN!!" 2. An indescribable form of self-torture, see sense #1. CUSPY (kuhs'pee) [from the DEC acronym CUSP, for Commonly Used System Program, i.e., a utility program used by many people] [WPI] adj. 1. (of a program) Well-written. 2. Functionally excellent. A program which performs well and interfaces well to users is cuspy. See RUDE. CYBERPUNK (sie'ber-puhnk) [orig. by SF critic Garder Dozois] n.,adj. A subgenre of SF launched in 1982 by William Gibson's epoch-making novel _Neuromancer_. 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 futures in ways hackers have since found both irritatingly naive and tremendously stimulating. Gibson's work was widely imitated, in particular by the short-lived but innovative "Max Headroom" TV series. See CYBERSPACE, ICE, GO FLATLINE. CYBERSPACE (sie'ber-spays) n. Notional "information-space" loaded with visual cues and navigable with brain-computer interfaces called "cyberspace decks"; a characteristic prop of CYBERPUNK SF. At time of writing (1990) serious efforts to construct VIRTUAL REALITY interfaces modelled explicitly on CYBERSPACE are already under way, using more conventional devices such as glove sensors and binocular TV headsets. Few hackers are prepared to outright deny the possibility of a cyberspace someday evolving out of THE NETWORK. Back to Top = D = DAEMON (day'mun, dee'mun) [archaic form of "demon", which has slightly different connotations (q.v.)] n. A program which is not invoked explicitly, but which lays 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, writing a file on the lpt spooler's directory will invoke the spooling daemon, which prints the file. The advantage is that programs which want (in this example) files printed need not compete for access to the lpt. They simply enter their implicit requests and let the daemon decide what to do with them. Daemons are usually spawned automatically by the system, and may either live forever or be regenerated at intervals. Usage: DAEMON and DEMON (q.v.) are often used interchangeably, but seem to have distinct connotations. DAEMON was introduced to computing by CTSS people (who pronounced it dee'mon) and used it to refer to what is now called a DRAGON or PHANTOM (q.v.). The meaning and pronunciation have drifted, and we think this glossary reflects current usage. DAY MODE (day mohd) See PHASE (of people). DD (dee-dee) [from archaic UNIX dd(1)] v. Equivalent to CAT or BLT. Very rare outside UNIX sites and now nearly obsolescent even there, as dd(1) has been DEPRECATED for a long time. Replaced by BLT or simple English `copy'. DEADLOCK (ded'lok) n. A situation wherein two or more processes are unable to proceed because each is waiting for another to do something. A common example is a program communicating to a PTY or STY, which may find itself waiting for output from the PTY/STY before sending anything more to it, while the PTY/STY is similarly waiting for more input from the controlling program before outputting anything. (This particular flavor of deadlock is called "starvation". Another common flavor is "constipation", where each process is trying to send stuff to the other, but all buffers are full because nobody is reading anything.) See DEADLY EMBRACE, RACE CONDITION. DEADLY EMBRACE (ded'lee em-brays') n. Same as DEADLOCK (q.v.), though usually used only when exactly two processes are involved. DEADLY EMBRACE is the more popular term in Europe; DEADLOCK in the United States. DEFENESTRATION (dee-fen-uh-stray'shn) [from the traditional Czechoslovak method of assassinating prime ministers, via ESR and SF fandom] n. Proper karmic retribution for an incorrigible punster. "Oh, ghod, that was *awful*!" "Quick! Defenestrate him!" See also H INFIX. DEEP SPACE (deep spays) adj. 1. Describes the "location" of any program which has gone OFF THE TROLLEY. Esp. used of programs which just sit there silently grinding long after either failure or some output is expected. 2. Also, the metaphorical "location" of a human so dazed and/or confused or caught up in some esoteric form of BOGOSITY that he/she no longer responds coherently to normal communication. Compare PAGE OUT. DEMENTED (dee-men't@d) 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. For example, a program that generates large numbers of meaningless error messages implying it is on the point of imminent collapse. DEMIGOD (de'mi-god) n. 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 50% 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. DEMON (dee'mun) n. 1. [MIT] A portion of a program which is not invoked explicitly, but which lays dormant waiting for some condition(s) to occur. See DAEMON. The distinction is that demons are usually processes within a program, while daemons are usually programs running on an operating system. Demons are particularly common in AI programs. For example, a knowledge manipulation program might implement inference rules as demons. Whenever a new piece of knowledge was added, various demons would activate (which demons depends on the particular piece of data) and would create additional pieces of knowledge by applying their respective inference rules to the original piece. These new pieces could in turn activate more demons as the inferences filtered down through chains of logic. Meanwhile the main program could continue with whatever its primary task was. 2. [outside MIT] Often used equivalently to DAEMON, especially under UNIX where the the latter spelling and pronunciation is considered mildly archaic. DEPRECATED (de'pre-kay-t@d) [from UNIX documentation] n. 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. DE-REZZ (dee rez) [from the movie TRON] v. 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 slang, and adopted in a spirit of irony by real hackers years after the fact. DEVO (dee'vo) [orig. in-house slang at Symbolics] n. A person in a development group. See also DOCO and MANGO. DICKLESS WORKSTATION (dik'less werk'sta-shn) 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. DIDDLE (di'dl) v. To work with in a not particularly serious manner. "I diddled with 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. DIKE (diek) [from "diagonal cutters"] v. To remove a module or disable it. "When in doubt, dike it out." DING (ding) n.,v. Synonym for FEEP (q.v.). Usage: rare among hackers, but commoner in THE REAL WORLD. DINOSAUR (die'n@-sor) n. Any hardware requiring raised flooring and special power. Used especially of old minis and mainframes when contrasted with newer microprocessor-based machines. In a famous quote from the '88 UNIX EXPO, Bill Joy compared the mainframe in the massive IBM display with a grazing dinosaur, "with a truck outside pumping its bodily fluids through it". IBM was not amused. Compare BIG IRON. DINOSAUR PEN (die'n@-sor 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. DISCORDIANISM (dis-kor'di-uhn-ism) n. The veneration of ERIS, aka Discordia. Popularized by Robert Anton Wilson's _Illuminatus!_ trilogy as a sort of self-subverting dada-Zen for Westerners -- it should on no account be taken seriously but is far more serious than most jokes. Usually connected with an elaborate conspiracy theory/joke involving millenia-long warfare between the partisans of Eris and a malevolent secret society called the Illuminati. See Appendix C and HA HA ONLY SERIOUS. DISPLAY HACK (dis-play' hak) 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 program. DOCO (do'ko) [orig. in-house slang at Symbolics] n. A documentation writer. See also DEVO and MANGO. DO PROTOCOL (doo proh'toh-kahl) [from network protocol programming] v. 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 the waitress for the check, calculate the tip and everybody's share, generate change as necessary, and pay the bill. DOGWASH (dog'wahsh) [From a quip in the "urgency" field of a very optional software change request, about 1982. It was something like, "Urgency: Wash your dog first."] v.,n. A project of minimal priority, undertaken as an escape from more serious work. Also, to engage in such a project. Many games and much FREEWARE gets written this way. DON'T DO THAT, THEN (dohnt doo dhat, dhen) interj. 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." Compare RTFM. DONGLE (don-gl) n. 1. A security device for commercial microcomputer programs consisting of a serialized EPROM and some drivers in an RS-232 connector shell. Programs that use a dongle query the port at startup and programmed intervals thereafter, and terminate if it does not respond with the dongle's programmed validation code. Thus, users could make as many copies of the program as they want but must pay for each dongle. The idea was clever but a practical failure, as users disliked tyng up a serial port this way. 2. By extension, any physical electronic key or transferable ID required for a program to function. See DONGLE DISK. DONGLE-DISK (don'g@l disk) n. See DONGLE; a DONGLE-DISK is a floppy disk with some coding which allows an application to identify it uniquely. It can therefore be used as a DONGLE. Also called a "key disk". DOORSTOP (dor-stop) n. Used to describe equipment that is non-functional and halfway expected to remain so, especially obsolescent equipment kept around for political reasons or ostensibly as a backup. "When we get another Wyse-50 in here that ADM3 will turn into a doorstop." Compare BOAT ANCHOR. DOT FILE (dot fiel) [UNIX] n. A file that is invisible to normal directory-browsing tools (on UNIX, files named beginning with a dot are invisible). DOWN (down) 1. adj. Not working. "The up escalator is down." 2. TAKE DOWN, BRING DOWN: v. To deactivate, usually for repair work. See UP. DOWNLOAD (down'lohd) v. 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 device. Oppose UPLOAD. DRAGON (dra'gn) n. [MIT] A program similar to a "daemon" (q.v.), 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 are, what they're running, etc. along with some random picture (such as a unicorn, Snoopy, or the Enterprise) which is generated by the "NAME DRAGON". See PHANTOM. Usage: rare outside MIT -- under UNIX and most other OSs this would be called a `background DEMON' or `DAEMON' (q.v). DRAGON BOOK, THE (dra'gn buk, dh@) n. Aho, Sethi and Ullman's classic compilers text _Compilers:_Principles,_Techniques,_and_Tools_, so called because of the cover design depicting a knight slaying a dragon labelled "compiler complexity". DRAIN (drayn) [IBM] v. Syn. for FLUSH (sense 4). DRECNET (drek'net) [fr. Yiddish `dreck'] 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 (among other things, they implemented the wrong HEARTBEAT speed). DROOL-PROOF PAPER (drool-proof pay'per) n. Documentation which 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". DROP ON THE FLOOR (drop on dh@ flor) vt. To discard silently. Example: "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. DRUGGED (druhgd) adj., also ON DRUGS. Conspicuously stupid, heading towards BRAIN DAMAGE. Often accompanied by a pantomime of toking a joint. DRUNK MOUSE SYNDROME (druhnk mows sin'drohm) n. A malady exhibited by the mouse pointing device of some workstations. The typical symptom is for the mouse cursor on the screen to move to random directions and not in sync with the moving of the actual mouse. Can usually be corrected by unplugging the mouse and plugging it back again. DUSTY DECKS (duhs'tee deks) [a holdover from card-punch days] n. Old software (especially applications) with which one is obliged to remain compatible. Used esp. when referring to old scientific and number-crunching software, much of which was written in FORTRAN and very poorly documented but would be too expensive to replace. See FOSSIL. DWIM (dwim) [Do What I Mean] 1. adj. Able to guess, sometimes even correctly, what result was intended when provided with bogus input. Often suggested in jest as a desired feature for a complex program. A related term, more often seen as a verb, is DTRT (Do The Right Thing). 2. n. The INTERLISP function that attempts to accomplish this feat by correcting many of the more common errors. See HAIRY. Back to Top = E = EASTER EGGING (ees'tr e'g@ng) [IBM] n. The act of replacing unrelated parts more or less at random in hopes that a malfunction will go away. Hackers consider this the normal operating mode of FIELD CIRCUS techs and do not love them for it. EARTHQUAKE (erth'kwayk) [IBM] n. The ultimate REAL WORLD shock test for computer hardware. Hacker sources at IBM deny the rumor that the Bay Area quake of 1989 was initiated by the company to test Q&A at its California plants. EIGHTY-COLUMN MIND (ay'tee kol'@m miend) [IBM] n. The sort said to be employed by persons for whom the transition from card to tape was traumatic (nobody has dared tell them about disks yet). It is said that these people will be buried `9-EDGE-FORWARD-FACE-DOWN'. [These people are thought by most hackers to dominate IBM's customer base, and its thinking -- ESR]. ELEGANT (e'l@-gnt) [from mathematical usage] adj. Said of an algorithm, program, or system that combines simplicity, power, and a certain ineffable grace of design. Higher praise than `clever', `winning' or even CUSPY. ELEPHANTINE (el'@-fn-teen) adj. Used of programs or systems which are both conspicuous HOGs (due 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 (like the old joke about being in bed with an elephant) it's tough to have around all the same, esp. a bitch to maintain. In extreme cases, hackers have been known to make trumpeting sounds or perform expressive zoomorphic 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 SYNDROME. EMACS (ee'maks) [from Editing MACroS] n. The ne plus ultra of hacker editors, a program editor with an entire LISP interpreter inside it. Originally written by Richard Stallman in TECO at the MIT-AI lab, but the most widely used versions now run under UNIX. It includes facilities to run compilation subprocesses and send and receive mail; many hackers spend up to 80% of their tube time inside it. EMAIL (ee-mayl) v.,n. Electronic mail. Contrast SNAIL-MAIL. EMOTICON (ee-moh'ti-cahn) n. An ASCII glyph used to indicate an emotional state in email or news. Hundreds have been proposed, but only a few are in common use. These include: :-) Smiley face (indicates laughter) :-( Frowney face (indicates sadness, anger or upset) ;-) Half-smiley (ha ha only serious), aka winkey face. :-/ Wry face Of these, the first two are by far the most frequently encountered. Hyphenless forms of them are common on CompuServe, GEnie and BIX; see also BIXIE. EMPIRE (em'pier) n. Any of a family of military simulations derived from a game written by Peter Langston many years ago. There are 5 or 6 multi-player variants of varying degrees of sophistication, and one single-player version implemented for both UNIX and VMS which is even available as MS-DOS freeware. All are notoriously addictive. EOF (ee-oh-ef) [UNIX/C] n. End Of File. 1. Refers esp. to whatever pseudo-character value is returned by C's sequential input functions (and their equivalents in other environments) when the logical end of file has been reached (this was 0 under V6 UNIX, is -1 under V7 and all subsequent versions and all non-UNIX C library implementations). 2. Used by extension in non-computer contexts when a human is doing something that can be modelled 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." EPOCH, THE (ee'p@k, dh@) [UNIX] n. Syn. for ERA. EPSILON (ep'si-lahn) [from standard mathematical notation for a small quantity] 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. ERA, THE (ee'ra, dh@) [from UNIX] n. The time and date corresponding to zero in an operating system's clock and timestamp values. Under most UNIX versions, midnight of January 1st 1970. System time is measured in TICKS past the era. Syn. with EPOCH. See TICKS, WALL TIME. ERIS (e'r@s) pn. The Greco-Roman goddess of Chaos, Discord, Confusion and Things You Know Not Of; aka Discordia. Not a very friendly deity in the Classical original, she was re-invented 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 SUB-GENIUS. ESSENTIALS (e-sen'tiuhls) n. Things necessary to maintain a productive and secure hacking environment. "A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, a 20-megahertz 80386 box with 8 meg of core and a 300-megabyte disk supporting full UNIX with source and X windows and EMACS and UUCP to a friendly Internet site, and thou." EXCL (eks'kl) n. Abbreviation for "exclamation point". See BANG, SHRIEK, WOW. EXE (ex'ee) An executable binary file. Some operating systems use the extension .EXE to mark such files. This usage is also found among UNIX programmers even though UNIX executables don't have any required extension. EXEC n. 1. [UNIX] Synonym for CHAIN, derives from the exec(2) call. 2. obs. The command interpreter for an OS (see SHELL); term esp. used on mainframes, and prob. derived from UNIVAC's archaic EXEC 2 and EXEC 8 operating systems. Back to Top = F = FALL OVER (fol o'vr) [IBM] v. Yet another synonym for CRASH or LOSE. `Fall over hard' equates to CRASH AND BURN. FANDANGO ON CORE (fan-dang'go on kor) [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 third-world dances such as the rhumba, cha-cha or watusi may be substituted. See ALIASING SCREW, PRECEDENCE SCREW, SMASH THE STACK, MEMORY LEAK, OVERRUN SCREW. FASCISTIC (fa-shis'tik) adj. 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. FAULTY (fawl'tee) adj. Same denotation as "bagbiting", "bletcherous", "losing", q.v., but the connotation is much milder. FEAR AND LOATHING (feer @nd loh'thing) [from Hunter Thompson] n. State inspired by the prospect of dealing with certain REAL WORLD systems and standards which are totally BRAIN DAMAGED but ubiquitous -- Intel 8086s, or COBOL, or any IBM machine except the Rios. "Ack. Theywant PCs to be able to talk to the AI machine. Fear and loathing time!" See also IBM. FEATURE (fee'chr) n. 1. A surprising property of a program. Occasionally documented. To call a property a feature sometimes means the author of the program did not consider the particular case, and the program makes an unexpected, although not strictly speaking an incorrect response. See BUG. "That's not a bug, that's a feature!" A bug can be changed to a feature by documenting it. 2. A well-known and beloved property; a facility. Sometimes features are planned, but are called crocks by others. FEATURECTOMY (fee'ch@r-ek'to-mee) n. The act of removing a feature from a program. Featurectomies generally come in two varieties, the RIGHTEOUS and the RELUCTANT. Righteous featurectomies are performed because the remover believes the program would be more elegant without the feature, or there is already an equivalent and "better" way to achieve the same end. (This is not quite the same thing as removing a MISFEATURE.) Reluctant featurectomies are performed to satisfy some external constraint such as code size or execution speed. FEEP (feep) 1. n. The soft bell of a display terminal (except for a VT-52!); a beep. 2. v. To cause the display to make a feep sound. TTY's do not have feeps. Alternate forms: BEEP, BLEEP, or just about anything suitably onomatopoeic. The term BREEDLE was sometimes heard at SAIL, where the terminal bleepers are not particularly "soft" (they sound more like the musical equivalent of sticking out one's tongue). The "feeper" on a VT-52 has been compared to the sound of a `52 Chevy stripping its gears. See also DING. FEEPING CREATURITIS (fee'ping kree'ch@r-ie'tis) n. Deliberate spoonerization of CREEPING FEATURITIS, meant to imply that the system or program in question has become a misshapen creature of hacks. FENCEPOST ERROR (fens'post eir'@r) n. 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 ten feet apart, how many posts do you need?" (Either 9 or 11 is a better answer than the obvious 10.) FIELD CIRCUS (feeld ser'k@s) 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 swapping tires to see which one is flat. Q: How can you recognize a DEC field circus engineer who is out of gas? A: He's swapping tires to see which one is flat. FILK (filk) [from SF fandom, where a typo for "folk" was adopted as a new word] n.,v. A "filk" is a popular or folk song with lyrics revised or completely new lyrics, intended for humorous effect when read and/or to be sung late at night at SF conventions. There is a flourishing subgenre of these called "computer filks", written by hackers and often containing technical humor of quite sophisticated nature. FILM AT 11 (film at @-lev'n) [MIT, in imitation of TV network news squibs.], interj. Used in conversation to announce ordinary events, with a sarcastic implication that these events are earth-shattering. This is hard to describe. Examples: "ITS crashes; film at 11." "Bug found in scheduler; film at 11." FILTER (fil'tr) [orig. UNIX, now also in MS-DOS] n. A program which processes an input text stream into an output text 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, (q.v.). FINE (fien) [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 (fing'gr) [BSD UNIX] 1. n. A program that displays a particular user or all users logged on the system or a remote system. Typically shows full name, last login time, idle time, terminal line and terminal location. May also display a "plan file" left by the user. 2. v. To apply finger to a username. 3. v. By extension, to check a human's current state by any means. "Foodp?" "T!" "OK, finger Lisa and see if she's idle". FIREBOTTLE (fier'bo'tl) n. A large, primitive, power-hungry active electrical device, similar to an FET 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. FIREWALL MACHINE (fier'wal m:-sheen') n. A dedicated gateway machine with special security precautions on it, used to service outside network/mail/news connections and/or accept remote logins for (read only) shared-file-system access via FTP. The idea is to protect cluster of more loosely administered machines `hidden' behind it from crackers. The typically `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. FIRMWARE (ferm'weir) n. Software installed into a computer-based piece of equipment on ROM. So-called because it's harder to change than software but easier than hardware. FLAG DAY (flag day) [from a bit of Multics history involving a change in the ASCII character set originally scheduled for June 14, 1966] n. A software change which is neither forward nor backward compatible, and which is costly to make and costly to revert. "Can we install that without causing a flag day for all users?" FLAKEY (flay'kee) adj. Subject to frequent lossages. See LOSSAGE. FLAMAGE (flaym'@j) n. High-noise, low-signal postings to USENET or other electronic fora. Often in the phrase "the usual flamage". FLAME (flaym) v. To speak incessantly and/or rabidly on some relatively uninteresting subject or with a patently ridiculous attitude. FLAME ON: v. To continue to flame. See RAVE, BURBLE. FLAME WAR (flaym wor) n. Acrimonious dispute, especially when conducted on a public electronic forum such as USENET. FLAMER (flay'mr) v. One who habitually flames others. Said of obnoxious USENET personalities. FLAP (flap) v. To unload a DECtape (so it goes flap, flap, flap...). Old hackers at MIT tell of the days when the disk was device 0 and microtapes were 1, 2,... and attempting to flap device 0 would instead start a motor banging inside a cabinet near the disk! FLAVOR (flay'vr) n. 1. Variety, type, kind. "DDT commands come in two flavors." 2. The attribute of causing something to be FLAVORFUL. "This convention yields additional flavor by allowing one to..." See VANILLA. FLAVORFUL (flay'vr-fl) adj. Aesthetically pleasing. See RANDOM and LOSING for antonyms. See also the entries for TASTE and ELEGANCE. FLIPPY (flip'ee) n. A single-side 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. FLUSH (fluhsh) v. 1. To delete something, usually superfluous. "All that nonsense has been flushed." Standard ITS terminology for aborting an output operation. 2. 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." 3. To exclude someone from an activity. 4. [UNIX/C] To force buffered I/O to disk, as with an fflush(3) call. UNIX hackers find the ITS usage confusing and vice versa. FLYTRAP (flie'trap) n. See FIREWALL. FOO (foo) 1. [from Yiddish "feh" or the Anglo-Saxon "fooey!"] interj. Term of disgust. 2. [from FUBAR (Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition), from WWII, often seen as FOOBAR] Name used for temporary programs, or samples of three-letter names. Other similar words are BAR, BAZ (Stanford corruption of BAR), and rarely RAG. These have been used in Pogo as well. 3. Used very generally as a sample name for absolutely anything. The old `Smokey Stover' comic strips often included the word FOO, in particular on license plates of cars. 4. First on the standard list of metasyntactic variables used in syntax examples. See also: BAR, BAZ, QUX, QUUX, QUUUX, CORGE, GRAULT, GARPLY, WALDO, FRED, PLUGH, XYZZY. MOBY FOO: See MOBY. [It is possible that hacker usage of FOO actually springs from the title "FOO, Lampoons and Parody" of a comic book first issued in September 1958; the byline read "C. Crumb" but my source believes this was a sort-of pseudonym for noted weird-comix artist Robert Crumb. The title FOO was featured in large letters on the front cover -- ESR] FOOL (fool) n. As used by hackers, specifically describes a person who habitually reasons from obviously or demonstrably incorrect premises and cannot be persuaded to do otherwise by evidence; 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. FOOTPRINT (fut'print) 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'). FOREGROUND (for'grownd) [UNIX] adj.v. On a time-sharing system, a task executing in foreground is one running at normal priority and able to accept input from and return output to the user; oppose BACKGROUND. There may be only one forground task per terminal (or terminal window). By extension, "to foreground" a task is to bring it to the top of one's PDL or STACK for immediate processing, and in this sense hackers often use it for non-computer tasks. FORTUNE COOKIE (for'chn ku'kee) [UNIX] n. A random quote, item of trivia, joke or maxim printed to the user's tty at login time or (more rarely) at logout time. Items from this jargon file have often been used as fortune cookies. FOSSIL (fohs'sl) 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 modern byte-addressible architectures. See DUSTY DECKS. 2. More restrictively, a feature with past but no present utility. Example: the force-all-caps (IUCLC/OLCUC) bits in the UNIX tty driver, designed for use with monocase terminals. FRED (fred) n. The personal name most frequently used as a metasyntactic variable (see FOO). The reasons for this are obscure. FREEWARE (free'weir) n. Free software, often written by enthusiasts and usually distributed by electronic mail, local bulletin boards, USENET, or other electronic media. See SHAREWARE. FRIED (fried) adj. 1. Non-working due to hardware failure; burnt out. 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." FROB (frob) 1. n. [MIT] The official Tech Model Railroad Club definition is "FROB = protruding arm or trunnion", and by metaphoric extension any somewhat small thing. See FROBNITZ. 2. v. Abbreviated form of FROBNICATE. FROBNICATE (frob'ni-kayt) v. To manipulate or adjust, to tweak. Derived from FROBNITZ (q.v.). Usually abbreviated to FROB. Thus one has the saying "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. FROBNITZ (frob'nits), pl. FROBNITZEM (frob'nitsm) 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 and FROBULE. Starting perhaps in 1979, FROBOZZ (fruh-bahz') has also become very popular. These can also be applied to nonphysical objects, such as data structures. FROG alt. PHROG (frog) 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. Of people, somewhere inbetween a turkey and a toad. 4. FROGGY: adj. Similar to BAGBITING (q.v.), but milder. "This froggy program is taking forever to run!" FROTZ (frotz) 1. n. See FROBNITZ. 2. MUMBLE FROTZ: An interjection of very mild disgust. FRY (frie) v. 1. To fail. Said especially of smoke-producing hardware failures. 2. More generally, to become non-working. Usage: never said of software, only of hardware and humans. See FRIED, MAGIC SMOKE. FTP (ef-tee-pee, NOT "fittip") 1. n. The File Transfer Protocol for transmitting files between systems on the ARPAnet. 2. v. To transfer a file using the File Transfer Program. "Lemme get this copy of Wuthering Heights FTP'd from uunet." FUD WARS (fud worz) n. [from `Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt'] Political posturing engaged in by hardware and software vendors ostensibly committed to standardization but actually willing to fragment the market to protect their own share. The OSF vs. UNIX International conflict, for example. FUDGE (fuhj) 1. v. 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." 2. n. The resulting code. FUDGE FACTOR (fuhj faktr) 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 which 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. An example might be the coefficients of an equation, where the coefficients are varied in an attempt to make the equation fit certain criteria. FUEL UP (fyool uhp) v. To eat or drink hurriedly in order to get back to hacking. "Food-p?" "Yeah, let's fuel up." "Time for a GREAT-WALL!". See also ORIENTAL FOOD. FUGGLY (fuhg'lee) adj. Emphatic form of FUNKY; funky + ugly. Unusually for hacker slang, this may actually derive from black street-jive. To say it properly, the first syllable should be growled rather than spoken. Usage: humorous. "Man, the ASCII-to-EBCDIC code in that printer driver is *fuggly*." See also WONKY. FUNKY (fuhn'kee) adj. Said of something which functions, but in a slightly strange, klugey way. It does the job and would be difficult to change, so its obvious non-optimality is left alone. Often used to describe interfaces. The more bugs something has that nobody has bothered to fix because workarounds are easier, the funkier it is. TECO and UUCP are funky. The Intel i860's exception handling is extraordinarily funky. Most standards acquire funkiness as they age. "The new mailer is installed, but is still somewhat funky; if it bounces your mail for no reason, try resubmitting it." "This UART is pretty funky. The data ready line is active-high in interrupt mode, and active-low in DMA mode." See FUGGLY. FUZZ (fuhz) n. In floating-point arithmetic, the maximum difference allowed between two quantities for them to compare equal. Has to be set properly relative to the FPU's precision limits. FUZZBALL (fuhz'bawl) [TCP/IP hackers] n. A DEC LSI-11 running a particular suite of homebrewed software by Dave Mills and assorted co-conspirators, used in the early 80's for Internet protocol testbedding and experimentation. These were used as NSFnet backbone sites in its early 56KB-line days; a few of these are still active on the Internet as of early 1990, doing odd jobs such as network time service. Back to Top = G = GABRIEL (gay'bree-@l) [for Dick Gabriel, SAIL volleyball fanatic] n. An unnecessary (in the opinion of the opponent) stalling tactic, e.g., tying one's shoelaces or 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. GARBAGE COLLECT (gar'b@j k@-lekt') v., GARBAGE COLLECTION n. See GC. GARPLY (gar'plee) n. [Stanford] Another meta-word popular among SAIL hackers. GAS (gas) [as in "gas chamber"] interj. 1. 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. A term suggesting that someone or something ought to be flushed out of mercy. "The system's wedging every few minutes. Gas!" 3. v. FLUSH (q.v.). "You should gas that old crufty software." 4. GASEOUS adj. Deserving of being gassed. Usage: primarily used by Geoff Goodfellow at SRI, but spreading; became particularly popular after the Moscone/Milk murders in San Francisco, when it was learned that Dan White (who supported Proposition 7) would get the gas chamber under 7 if convicted. GATEWAY (gayt'way) n. 1. A computer or item of special-purpose hardware that links two or more normally incompatible data networks and does protocol translation between them. 2. On compatible or common-carrier networks, a piece of software that translates between normally incompatible data formats and addressing conventions. GC (jee-see) [from LISP terminology] 1. v. To clean up and throw away useless things. "I think I'll GC the top of my desk today." 2. v. To recycle, reclaim, or put to another use. 3. n. An instantiation of the GC process. GEDANKEN (g@-dahn'kn) [from Einstein's term "gedanken-experimenten", such as the standard proof that E=mc^2] adj. An AI project which is written up in grand detail without ever being implemented to any great extent. 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 a program-related concept such as an algorithm. GENDER MENDER (jen'dr-men'dr) n. (also GENDER BENDER) A cable connector shell with either two male or two female connectors on it, used for mating like-sexed cables. Used esp. for RS-232C parts in either the original D-25 or the IBM PC's bogus D-9 format. GENERATE (gen'@-rayt) v. 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. GET A REAL COMPUTER (get uh reel kuhm'pyoo-tr) imp. Typical hacker response to news that somebody is having trouble getting work done on a system that is a) single- tasking, b) has no Winchester, or c) has less than a megabyte of DRAM. This is as of 1990; 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 considered `unreal' in five years. See BITTY BOX and TOY. GIGO (gie'goh) [acronym] garbage in, garbage out. Usually said in response to lusers who complain that a program didn't complain about faulty data. Also commonly used to describe failures in human decision making due to faulty, incomplete or imprecise data. GLARK (glark) v. To figure something out from context, taken from an old Scientific American "Mathematical Games" column, where the phrase "glark the meaning from context" was used as an example...of glarking something from context. "The System III manuals are pretty poor, but you can generally glark the meaning from context". GLASS (glas) [IBM] n. Synonym for SILICON. GLASS TTY (glas tee-tee-wie, glas ti-tee) n. A terminal which has a display screen but which, because of hardware or software limitations, behaves like a teletype or other printing terminal. An example is the ADM-3 (without cursor control). A glass tty can't do neat DISPLAY HACKs, and you can't save the output either. See TUBE, TTY. GLITCH (glich) [from the Yiddish "glitshen", to slide] 1. n. A sudden interruption in electric service, sanity, or program function. Sometimes recoverable. 2. v. To commit a glitch. See GRITCH. 3. v. [Stanford] To scroll a display screen. 4. (obs.) Same as MAGIC COOKIE, sense #2. 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. v. Similar to GLITCH (q.v.), but usually used reflexively. "My program just glorked itself." GNARLY (nar'lee) adj. Both OBSCURE and HAIRY in the sense of complex. "Yeech -- the tuned assembler implementation of BitBlt is really gnarly!" From a similar but less specific usage in surfer slang. GNU (gnoo, NOT "noo") 1. [acronym for "GNU's Not UNIX!"] A UNIX-workalike development effort of the Free Software Foundation headed by Richard Stallman (aka RMS). GNU EMACS and the GNU C compiler, two tools designed for this project, have become very popular in hackerdom. See EMACS, COPYLEFT. 2. Noted UNIX hacker John Gilmore (gnu@hoptoad.com), ironically enough one of the best-known and most vocal opponents of the "information should not be property" philosophy behind GNU. See RMS. GO FLATLINE (flat'lien) [from cyberpunk SF, refers to flattening of EEG traces upon brain-death] v., 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. A particular failure mode of video tubes in which vertical scan is lost, so all one sees is a bright horizontal line bisecting the screen. GOBBLE (go'bl) v. To consume or to obtain. GOBBLE UP tends to imply "consume", while GOBBLE DOWN tends to imply "obtain". "The output spy gobbles characters out of a TTY output buffer." "I guess I'll gobble down a copy of the documentation tomorrow." See SNARF. GONK (gonk) v.,n. To prevaricate or to embellish the truth beyond any reasonable recognitions. In German the term is "GONKEN", in spanish the verb becomes "GONKAR." "You're gonking me. That story you just told me is a bunch of gonk". In German, "Du Gonkst mir". (You're pulling my leg) See also GONKULATOR. GONZO (gon'zo) [from Hunter S. Thompson] adj. Overwhelming; very large, esp. used of collections of source code, source files or individual functions. Has some of the connotations of MOBY and HAIRY, q.v. 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. GOOD THING (gud thing) adj. Always 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 which 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. GORP (gorp) [CMU, perhaps from a brand of dried hiker's food?] Another metasyntactic variable, like FOO and BAR. GORILLA ARM (gor-il'uh arm) n. The side-effect that destroyed touch-screens as a mainstream input technology despite a promising start in the early eighties. 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 selects the arm begins to feel sore, cramped, and oversized, hence "gorilla arm". This is now considered a classic Horrible Example and cautionary tale to human-factors designers; "remember the gorilla arm" is shorthand for "how's this gonna fly in *real* use?" GREAT RENAMING (grayt ree-naym'ing) n. The FLAG DAY on which all of the groups on the USENET had their names changed from the net.* format to the current 7 hierarchies scheme. GREAT-WALL (grayt-wahl) [from SF fandom] v.,n. a mass expedition to an oriental restaurant. See ORIENTAL FOOD, CHINESE RAVS, STIR-FRIED RANDOM. GREEN LIGHTNING (green liet'ning) [IBM] n. Apparently random flashing streaks on the face of 3278-9 terminals while a programmable symbol set is being loaded. This hardware bug was left deliberately unfixed, as some bright spark suggested that this would let the user know that `something is happening'. It certainly does. 2. [generalization of #1 proposed by ESR] Any bug perverted into an alleged feature by adroit rationalization or marketing. E.g. "Motorola calls the CISC cruft in the 8800 architecture `compatibility logic', but I call it green lightning". GRAULT (grawlt) n. Yet another meta-syntactic variable, invented by Mike Galleher and propagated by the Gosmacs documentation. See CORGE. GRAY GOO (gray goo) n. A hypothetical substance composed of billions of sub-micron-sized Von Neumann machines (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 most naive and easiest to demolish of the NANOTECHNOLOGY (q.v.) disaster scenarios. GREP (grep) [from the UNIX grep tool] v. To rapidly scan a file or file set looking for a particular string or pattern. By extension, to look for something by pattern. "Grep the bulletin board for the system backup schedule, would you?" GRIND (griend) v. 1. [MIT and Berkeley] To format code, especially LISP code, by indenting lines so that it looks pretty. Hence, PRETTY PRINT, 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, performing some tedious and inherently useless task. Similar to CRUNCH, GROVEL. GRIND CRANK (griend 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, CHUNGA CHUNGA CHUNGA and WUGGA WUGGA. GRITCH (grich) 1. n. A complaint (often caused by a GLITCH (q.v.)). 2. v. To complain. Often verb-doubled: "Gritch gritch". 3. Glitch. GROK (grok) [from the novel "Stranger in a Strange Land", by Robert Heinlein, where it is a Martian verb meaning literally "to drink" and metaphorically "to be one with"] v. To understand, usually in a global sense. Connotes intimate and exhaustive knowledge. GRONK (gronk) [popularized by the cartoon strip "B.C." by Johnny Hart, but the word apparently predates that] v. 1. To clear the state of a wedged device and restart it. More severe than "to frob" (q.v.). 2. To break. "The teletype scanner was gronked, so we took the system down." 3. GRONKED: adj. Of people, the condition of feeling very tired or sick. 4. GRONK OUT: v. To cease functioning. Of people, to go home and go to sleep. "I guess I'll gronk out now; see you all tomorrow." GROVEL (gruh'vl) v. To work interminably and without apparent progress. Often used with "over". "The compiler grovelled over my code." Compare GRIND and CRUNCH. Emphatic form: GROVEL OBSCENELY. GRUNGY (gruhn'jee) adj. Incredibly dirty or grubby. Anything which has been washed within the last year is not really grungy. Also used metaphorically; hence some programs (especially crocks) can be described as grungy. Now (1990) also common in mainstream slang. GUBBISH (guh'bish) [a portmanteau of "garbage" and "rubbish"?] n. Garbage; crap; nonsense. "What is all this gubbish?" GUILTWARE (gilt'weir) n. FREEWARE decorated with a message telling one how long and hard the author worked on this program and intimating that one is a no-good shit if one does not immediately send the poor suffering martyr gobs of money. GUMBY (guhm'bee) [from the claymation character] n. An act of minor but conspicuous stupidity, often in GUMBY MANEUVER or PULL A GUMBY. GUN (guhn) [from the GUN command on ITS] v. 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. GURFLE (ger'fl) interj. An expression of shocked disbelief. "He said we have to recode this thing in FORTRAN by next week. Gurfle!" GURU (gur'oo) n. A UNIX expert. Implies not only WIZARD skill but 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". Back to Top = H = H INFIX (aych in-fix) [from SF fandom] A method of "marking" common words in the linguist's sense, i.e. calling attention to the fact that they are being used in a nonstandard, ironic or humorous way. Orig. in the fannish catchphrase "Bheer is the One True Ghod" from decades ago. H-infix marking of "Ghod" and other words spread into the Sixties counterculture via underground comix, and into early hackerdom either from the counterculture or SF fandom (all three overlapped heavily at the time). More recently, the h infix has become an expected feature of benchark names, i.e. Whetstone, Dhrystone, Rhealstone, etc; this is prob. patterning on the original Whetstone name but influenced by the fannish/counterculture H infix. HA HA ONLY SERIOUS (ha ha ohn'lee see'ree-us) [from SF fandom] A phrase that aptly captures the flavor of much hacker discourse (sometimes seen abbreviated as HHOS). Applied especially to parodies, absurdities and ironic jokes that are both intended and perceived to contain a possibly disquieting amount of truth, or truths which are constructed on in-joke and self-parody. The jargon file 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 or one in LARVAL STAGE. For further enlightenment on this subject, consult any Zen master. See also HUMOR, HACKER. HACK (hack) n. 1. Originally a quick job that produces what is needed, but not well. 2. The result of that job. 3. NEAT HACK: A clever technique. Also, a brilliant practical joke, where neatness is correlated with cleverness, harmlessness, and surprise value. Example: the Caltech Rose Bowl card display switch circa 1961. 4. REAL HACK: A crock (occasionally affectionate). v. 5. With "together", to throw something together so it will work. 6. To bear emotionally or physically. "I can't hack this heat!" 7. To work on something (typically a program). In specific sense: "What are you doing?" "I'm hacking TECO." In general sense: "What do you do around here?" "I hack TECO." (The former is time-immediate, the latter time-extended.) More generally, "I hack x" is roughly equivalent to "x is my bag". "I hack solid-state physics." 8. To pull a prank on. See definition 3 and HACKER (def #6). 9. v.i. To waste time (as opposed to TOOL). "Watcha up to?" "Oh, just hacking." 10. HACK UP (ON): To hack, but generally implies that the result is meanings 1-2. 11. HACK VALUE: Term used 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 has features for reading and printing roman numerals, which was installed purely for hack value. 12. [UNIX] A dungeon game similar to ROGUE (q.v.) but more elaborate, distributed in C source over USENET and very popular at UNIX sites and on PC-class machines. Recent versions are called `nethack'. HAPPY HACKING: A farewell. HOW'S HACKING?: A friendly greeting among hackers. HACK HACK: A somewhat pointless but friendly comment, often used as a temporary farewell. HACKER (hak'r) [originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe] n. 1. A person who enjoys learning the details of programming 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, or who enjoys programming rather than just theorizing about programming. 3. A person capable of appreciating HACK VALUE (q.v.). 4. A person who is good at programming quickly. Not everything a hacker produces is a hack. 5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using it or on it; example: "A UNIX hacker". (Definitions 1 to 5 are correlated, and people who fit them congregate.) 6. (deprecated) A malicious or inquisitive meddler who tries to discover information by poking around. Hence "password hacker", "network hacker". See CRACKER. HACK MODE (hak mohd) n. 1. What one is in when hacking, of course. 2. More specifically, a Zen-like state of total focus on The Problem which may be achieved when one is hacking. 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 an almost 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 do code. HACKING RUN (hak'ing ruhn) [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). HACKISH (hak'ish) adj. (also HACKISHNESS n.) 1. Being or involving a hack. 2. Of or pertaining to hackers or the hacker subculture. See also TRUE-HACKER. HAIR (heir) n. The complications which 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): "GNU elisp encourages lusers to write complex editing modes." "Yeah, it's pretty hairiferous all right." HAIRY (heir'ee) adj. 1. Overly 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." 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. HAND-HACKING (hand hak'ing) n. The practice of translating HOT SPOTS from an HLL into custom hand-optimized 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. HANDWAVE (hand'wayv) 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!" 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 still while rotating the hands at the wrist to make them flutter. In context, the gestures alone can suffice as a remark. HANLON'S RAZOR (han'lnz ray'zr) n. A "murphyism" parallel to Occam's Razor that reads "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity". 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 the well-intentioned but shortsighted. HARDWARILY (hard-weir'i-lee) adv. In a way pertaining to hardware. "The system is hardwarily unreliable." The adjective "hardwary" is NOT used. See SOFTWARILY. HAS THE X NATURE (has dh@ eks nay'tyoor) [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. Ex: "Anyone who can't even use a program with on-screen help embedded in it truly has the LOSER nature!" HASH COLLISION (hash k@-li'zhn) [from the technical usage] n. 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." HCF (aych-see-eff) n. Mnemonic for "Halt and Catch Fire", any of several undocumented and semi-mythical instructions with destructive side-effects, supposedly included for test purposes on several well-known architectures going as far back as the IBM 360. The MC68000 microprocessor was the first for which the HCF opcode became widely known. The 68000 HCF causes the processor to toggle a subset of the bus lines as rapidly as it can; in some configurations this can actually cause lines to burn up. HEARTBEAT (hart'beet) n. 1. The master clock signal propagated across an Ethernet; by extension, the time-baseline synchronization signal at the physical level of any network. 2. The `natural' oscillation frequency of a computer's clock crystal, before frequency division down to the machine's CLOCK RATE. HEISENBUG (hie'sen-buhg) [from quantum physics] n. A bug which disappears or alters its behavior when one attempts to probe or isolate it. Antonym of BOHR BUG (q.v.). In C, 9 out of 10 heisenbugs result from either FANDANGO ON CORE phenomena (esp. lossage related to corruption of the malloc ARENA) or errors which SMASH THE STACK. HELLO SAILOR! (he'lo say'lr) interj. Occsional West Coast equivalent of `Hello, world!'. See HELLO WORLD. HELLO WALL (he'lo wahl) See WALL. HELLO WORLD! (he'lo werld) interj. 1. The canonical minimal test message in the C/UNIX universe. In folklore, the first program a C coder is supposed to write in a new environment is one that just prints "Hello, world!" to his standard output. 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. 2. Greeting uttered by a hacker making an entrance or requesting information from anyone present. "Hello, world! Is the VAX back up yet?" HIGH BIT (hie bit) n. See META BIT HIRSUTE (heer's[y]oot) adj. Occasionally used humorously as a synonym for HAIRY. HLL (aych-el-el) 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 = `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' = `Medium-Level Language' and is sometimes used half-jokingly to describe C, alluding to its `structured-assembler' image. See also LANGUAGES OF CHOICE. HOG (hawg) n.,v. Favored term to describe programs which seem to eat far more than their share of a system's resources, esp. those which noticeably degrade general timesharing response. *Not* used of programs which are simply extremely large or complex or which 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. HOOK (huk) n. An extraneous piece of software or hardware included in order to simplify later additions or debug options. For instance, a program might execute a location that is normally a JFCL, but by changing the JFCL to a PUSHJ one can insert a debugging routine at that point. HOME BOX (hohm boks) n. A hacker's personal machine, especially one he owns. "Yeah? Well, *my* home box runs a full 4.2BSD, so there!" HOSE (hohz) 1. v. To Make non-functional or greatly degraded in performance, as in "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 in a system that represent performance bottlenecks. 3. Cabling, especially thick Ethernet cable. Sometimes "bit hose". HOSED (hohzd) adj. Same as DOWN. Used primarily by UNIX hackers. Humorous: also implies a condition thought to be relatively easy to reverse. Probably a back-formation from the Canadian slang `hoser' popularized by the Bob and Doug skits on SCTV. See HOSE. HOT SPOTS (hot spotz) [primarily C/UNIX programmers, but spreading] n. 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 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. HOUSE WIZARD (hows wi'zrd) [prob. from ad-agency lingo, cf. `house freak'] n. A lone 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 experts. The term HOUSE GURU is equivalent. HUMONGOUS (hyoo-mohng'gus) alt. HUMUNGOUS (hyoo-muhng'gus) See HUNGUS. HUMOR, HACKER (hyoo'm@r, hak'r) n. A distinct 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 an index card in front of him/her with "THIS IS GREEN" written on it in bold red ink, or vice-versa (note, however, that this is only funny the first time). 2) Elaborate deadpan parodies of large intellectual constructs such as standards documents, language descriptions (see INTERCAL) and even entire scientific theories (see QUANTUM BOGODYNAMICS, COMPUTRON). 3) Jokes which 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, Charlie Chaplin movies, the B-52s, and Monty Python's Flying Circus. Humor which 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. See also FILK, COMPUTER; REROCOMPUTING; and Appendix C. If you have an itchy feeling that all six 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, q.v. but more common at UNIX/C sites. Not used of people. HUNGUS (hung'ghis) [perhaps related to current slang "humongous"; which one came first (if either) is unclear] adj. Large, unwieldy, usually unmanageable. "TCP is a hungus piece of code." "This is a hungus set of modifications." HYPERSPACE (hie'per-spays) n. A memory location within a virtual memory machine that is many, many megabytes (or gigabytes) away from where the program counter should be pointing. "Another core dump...looks like the program jumped off to hyperspace somehow." Back to Top = I = IBM (ie bee em) Inferior But Marketable; It's Better Manually; Insidious Black Magic; Incontinent Bowel Movement; and a near-INFINITE number of many even less complementary expansions, including "International Business Machines". See TLA. These abbreviations illustrate the considerable antipathy most hackers have long felt for the "industry leader" (see FEAR AND LOATHING). What galls hackers about most IBM machines above the PC level isn't so much that they're underpowered and overpriced (though that counts against them) but that the designs are incredibly archaic, crufty and ELEPHANTINE and you can't *fix* them -- source is locked up tight and programming tools are expensive, hard to find, and a bitch 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 the jargon list now includes a number of entries marked `IBM'; these derive from a rampantly unofficial jargon list circulated among IBM's own beleaguered hacker underground. ICE (ies) [from William Gibson's cyberpunk SF: notionally, "Intrusion Countermeasure Electronics"] Security software. Also, ICEBREAKER: a program designed for cracking security on a system. Neither term is in serious use yet as of 1990, but many hackers find the metaphor attractive and they may be in the near future. ILL BEHAVED (il-bee-hayvd') adj. Software which 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 incompatible with other pieces of software. In the IBM PC/MS-DOS world, where this term originated, there is a folk theorem to the effect that (due to gross inadequacies and performance penalties in the OS interface) all interesting applications are ill-behaved. See MESS-DOS. IMHO [from SF fandom via USENET] Written acronym for In My Humble Opinion. Example: "IMHO, mixed-case C names should be avoided, as mistyping someting in the wrong case can cause hard-to-detect errors -- and they look too Pascalish anyhow." INCANTATION (in-kan-tay'shn) n. Any particularly arbitrary or obscure command that must be muttered 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. E.g. "This compiler normally locates initialized data in the data segment, but if you mutter the right incantation they will be forced into text space". See MUTTER. INFINITE (in'fi-n@t) adj. Consisting of a large number of objects; extreme. Used very loosely as in: "This program produces infinite garbage." INFANT MORTALITY (in'f:nt mor-tal':-tee) n. It is common lore among hackers that the chances of sudden hardware failure drop off exponentially with a machine's time since power-up (that is until the relatively distant time at which mechanical wear in I/O devices and thermal-cycling stress in components has accumulated enough 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. INTERCAL (in'tr-kal) [said by the authors to stand for "Compiler Language With No Pronounceable Acronym"] n. The language has been recently re-implemented as C-INTERCAL and is consequently enjoying an unprecedented level of unpopularity. INTERNET ADDRESS (in'ter-net @-dres') n. An `absolute' network address of the form foo@bar.baz, where foo is a user name, bar is a site name, and baz is a `domain' name, possibly including periods itself. Contrasts with BANG PATH, q.v.; see also NETWORK. 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. INTERRUPTS LOCKED OUT (in't@-ruptz lokt owt) When someone is ignoring you. In a restaurant, after several fruitless attempts to get the waitress's attention, a hacker might well observe that "She must have interrupts locked out." Variations of this abound; "to have one's interrupt mask bit set" is also heard. IRON (iern) n. Hardware, especially older/larger hardware of mainframe class with big metal cabinets relatively low-density electronics (but also used of modern supercomputers). Often in the phrase BIG IRON. Oppose SILICON. See also DINOSAUR. IRON BOX (iern boks) [UNIX/Internet] n. A special environment set up to trap a CRACKER logging in over remote or network connections long enough so he can be traced. May include a specially-gimmicked SHELL restricting the hacker's movements in unobvious ways, and `bait' files designed to keep him interested and logged on. See also BACK DOOR. IRONMONGER (iern'mohn-gr) [IBM] n. A hardware specialist. Derogatory. Compare SANDBENDER, POLYGON PUSHER. ITS (ie-tee-ess) n. Incompatible Time-Sharing System, an influential but highly idiosyncratic operating system written for PDP-10s at MIT and long used at the MIT AI lab; much AI-hacker slang derives from ITS folklore. 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 Appendix B. IWBNI [acronym] It Would Be Nice If. No pronunciation, as this is never spoken, only written. Compare WIBNI. IYFEG [USENET] Abbreviation for "Insert Your Favourite Ethnic Group". Used as a meta-name when telling racist jokes in email to avoid offending anyone. Back to Top = J = JAGGIES (jag'eez) n. The `stairstep' effect observable when an edge (esp. a linear edge of slope far from 45 degrees) is rendered on a pixel device (as opposed to a vector display). JIFFY (jif'ee) n. 1. Interval of CPU time, commonly 1/60 second or 1 millisecond (see TICK). 2. Indeterminate time from a few seconds to forever. "I'll do it in a jiffy" means certainly not now and possibly never. JOCK (jok) n. Programmer who is characterized by large and somewhat brute force programs. The term is particularly well-suited for systems programmers. JOE CODE (joh kohd) [said to commemmorate a notoriously bad coder named Joe at Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory] n. Badly written, possibly buggy source code. "Perl may be a handy program, but if you look at the source, it's complete joe code." J. RANDOM HACKER (jay rand'm hak'r) n. A mythical figure like the Unknown Soldier; the archetypal hacker nerd. See RANDOM. Back to Top = K = KAHUNA (k@-hoo'nuh) [IBM, from the Hawaiian title for a shaman] n. Synonym for WIZARD, GURU (q.v.). KEN (ken) n. A flaming user. This noun was in use by the Software Support group at Symbolics because the two greatest flamers in the user community were both named Ken. KILL FILE (kill fiel) [USENET] n. Some USENET readers allow users to set filter patterns against which news messages are compared, then ignored (not presented by the reader) if the match succeeds. The file in which these patterns are stored is called the user's kill file. Thus to "add a person (or subject) to one's kill file" is to arrange for that person to be ignored by your newsreader in future. By extension, it may be used for a decision to ignore the person or subject in other media. KILLER MICRO (kil'r mi'kroh) [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 (q.v.) architectures. KLEENE STAR (kleen star) n. See REGULAR EXPRESSIONS. KLUGE (kloodj) alt. KLUDGE (kluhdj) [from the German "kluge", clever] ('kloodj' is the original pronunciation, more common in the US; `kluhdge' is reported more common in England). n. 1. A Rube Goldberg device in hardware or software. 2. A clever programming trick intended to solve a particular nasty case in an efficient, if not clear, manner. Often used to repair bugs. Often verges on being a crock. 3. Something that works for the wrong reason. 4. v. 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." Also KLUGE UP. 5. KLUGE AROUND: To avoid by inserting a kluge. 6. [WPI] A feature which is implemented in a RUDE manner. Back to Top = L = LACE CARD (lays kard) n. obs. A Hollerith card with all holes punched (also called a WHOOPEE CARD). Some cardpunches actually jammed on the amount of CHAD generated by one of these. LANGUAGE LAWYER (lan'gw@j law'yr) n. A person, usually an experienced or senior software engineer, who is intimately familiar with many or most of the numerous syntactic and semantic restrictions (both useful and esoteric) applicable to one or more computer programming languages. LANGUAGES OF CHOICE n. C or LISP. Essentially all hackers know one of these and most good ones are fluent in both. Smalltalk and Prolog are popular in small but influential communities. Assembler used to be a language of choice, but is generally no longer considered interesting or appropriate for anything but compiler code generation and a few time-critical uses in systems programs. LARVAL STAGE (lar'vl stayj) n. Describes a period of monomaniacal concentration on coding apparently passed through by all fledgeling 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 and sex, and a chronic case of advanced bleary-eye. Can last from six months to two years, with the apparent median being around eighteen 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. A less protracted and intense version of larval stage (typically lasting about a month) may recur when learning a new OS or programming language. LASE (layz) vt. To print a given document via a laser printer. "OK, let's lase that sucker and see if all those graphics-macro calls did the right things." Compare DIABLO in Appendix B. LERP (lerp) v.,n. Quasi-acronym for Linear Interpolation, used as as a verb or noun for the operation. Ex. Bresenham's algorithm lerps incrementally between the two endpoints of the line. LEXER (lek'sr) n. Common hacker shorthand for "lexical analyzer", the input-tokenizing stage in the parser for a language. "Some C lexers get confused by the old-style compound ops like =-" LIFE (lief) n. A cellular-automata game invented by John Horton Conway, and first introduced publicly by Martin Gardner (Scientific American, October 1970). Many hackers pass through a stage of fascination with it. LINE EATER, THE (lien ee'tr, dh@) [USENET] n. A bug in some now-obsolete versions of the netnews software used to cause the first lines of articles to be discarded under some circumstances. This bug was personified into mythical creature called "the line eater", and postings often included a dummy line of "line eater food". 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. LINE STARVE (lien stahrv) [MIT] Inverse of `line feed'; a character or character sequence which causes a printer to back up one line depth. LINK FARM (link farm) [UNIX] n. A directory tree that contains many links to files another, master directory tree of files. Link farms save space when maintaining several nearly identical copies of the same source tree, e.g. when the only difference is architecture-dependent object files. Example use: `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 arguments on older C preprocessors. LINT (lint) [from UNIX's lint(1)] v. 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 the USENET) has become a shorthand for `desk-check' at some non-UNIX shops, even in some languages other than C. LION FOOD (lie'@n 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 two months. When they do 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!" LISP (lisp) n. The name of AI's mother tongue, a language based on the ideas of 1) variable-length lists and trees as fundamental data types, and 2) the interpretation of code as data and vice-versa. Invented by John McCarthy at Stanford in the late 1950s, it is actually older than any other HLL still in use except FORTRAN. The hands-down favorite of hackers until the early 1980s, it now shares the throne with C (q.v.). See LANGUAGES OF CHOICE. LITTLE-ENDIAN (lit'l-end'y@n) adj. Describes a computer architecture in which, within a given 16- or 32-bit word, lower byte addresses have lower significance (the word is stored `little-end-first'). The PDP-11 and VAX families of computers and a lot of communications and networking hardware are little-endian. See BIG-ENDIAN. LIVELOCK (liev'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've been serviced but before it can clear. 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 accomplishes nothing. LOGIC BOMB (lo'jik bom) n. Code surreptitiously inserted in an application or OS which causes it to perform some destructive or security-compromising activity whenever specified conditions are met. Compare BACK DOOR. LOGICAL (lo'ji-kl) [from the technical term "logical device", wherein a physical device is referred to by an arbitrary name] adj. Understood to have a meaning not necessarily corresponding to reality. E.g., if a person who has long held a certain post (e.g., Les Earnest at SAIL) left and was replaced, the replacement would for a while be known as the "logical Les Earnest". The word VIRTUAL is also used. At SAIL, "logical" compass directions denoted 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 Franscisco and physical west near San Jose. (The best rule of thumb here is that El Camino Real by definition always runs logical north-and-south.) LORD HIGH FIXER (lord hie fik'sr) [primarily British] n. The person in an organisation who knows the most about some aspect of a system. See WIZARD. LOSE (looz) [from MIT jargon] v. 1. To fail. A program loses when it encounters an exceptional condition. 2. To be exceptionally unaesthetic. 3. Of people, to be obnoxious or unusually stupid (as opposed to ignorant). 4. DESERVE TO LOSE: v. 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 MULTICS deserves to lose!" See also SCREW, CHOMP, BAGBITER. LOSE LOSE - a reply or comment on a situation. LOSER (loo'zr) n. An unexpectedly bad situation, program, programmer, or person. Especially "real loser". LOSS (los) n. Something which loses. WHAT A (MOBY) LOSS!: interjection. LOSSAGE (los'@j) n. The result of a bug or malfunction. LPT (lip'it) [ITS] 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, which like ITS were strongly influenced by early DEC conventions). LURKER (ler'ker) n. One of the `silent majority' in a USENET or BBS newsgroup; one who posts occasionally or not at all but is known to read the group regularly. Often in `THE LURKERS', the hypothetical audience for the group's FLAMING regulars. LUNATIC FRINGE (l[y]oo'na-tik frinj) [IBM] n. Customers who can be relied upon to accept release 1 versions of software. LUSER (loo'zr) See USER. Back to Top = M = MACDINK (mak'dink) [from the Apple Macintosh, which is said to encourage such behavior] v. To make many incremental and unnecessary cosmetic changes to a program or file. Frequently the subject of the macdinking would be better off without them. Ex: "When I left at 11pm last night, he was still macdinking the slides for his presentation." MACRO (mak'ro) n. A name (possibly followed by a formal ARG list) which is equated to a text expression to which it is to be expanded (possibly with substitution of actual arguments) by a language translator. 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 use of macros as a structuring and information-hiding device. During the early 70s macro assemblers became ubiquitous and sometimes quite as powerful and expensive as HLLs, 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 nroff, troff and pic suite). Indeed, the meaning has drifted enough that the collective `macros' is now sometimes used for code in any special-purpose application-control control language, whether or not the language is actually translated by text expansion. MACROLOGY (mak-ro'l@-jee) n. Set of usually complex or crufty macros, e.g. as part of a large system written in LISP, TECO or (less commonly) assembler. Sometimes studying the macrology of a system is not unlike archaeology, hence the sound-alike construction. Prob. influenced by THEOLOGY (q.v.). MANGO (mang'go) [orig. in-house slang at Symbolics] n. A manager. See also DEVO and DOCO. MACROTAPE (ma'kro-tayp) n. An industry standard reel of tape, as opposed to a MICROTAPE. MAGIC (ma'jik) adj. 1. As yet unexplained, or too complicated to explain. (compare Clarke's Second 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 eight-bit byte in three instructions." 2. [Stanford] A feature not generally publicized which allows something otherwise impossible, or a feature formerly in that category but now unveiled. Example: The keyboard commands which override the screen-hiding features. MAGIC COOKIE (ma'jik cuk'ee) [UNIX] n. 1. A thing that allows another thing to do something, usually as part of a crufty hack. A capability ticket. Especially used of small data objects which contain data encoded in a strange or intrinsically machine-dependent way. 2. Blank left on the screen when your terminal changes modes. Some older terminals would print a blank when you entered and exited special modes, such as underline or flash. This was also called a GLITCH. MAGIC NUMBER (ma'jik nuhm'br) [UNIX/C] n. 1. A MAGIC COOKIE 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 by looking for a magic number. 2. In source code, some non-obvious constant whose value is significant to the operation of a program and is inserted inconspicuously in line, rather than expanded in by a symbol set by a commented #define. Magic numbers in this sense are bad style. MAGIC SMOKE (ma'jik smohk) n. A notional substance trapped inside IC packages that enables them to function. 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. MANGLE (mang'gl) v. Used similarly to MUNG or SCRIBBLE, but more violent in its connotations; something that is mangled has been irreversibly and totally trashed. MARGINAL (mar-j@-nl) adj. 1. Extremely small. "A marginal increase in core can decrease GC time drastically." 2. Of extremely small merit. "This proposed new feature seems rather marginal to me." 3. Of extremely small probability of winning. "The power supply was rather marginal anyway; no wonder it crapped out." 4. MARGINALLY: adv. Slightly. "The ravs here are only marginally better than at Small Eating Place." MARKETROID (mar'k@-troyd) alt. MARKETING SLIME, MARKETING DROID n. Member of a company's marketing department, esp. one who promises users that the next version of a product will have features which are unplanned, extremely difficult to implement, and/or violate the laws of physics. Derogatory. Used by techies. MARTIAN (mar'shn) n. A packet sent on a TCP/IP network with a source address of the test loopback interface (127.0.0.1). As in "The domain server is getting lots of packets from Mars. Does that gateway have a Martian filter?" MASSAGE (m@-sahj') v. Vague term used to describe `smooth' transformations of a data set into a more useful form, esp. transformations which do not lose information. Connotes less pain and more ELEGANCE than MUNCH or CRUNCH (q.v.). "He wrote a program that massages X bitmap files into GIF format" Compare SLURP. MEATWARE (meet'weir) n. Synonym for WETWARE (q.v.) Less common. MEGAPENNY (meg'a-pen'ee) n. $10,000 (1 cent * 10e6). Used semi-humorously as a unit in comparing computer cost/performance figures. MEGO (mego, meego) [Mine Eyes Glazeth Over] Also MEGO FACTOR. Handwaving 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 TLAs (qv). MELTDOWN (melt'down) n. See BROADCAST STORM. MEME (meem) [coined on analogy with `gene' by Richard Dawkins] n. An idea considered as a REPLICATOR. Used esp. in the prase `meme complex' denoting a group of mutually supporting memes which form an organized belief system, such as a religion. This dictionary is a 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 sentients) cultural evolution by selection of adaptive ideas has superseded biological evolution by selection of hereditary traits. MEMETICS (mee-me-tiks) [from MEME] The study of memes. As of 1990, 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 among hackers, who like to see themselves as the architects of the new information ecologies in which memes live and replicate. MEME PLAGUE n. The spread of a successful but pernicious MEME, esp. one which `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 millenarian Christianity have exhibited plague-like cycles of exponential growth followed by collapse to small `reservoir' populations. MEMORY LEAK (mem'@-ree leek) [C/UNIX programmers] n. An error in a program's dynamic-store allocation logic that causes it to fail to reclaim discarded memory, leading to attempted hogging of main store and eventual collapse due to memory exhaustion. See ALIASING SCREW, FANDANGO ON CORE, SMASH THE STACK, PRECEDENCE SCREW, OVERRUN SCREW. 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. MESS-DOS (mes-dos) [UNIX hackers] n. Derisory term for MS-DOS. Often followed by the ritual expurgation "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", and "mess-dog". META (mayt'@) [from analytic philosophy] adj. One level of description up. Thus, a meta-syntactic variable is a variable in notation used to describe syntax and meta-language is language used to describe language. This is difficult to explain out of context, but much hacker humor turns on deliberate confusion between meta-levels. META BIT (mayt'@) n. Bit 8 of an 8-bit character, on in values 128-255. Also called HIGH BIT or ALT BIT. Some terminals and consoles (especially those designed for LISP traditions) have a META-shift key. Others (including, mirabile dictu, keyboards on IBM PC-class machines) have an ALT key. See also BUCKY BITS. MICROFLOPPIES (mie'kroh-flo-peez) n. 3-1/2 inch floppies, as opposed to 5-1/4 VANILLA floppies and the now-obsolescent 8-inch variety. This term may be headed for obsolescence as 5-1/4 inchers pass out of use, only to be revived if anybody floats a sub-3-inch floppy standard. MICROTAPE (mi'kroh-tayp) n. Occasionally used to mean a DECtape, as opposed to a MACROTAPE. MISFEATURE (mis-fee'chr) n. A feature which eventually screws someone, possibly because it is not adequate for a new situation which has evolved. It is not the same as a bug because fixing it involves a gross philosophical change to the structure of the system involved. Often a former feature becomes a misfeature because a tradeoff was made whose parameters subsequently changed (possibly only in the judgment of the implementors). "Well, yeah, it's kind of a misfeature that file names are limited to six characters, but we're stuck with it for now." MOBY (moh'bee) [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, or complex. "A moby frob." 2. n. The maximum address space of a machine (see Appendix B). 3. A title of address (never of third-person reference), usually used to show admiration, respect, and/or friendliness to a competent hacker. "So, moby Knight, how's the CONS machine doing?" 4. adj. In backgammon, doubles on the dice, as in "moby sixes", "moby ones", etc. MOBY FOO, MOBY WIN, MOBY LOSS: standard emphatic forms. FOBY MOO: a spoonerism due to Greenblatt. The MOBY constructions are now relatively rare outside MIT. MODE (mohd) n. A general state, usually used with an adjective describing the state. "No time to hack; I'm in thesis mode." Usage: in its jargon sense, MODE is most often said of people, though it is sometimes applied to programs and inanimate objects. "If you're on a TTY, E will switch to non-display mode." In particular, see HACK MODE, DAY MODE, NIGHT MODE, and YOYO MODE; also COM MODE, TALK MODE, and GABRIEL MODE. MODULO (mod'yuh-low) prep. Except for. From mathematical terminology: one can consider saying that 4=22 "except for the 9's" (4=22 mod 9). "Well, LISP seems to work okay now, modulo that GC bug." MONKEY UP (muhn'kee uhp) v. To hack together hardware for a particular task, especially a one-shot job. Connotes an extremely CRUFTY and consciously temporary solution. MONSTROSITY (mon-stro'si-tee) 1. n. A ridiculously ELEPHANTINE program or system, esp. one which is buggy or only marginally functional. 2. The quality of being monstrous (see `Peculiar nouns' in the discussion of jargonification). MOORE'S LAW (morz law) [folklore] The observation that the logic density of silicon integrated circuits has closely followed the curve (bits per inch ** 2) = 2 ** (n - 1962); that is, the amount of information storable in one square inch of silicon has roughly doubled yearly every year since the technology was invented. MOTAS (moh-tahs) [USENET, Member Of The Appropriate Sex] n. A potential or (less often) actual sex partner. See MOTOS, MOTSS, S.O. MOTOS (moh-tohs) [USENET, Member Of The Other Sex] n. A potential or (less often) actual sex partner. See MOTAS, MOTSS, S.O. Less common than MOTSS or MOTAS, which has largely displaced it. MOTSS (mots) [USENET, Member Of The Same Sex] n. Esp. one considered as a possible sexual partner, e.g. by a gay or lesbian. The gay-issues board on USENET is called soc.motss. See MOTOS and MOTAS, which derive from it. Also see S.O. MOUNT (mownt) v. 1. To attach a removable storage volume to a machine. In elder days and on mainframes this verb was used almost exclusively of tapes; nowadays (especially under UNIX) it is more likely to refer to a disk volume. 2. By extension, to attach any removable device such as a sensor, robot arm, or MEATWARE subsystem (see Appendix A). MOUSE AROUND (mows ar-ownd') v. To explore public portions of a large system, esp. a network such as Internet via FTP or TELNET, looking for interesting stuff to SNARF. MOUSO (mow'so) n. [by analogy with `typo'] An error in mouse usage resulting in an inappropriate selection or graphic garbage on the screen. MS-DOS (em-es-dahs) n. A clone of CP/M (q.v.) for the 8088 crufted together in six weeks by hacker Tim Patterson, who is said to have regretted it ever since. Now the highest-unit-volume OS in history. See MESS-DOS. MULTICS (muhl'tiks) n. [from Multi-Tasking Computer System] An early (late 1960s) timesharing operating system co-designed by a consortium including Honeywell and Bell Laboratories. All the members but Honeywell eventually pulled out after determining that SECOND-SYSTEM SYNDROME had bloated Multics to the point of practical unusability (though Honeywell did later comercialize it, it was never very successful). 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 (q.v.). For this and other reasons aspects of the Multics design remain a topic of occasional debate among hackers. See also BRAIN DAMAGE. MUMBLAGE (mum'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 what it is or how it works, or like "all that crap" when "mumble" is being used as an implicit replacement for obscenities. MUMBLE (mum'bl) interj. 1. Said when the correct response is either 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 big long discussion. "Well, mumble." 2. Sometimes used as an expression of disagreement. "I think we should buy it." "Mumble!" Common variant: MUMBLE FROTZ. MUNCH (muhnch) [often confused with "mung", q.v.] v. To transform information in a serial fashion, often requiring large amounts of computation. To trace down a data structure. Related to CRUNCH (q.v.), but connotes less pain. MUNCHING SQUARES (muhnch'ing skweirz) n. A DISPLAY HACK dating back to the PDP-1, which employs a trivial computation (involving XOR'ing of x-y display coordinates - see HAKMEM items 146-148) to produce an impressive display of moving, growing, and shrinking squares. The hack usually has a parameter (usually taken from toggle switches) which when well-chosen can produce amazing effects. Some of these, discovered recently on the LISP machine, have been christened MUNCHING TRIANGLES, MUNCHING W'S, and MUNCHING MAZES. MUNCHKIN (muhnch'kin) n. A teenage-or-younger micro enthusiast bashing 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 BITTY BOX. MUNDANE (muhn-dayn') [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..." MUNG (muhng) alt. MUNGE (muhnj) [recursive acronym for Mung Until No Good] v. 1. To make changes to a file, often large-scale, usually irrevocable. Occasionally accidental. See BLT. 2. To destroy, usually accidentally, occasionally maliciously. The system only mungs things maliciously. See SCRIBBLE, MANGLE, TRASH. Reports from USENET suggest that the prononciation `munj' is now usual in speech, but `mung' is still common in program comments. MUSIC (myoo's@k) n. A common extracurricular interest of hackers (compare SCIENCE-FICTION FANDOM, ORIENTAL FOOD; see also FILK). It is widely believed among hackers that there is a substantial correlation between whatever mysterious traits underly hacking ability (on the one hand) and musical talent and sensitivity (on the other). It is certainly the case that 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 the sort of elaborate instrumental jazz/rock that used to be called `progressive' and isn't recorded much any more. Also, the hacker's musical range tends to be wide; many can listen with equal appreciation to (say) Talking Heads, Yes, Spirogyra, Scott Joplin, King Sunny Ade, The Pretenders, or one of Bach's Brandenburg Concerti. It is also apparently true that hackerdom includes a much higher concentration of talented amateur musicians than one would expect from a similar-sized control group of MUNDANES. MUTTER (muh'tr) v. To quietly enter a command not meant for the ears of ordinary mortals. Frequently in "mutter an INCANTATION". Back to Top = N = N (en) adj. 1. Some large and indeterminate number of objects; "There were N bugs in that crock!"; also used in its original sense of a variable name. 2. An arbitrarily large (and perhaps infinite) number. 3. A variable whose value is specified by the current context. "We'd like to order N wonton soups and a family dinner for N-1." 4. NTH: adj. The ordinal counterpart of N. "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 also RANDOM NUMBERS. NAILED TO THE WALL (nayld too dh@ wahl) [like a trophy] adj. Said of a bug finally eliminated after protracted and even heroic effort. NANOACRE (nan'o-ay-kr) n. An area of space, or real-estate on a VLSI chip. The term derives its amusement value from the fact that VLSI nanoacres have costs in the same range as real acres once one figures in design and fabrication-setup costs. NANOBOT (nan'oh-bot) n. A robot of microscopic proportions, presumably built by means of NANOTECHNOLOGY (q.v.). As yet, only used informally (and speculatively!). Also sometimes called a `nanoagent'. NANOCOMPUTER (nan'oh-k:m-pyoo-tr) a computer whose switching elements are molecular in size. Designs for mechanical nanocomputers which use single-molecule sliding rods for their logic have been proposed. The controller for a NANOBOT would be a nanocomputer. NANOTECHNOLOGY (nan'-oh-tek-naw'l:-ji) 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 nano-fabrication experiments are taking place now (1990), for example with the deposition of individual Xenon atoms on a nickel substrate to spell the logo of a certain very large computer company by two of its physicists. 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. NASTYGRAM (nas'tee-gram) n. 1. A protocol packet or item of email that takes advantage of misfeatures or security holes on the target system to do untoward things (the latter is also called a `letterbomb'). 2. Disapproving mail, esp. from a net.god, pursuant to a violation of NETIQUETTE. NEOPHILIA (nee-oh-fil'-ee-uh) 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, theater people, the membership 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 SF, MUSIC and ORIENTAL FOOD. NET POLICE (net p@-lees') n. 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 CODE POLICE. NETHACK (net'hak) n. See HACK, sense #12. NETIQUETTE (net'ee-ket, net'i-ket) n. Conventions of politeness recognized on USENET, such as: avoidance of cross-posting to inappropriate groups, or refraining from commercial pluggery on the net, NEEP-NEEP (neep neep) [onomatopoic, 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 term NEEP-NEEPING applies specifically to the long conversations about computers that tend to develop in the corners at most SF-convention parties. Fandom has a related proverb to the effect that "Hacking is a conversational black hole!" [which, by coincidence, has been attributed to my SO -- ESR] NET. (net dot) [USENET] Prefix used to describe people and events related to USENET. From the pre-GREAT-RENAMING newsgroup names, e.g. net.singles. Includes net.god(s) (q.v.), net.goddesses (various charismatic women with circles of on-line admirers), net.lurkers, (see LURKER), net.parties (a synonym for BOINK sense #2 (q.v.)) and many similar constructs. NET.GOD (net god) n. Used to refer to anyone who has satisfies some combination of the following conditions: has been visible on USENET for more than five years, ran one of the original backbone sites, moderated an important newsgroup, wrote news software, or knows Gene, Mark, Rick, Henry, Chuq, and Greg personally. See DEMIGOD. NETWORK ADDRESS (netwerk @-dres') n. As used by hackers, means an address on THE NETWORK (almost always a BANG PATH or INTERNET ADDRESS). An essential to be taken seriously by hackers; in particular, persons or organizations claiming to understand, work with, sell to, or recruit from among hackers that *don't* display net addresses are quietly presumed to be clueless poseurs and mentally FLUSHED (sense #3). 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 connotative signal that one identifies with hackerdom (like lodge pins among Masons or tie-died 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. NETWORK, THE (net'werk, dh@) n. 1. The union of all the major academic and noncommercial/hacker-oriented networks such as Internet, the old ARPANET, NSFNet, BITNET and the virtual UUCP and USENET "networks", plus the corporate in-house networks that gate to them. A site is generally considered `on the network' if it can be reached through some compination 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 _Schrodinger's_Cat_, to which many hackers have subsequently decided they belong (this is an example of HA HA, ONLY SERIOUS). NEWGRP WARS (n[y]oo'grp wohrz) [USENET] n. Salvoes of duelling `newgrp' and `rmgroup' messages sometimes exchanged by persons on opposite sides of a dispute over whether a NEWSGROUP should be created netwide. 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 anarchicic `alt' hierarchy, the names of newsgroups themselves become a form of comment or humor; cf. 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 flamers. NEWSFROUP (n[y]oos'froop) [USENET] n. Silly written-only synonym for NEWSGROUP, originated as a typo but now in regular use on USENET'S talk.bizarre and other not-real-tightly-wrapped groups. NEWSGROUP (n[y]oos'groop) [USENET] n. One of USENET's large collection of topic groups. Among the best-known are comp.lang.c (the C-language forum), comp.unix.wizards (for UNIX wizards), rec.arts.sf-lovers (for science-fiction fans) and talk.politics.misc (miscellaneous political discussions and flamage). NIGHT MODE (niet mohd) n. See PHASE (of people). NIL (nil) [from LISP terminology for "false"] No. Usage: used in reply to a question, particularly one asked using the "-P" convention. See T. NON-OPTIMAL SOLUTION (non-op'ti-m@l so-lu'shn) n. 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. NONTRIVIAL (non-tri'vi-@l) adj. Requiring real thought or significant computing power. Often used as an understated way of saying that a problem is quite difficult. See TRIVIAL, UNINTERESTING. NO-OP (noh-op) alt. NOP (nop) [no operation] n. 1. A machine instruction that does nothing (sometimes used in assembler-level programming as filler for data areas). 2. A person who contributes nothing to a project, or has nothing going on upstairs, or both. As in "he's a no-op." NP- (en pee) pref. Extemely. Used to modify adjectives describing a level or quality of difficulty. "Getting this algorithm to perform correctly in every case is NP-annoying." This is generalized from the computer science terms "NP-hard" and "NP-easy". NP is the set of Nondeterministic-Polynomial algorithms, those which can be completed by a nondeterministic finite state machine in an amount of time that is a polynomial function of the size of the input.) NUKE (nook) v. 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 DYKE, applied to smaller things such as features or code sections. NUXI PROBLEM, THE (nuk'see pro'blm, dh@) 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". See also, BIG-ENDIAN, LITTLE-ENDIAN, SWAB, and BYTESEXUAL. Back to Top = O = OBSCURE (ob'skyoor) adj. Used in an exaggeration of its normal meaning, to imply a total lack of comprehensibility. "The reason for that last crash is obscure." "FIND's command syntax is obscure." MODERATELY OBSCURE implies that it could be figured out but probably isn't worth the trouble. OBSCURE IN THE EXTREME is a preferred emphatic form. OBFUSCATED C CONTEST (ob'fus-cay-ted see kon'test) n. Annual contest run since 1984 over THE NETWORK by Landon Curt Noll & friends. The overall winner is he who produces the most unreadable, creative and bizarre working C program; various other prizes are awarded at the judges' whim. Given C's terse syntax and macro-preprocessor facilities, this given 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. OCTAL FORTY (ok'tl for'tee) n. Hackish way of saying "I'm drawing a blank" (octal 40 is the ASCII space charater). See WALL. OFF THE TROLLEY (of dh@ tro'lee) adj. Describes the behavior of a program which malfunctions but doesn't actually CRASH or get halted by the operating system. See GLITCH, BUG, DEEP SPACE. OFFLINE (of'lien) adv. Not now or not here. Example: "Let's take this discussion offline." ONE BELL SYSTEM (IT WORKS) This was the output from the old Unix V6 "1" command. The "1" command also contained a random number generator which gave it a one in ten chance of recursively executing itself. ONE-LINER WARS (wuhn-lie'nr worz) n. Popular game among hackers who code in the language APL. 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. [This is not *quite* as silly as it sounds; I myself have coded one-line LIFE programs and once uttered a one-liner that performed lexical analysis of its input string followed by a dictionary lookup for good measure -- ESR] OOBLICK (oo'blik) n. A bizarre semi-liquid sludge made from cornstarch and water. Enjoyed among hackers who make batches for 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. OPEN (oh'p@n) 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 def-fun foo, open eks close, open, plus ekx one, close close." See CLOSE. OPEN SWITCH (oh'p@n swich) [IBM] n. An unresolved issue. OPERATING SYSTEM (ah'per-ay-ting sis'tm) 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 the operating system provides and its general design philosophy exert an extremely strong influence on programming style and the technical culture that grows up around a machine. Hacker folklore has been shaped primarily by the UNIX, ITS, TOPS-10, TOPS-20/TWENEX, VMS, CP/M, MS/DOS, and MULTICS operating systems (most critically by ITS and UNIX). Each of these has its own entry, which see. ORANGE BOOK, THE (oh'rnj buk, dh@) n. The U.S. Government's standards document (Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria, DOD standard 5200.28-STD, December, 1985) characterizing secure computing architectures, defining levels A1 (least secure) through C3. Stock UNIXes are roughly C2. See SILVER BOOK, WHITE BOOK, PURPLE BOOK. ORIENTAL FOOD (oh-ree-en'tl 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 which 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 3 times out of 4. See also CHINESE RAVS, GREAT-WALL, STIR-FRIED RANDOM. ORTHOGONAL (or-tho'guh-nl) [from mathematics] n. Mutually independent; well-separated; sometimes, irrelevant to. Used to describe sets of primitives or capabilities which, 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 MC68000 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 `and', `or' and `not' is not (because any one of these can be expressed in terms of the other two via De Morgan's Laws). OS (oh ess) 1. [Operating System] n. Acronym heavily used in email, occasionally in speech. 2. obs. n. On ITS, an output spy. OS/2 (oh ess 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. Cited here because mentioning it is always good for a cheap laugh among hackers - the design was so bad that three years after introduction you could still count the major APPs shipping for it on the fingers of two hands. See VAPORWARE, MONSTROSITY, CRETINOUS, SECOND-SYSTEM SYNDROME. OVERRUN SCREW (oh'v@r-ruhn scroo) [C programming] n. A variety of FANDANGO ON CORE produced by scribbling past the end of an array (C has no checks for this). This is relatively benign and easy to spot if the array is static; if it is auto, the result may be to SMASH THE STACK. 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 (frequently) a core dump on the next operation to use stdio or malloc(3) itself. See also MEMORY LEAK, ALIASING SCREW, PRECEDENCE SCREW, FANDANGO ON CORE. Back to Top = P = PAGE IN (payj in) [MIT] v. To become aware of one's surroundings again after having paged out (see PAGE OUT). Usually confined to the sarcastic comment, "So-and-so pages in. Film at 11." See FILM AT 11. PAGE OUT (payj owt) [MIT] v. 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. PANIC (pa'nik) [UNIX] v. An action taken by a process or the entire operating system when an unrecoverable error is discovered. The action usually consists of: (1) displaying localized information on the controlling terminal, (2) saving, or preparing for saving, a memory image of the process or operating system, and (3) terminating the process or rebooting the system. PARAM (p@-ram') n. Speeech-only shorthand for "parameter". Compare ARG, VAR. PARITY ERRORS (per'@-tee er'@rz) pl.n. Those 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." PARSE (pars) [from linguistic terminology] v. 1. To determine the syntactic structure of a sentence or other utterance (close to the standard English meaning). Example: "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 (usually at a Chinese restaurant). "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". PATCH (pach) 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. 2. v. To insert a patch into a piece of code. 3. [in the UNIX world] n. a set of differences between two versions of code generated with diff(1) and intended to be mechanically applied using patch(1); often used as a way of distributing permanent C code upgrades and fixes over USENET. PD (pee-dee) adj. Common abbreviation for "public domain", applied to software distributed over USENET and from Internet archive sites. Much of this software is not in fact "public domain" in the legal sense but travels under various copyrights granting reproduction and use rights to anyone who can SNARF a copy. See COPYLEFT. PDL (pid'l or pud'l) [acronym for Push Down List] n. 1. A LIFO queue (stack); more loosely, any priority queue; even more loosely, any queue. A person's pdl is the set of things he has to do in the future. One speaks of the next project to be attacked as having risen to the top of the pdl. "I'm afraid I've got real work to do, so this'll have to be pushed way down on my pdl." All these usages are also frequently found with STACK (q.v) itself as the subject noun. See PUSH and POP. 2. Dave Lebling (PDL@DM). PDP-10 [Programmable Digital Processor model 10] n. The machine that made timesharing real. Looms large in hacker folklore due to early adoption in the mid-70s 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 PDP-11 and VAX machines and dropped from DEC's line in the early '80s, and to have cut one's teeth on one is considered something of a badge of honorable old-timerhood among hackers. See TOPS-10, ITS, Appendix B. PERCENT-S (per-sent' es) [From "%s", the formatting sequence in C's printf() library function used to indicate that an arbitrary string may be inserted] n. An unspecified person or object. "I was just talking to some percent-s in administration." Compare RANDOM. PERF (perf) n. See CHAD (sense #1). PESSIMAL (pes'i-ml) [Latin-based antonym for "optimal"] adj. Maximally bad. "This is a pessimal situation." PESSIMIZING COMPILER (pes'i-miez-ing kuhm-pie'lr) [antonym of `optimizing compiler'] n. A compiler that produces object code that is worse than the straightforward or obvious translation. PHASE (fayz) 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 according to no fixed schedule. It is not uncommon to change one's phase by as much as six hours/day on a regular basis. "What's your phase?" "I've been getting in about 8 PM lately, but I'm going to work 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 used, but less frequently.) 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. PHASE OF THE MOON (fayz uhv dh@ 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." PIG, RUN LIKE A (pig, ruhn liek uh) adj. To run very slowly on given hardware, said of software. Distinct from HOG, q.v. PING (ping) [from TCP/IP terminology] n.,v. 1. Slang term for a small network message (ICMP ECHO) sent by a computer to check for the presence and aliveness of another one. Occasionally used as a phone greeting. See ACK. 2. To verify the presence of. 3. To get the attention of. From the Unix command by the same name (an acronym of "Packet INternet Groper) that sends an ICMP ECHO packet to another host. PIPELINE (piep'lien) [UNIX, orig. by Doug McIlroy; now also used under MS-DOS and elsewhere] n. A chain of FILTER programs connected "head-to-tail", that is so that the output of one becomes the input of the next. 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. PLAYPEN (play'pen) [IBM] n. A room where programmers work. Compare SALT MINES. PLUGH (ploogh) [from the ADVENT game] v. A `magic word' sometimes used as a metasyntactic variable in the style of FOO. See XYZZY. PM (pee em) 1. [from "preventive maintenence"] v. to bring down a machine for inspection or test purposes. 2. n. Abbrev. for "Presentation Manager", an ELEPHANTINE OS/2 GUI. P.O.D. (pee-oh-dee) Acronym for `Piece Of Data' (as opposed to a code section). Usage: pedantic and rare. POINTER ARITHMETIC (poyn'tr @-rith'm-@-tik') [C programmers] n. The use of increment and decrement operations on address pointers to traverse arrays or structure fields. See also BUMP. POLL (pohl) v.,n. 1. 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 ask. "I'll poll everyone and see where they want to go for lunch." POLYGON PUSHER (pol'@-gon pu'shr) n. A chip designer who spends most of his/her time at the physical layout level (which requires drawing *lots* of multi-colored polygons). POM (pee-oh-em) n. Phase of the moon (q.v.). Usage: usually used in the phrase "POM dependent" which means FLAKEY (q.v.). POP (pop) [based on the stack operation that removes the top of a stack, and the fact that procedure return addresses are saved on the stack] dialect: POPJ (pop-jay), based on the PDP-10 procedure return instruction. v. To return from a digression. By verb doubling, "Popj, popj" means roughly, "Now let's see, where were we?" See RTI. PRECEDENCE SCREW (pre's@-dens scroo) [C programmers] n. Coding error in an expression to 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 ^. Can always be avoided by suitable use of parentheses. See ALIASING SCREW, MEMORY LEAK, SMASH THE STACK, FANDANGO ON CORE, OVERRUN SCREW. PRIME TIME (priem tiem) [from TV programming] n. Normal high-usage hours on a timesharing system, the `day shift'. Avoidance of prime time is a major reason for NIGHT MODE hacking. PRIORITY INTERRUPT (prie-or'i-tee in'ter-ruhpt) [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. PROPELLER HEAD (proh-pel'r hed) n. Used by hackers, this is syn. with COMPUTER GEEK. Non-hackers sometimes use it to describe all techies. PROTOCOL (proh'tuh-kol) n. See DO PROTOCOL. PROWLER (prow'lr) [UNIX] n. A DEMON 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. PSEUDOPRIME (soo'doh-priem) n. A backgammon prime (six consecutive occupied points) with one point missing. PUNT (punt) [from the punch line of an old joke: "Drop back 15 yards and punt"] v. To give up, typically without any intention of retrying. PURPLE BOOK, THE (per'pl buk) n. The System V Interface Definition. The covers of the first editions were an amazingly nauseating shade of off-lavender. See WHITE BOOK, SILVER BOOK, ORANGE BOOK. PUSH (push) [based on the stack operation that puts the current information on a stack, and the fact that procedure call addresses are saved on the stack] dialect: PUSHJ (push-jay), based on the PDP-10 procedure call instruction. v. To enter upon a digression, to save the current discussion for later. Back to Top = Q = QUANTUM BOGODYNAMICS (kwahn'tm boh'goh-die-nam'iks) n. Theory promulgated by ESR (one of the authors) which characterizes the universe in terms of bogon sources (such as politicians, used-car salesmen, TV evangelists, and SUITs 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 cause them to emit secondary bogons as well); however, the precise mechanics of the bogon-computron interaction are not yet understood and remain to be elucidated. Quantum bogodynamics is most frequently 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. QUES (kwess) 1. n. The question mark character ("?"). 2. interj. What? Also QUES QUES? See WALL. QUX (kwuhx) The fourth of the standard metasyntactic variables, after BAZ and before the QUU*X series. See FOO, BAR, BAZ, QUUX. QUUX (kwooks) [invented by Steele] 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, four U's in seven letters).] 1. Originally, a meta-word 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. 2. interj. See FOO; however, denotes very little disgust, and is uttered mostly for the sake of the sound of it. 3. n. Refers to one of three people who went to Boston Latin School and eventually to MIT: THE GREAT QUUX: Guy L. Steele Jr. THE LESSER QUUX: David J. Littleboy THE MEDIOCRE QUUX: Alan P. Swide (This taxonomy is said to be similarly applied to three Frankston brothers at MIT.) QUUX, without qualification, usually refers to The Great Quux, who is somewhat infamous for light verse and for the "Crunchly" cartoons. 4. QUUXY: adj. Of or pertaining to a QUUX. 5. n. The Micro Quux (Sam Lewis). Back to Top = R = RANDOM (ran'dm) 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. Frivolous; unproductive; undirected (pejorative). "He's just a random loser." 4. Incoherent or inelegant; 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. 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 ac's, but randomly uses seven for assorted non-overlapping purposes, so that no one else can invoke it without first saving four extra ac's. 6. In no particular order, though deterministic. "The I/O channels are in a pool, and when a file is opened one is chosen randomly." n. 7. A random hacker; used particularly of high school students who soak up computer time and generally get in the way. 8. (occasional MIT usage) One who lives at Random Hall. J. RANDOM is often prefixed to a noun to make a "name" out of it (by comparison to common names such as "J. Fred Muggs"). The most common uses are "J. Random Loser" and "J. Random Nurd" ("Should J. Random Loser be allowed to gun down other people?"), but it can be used just as an elaborate version of RANDOM in any sense. See also SOME RANDOM X. RANDOM NUMBERS (ran'd@m nuhm'brz) n. When one wishes to specify a large but random number of things, and the context is inappropriate for `N' (q.v.), certain numbers are preferred by hacker tradition (that is, easily recognized as placeholders). These include 17 Long described at MIT as "the least random number". Also see 23. 23 A sacred number of Eris, Goddess of Discord (along with 17 & 5). 42 The Answer to the Question of Life, the Universe and Everything. 69 From the sexual act. This one was favored in MIT's ITS culture. 666 The Number of the Beast. For further enlightenment, consult the _Principia_Discordia_, _The_Hitchhiker's_Guide_To_The_Galaxy_, any porn movie, and the Christian Bible's _Book_Of_Revelations_. See also DISCORDIANISM. RANDOMNESS (ran'dm-nes) n. An unexplainable misfeature; gratuitous inelegance. Also, a HACK or CROCK which depends on a complex combination of coincidences (or rather, the combination upon which the crock depends). "This hack can output characters 40-57 by putting the character in the accumulator field of an XCT and then extracting 6 bits -- the low two bits of the XCT opcode are the right thing." "What randomness!" RAPE (rayp) v. To (metaphorically) screw someone or something, violently. Usage: 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." RARE (reir) [UNIX] adj. CBREAK mode (character-by-character with interrupts enabled). Distinguished from `raw' and `cooked', but unlike them this term is strictly a creature of folklore, not found in the manuals. Usage: rare. RASTER BURN (ras'tr bern) 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. RAVE (rayv) [WPI] v. 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. Also used to describe a less negative form of blather, such as friendly bullshitting. RAVE ON! (rayv on) imp. Sarcastic invitation to continue a RAVE, often by someone who wishes the raver would get a clue but realizes this is unlikely. READ-ONLY USER (reed'ohn-lee yoo'zr) n. Describes a LUSER who uses computers almost exclusively for reading USENET, bulletin boards and email, as opposed to writing code or purveying useful information. See TWINK. REAL SOON NOW (reel soon now) [orig. from SF's fanzine community] adj. 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 the gods/fates/other time commitments permit the speaker to get to it. Often abbreviated RSN. REAL TIME (reel tiem) adv. Doing something while people are watching or waiting. "I asked her how to find the caller's pc on the stack and she came up with an algorithm in real time." REAL USER (reel yoo'zr) 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 (research project, course, etc.). See USER. REAL WORLD, THE (reel werld, dh@) n. 1. In programming, those institutions at which programming may be used in the same sentence as FORTRAN, COBOL, RPG, IBM, etc. 2. To programmers, the location of non-programmers and activities not related to programming. 3. A universe in which the standard dress is shirt and tie and in which a person's working hours are defined as 9 to 5. 4. The location of the status quo. 5. 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 talking about a deceased person. See also FEAR AND LOATHING and UNINTERESTING. REINCARNATION, CYCLE OF (ree-in-kar-nay'shn) 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 towards more computing power as it does its job, then somebody notices that it's 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. REGULAR EXPRESSIONS (reg'yoo-lr ek-spre-shns) [UNIX] The UNIX conventions for filename and regular-expression wildcarding have become sufficiently pervasive than many hackers use some of them in written English, especially in email or news on technical topics. Those commonly encountered include: * wildcard for any string (see UN*X, U*IX). ? wildcard for any character (generally only read this way in the middle of a word. [] set-of-characters braces. Some examples: "He said his name was [KC]arl" (expresses ambiguity). "That got posted to talk.politics.*" (all the talk.politics subgroups on USENET). Other examples are given under the entry for `X'. The * wildcard has a name of its own; it's a `Kleene star'. RELIGIOUS ISSUES (ree-lij'-@s is'yoos) n. Questions which seemingly cannot be raised without touching off a FLAME WAR, such as "What is the best editor/language operating system/architecture". See also THEOLOGY. RELIGIOUS WAR (ree-lij'@s wor)[from USENET, but may predate it] n. FLAME WARS over RELIGIOUS ISSUES. REPLICATOR (rep'l:-kay-t:r) any construct that acts to produce copies of itself; this could be a living organism, an idea (see MEME), a program (see WORM, WABBIT and VIRUS), or a robot. RETROCOMPUTING (ret'-roh-k@m-pyoo'ting) n. Refers to emulations of way-behind-the state-of-the-art hardware or software, or implementations of never-was-state-of-the-art; esp. if such implementations are elaborate practical jokes and/or parodies of more `serious' designs. Perhaps the most widely distributed retrocomputing utility was the pnch(6) program on V7 and other early UNIX versions, which would accept up to 80 characters of text argument and display the corresponding pattern in Hollerith card code. Other well-known retrocomputing hacks have included the language INTERCAL, a jcl-emulating shell for UNIX, and the card-punch-emulating editor named 029. [This term has, in the later 90's taken to mean the retoration of vintage systems to original working order, as well as integrating these older systems into newer systems - John Teehan] RFC (ahr ef see) n. Request For Comment. One of a long-established series of numbered Internet standards widely followed by commercial and PD software in the Internet and UNIX communities. Perhaps the single most influential one has been RFC-822 (the Internet mail-format standard). The RFCs are unusual in that they are floated by technical experts acting on their own initiative and reviewed by the Internet at large, rather than formally promulgated through an institution such as ANSI. RICE BOX (ries boks) [from ham radio slang] n. Any Asian-made commodity computer, esp. an 8086, 80286, 80386 or 80486-based machine built to IBM PC-compatible ISA or EISA-bus standards. RIGHT THING, THE (riet thing, dh@) n. That which is "obviously" the correct or appropriate thing to use, do, say, etc. Use of this term often implies that in fact reasonable people may disagree. "Never let your conscience keep you from doing the right thing!" "What's the right thing for LISP to do when it reads `(.)'?" Antonym: THE WRONG THING (q.v.). ROACH (rohch) [Bell Labs] v. To destroy, esp. of a data structure. Hardware gets TOASTed, software gets roached. ROBUST (roh'buhst) adj. Said of a system which has demonstrated an ability to recover gracefully from the whole range of exception conditions in a given environment. One step below BULLETPROOF. Compare SMART, oppose BRITTLE. ROGUE (rohg) [UNIX] n. Graphic Dungeons-And-Dragons-like game 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, and has since become one of UNIX's most important and heavily used application libraries. See HACK. ROOM-TEMPERATURE IQ (room tem'prat-yoor ie-kyoo) [IBM] 80 or below. Used in describing expected the intelligence range of the LUSER. As in "Well, but how's this interface gonna play with the room-temperature IQ crowd?" See DROOL-PROOF PAPER. RTFM (ahr-tee-ef-em) [UNIX] Abbrev. for "Read The F**king Manual". Used by GURUs to brush off questions they consider trivial or annoying. Compare DON'T DO THAT, THEN. RTI (ahr-tee-ie) interj. The mnemonic for the `return from interrupt' instruction on Intel microprocessors. Equivalent to "Now, where was I?" or used to end a conversational digression. See POP, POPJ. RUDE (rood) [WPI] adj. 1. (of a program) Badly written. 2. Functionally poor, e.g. a program which is very difficult to use because of gratuitously poor (random?) design decisions. See CUSPY. Back to Top = S = SACRED (say'kr@d) adj. Reserved for the exclusive use of something (a metaphorical extension of the standard meaning). "Accumulator 7 is sacred to the UUO handler." Often means that anyone may look at the sacred object, but clobbering it will screw whatever it is sacred to. SADISTICS (s@'dis'tiks) n. University slang for statistics and probability theory, often used by hackers. SAGA (saga) [WPI] n. A cuspy but bogus raving story dealing with N random broken people. SAIL (sayl) n. Stanford University Artificial Intelligence Lab. An important site in the early development of LISP (with the MIT AI LAB, CMU and the UNIX community) one of the major founts of hacker culture traditions. The SAIL machines were shut down in late May 1990, scant weeks after the MIT AI lab's ITS cluster went down for the last time. SALT MINES (sahlt miens) 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 x number of years. Noted for their absence of sunshine. Compare PLAYPEN. SANDBENDER (sand'ben-dr) [IBM] n. A person involved with silicon lithography and the physical design of chips. Compare IRONMONGER, POLYGON PUSHER. SCIENCE-FICTION FANDOM (si'@ns fik'shn fan'dm) n. Another voluntary subculture having a very heavy overlap with hackerdom; almost all hackers read SF and/or fantasy fiction avidly, and many go to "cons" (SF conventions) or are involved in fandom-connected activities like the Society for Creative Anachronism. Some hacker slang originated in SF fandom; see DEFENESTRATION, GREAT-WALL, CYBERPUNK, H INFIX, HA HA ONLY SERIOUS, IMHO, MUNDANE, NEEP-NEEP, REAL SOON NOW, SNOG. Additionally, the jargon terms CYBERSPACE, GO FLATLINE, ICE, VIRUS, and WORM originated in SF itself. SCRATCH (skrach) [from "scratchpad"] adj. A device or recording medium attached to a machine for testing purposes; one which can be SCRIBBLED on without loss. Usually in the combining forms SCRATCH MEMORY, SCRATCH DISK, SCRATCH TAPE, SCRATCH VOLUME. See SCRATCH MONKEY. SCRATCH MONKEY (skrach muhn'kee) n. As in, "Before testing or reconfiguring, always mount a". Used in memory of Mabel, the Swimming Wonder Monkey who expired when a computer vendor PM'd a machine which was regulating the gas mixture that the monkey was breathing at the time. See Appendix A. A mantram used to advise caution when dealing with irreplacable data or devices. See SCRATCH. SCREW (scroo) [MIT] n. A LOSE, usually in software. Especially used for user-visible misbehavior caused by a bug or misfeature. SCREWAGE (scroo'@j) n. Like LOSSAGE (q.v.) but connotes that the failure is do to a designed-in misfeature rather than a simple inadequacy or mere bug. SCROG (skrog) [Bell Labs] v. To damage, trash or corrupt a data structure. as in "the cblock got scrogged". Also reported as SKROG, and ascribed to "The Wizard of Id" comix. Equivalent to SCRIBBLE or MANGLE, q.v. SCROZZLE (skro'zl) v. Verb used when a self-modifying code segment runs incorrectly and corrupts the running program, or vital data. "The damn compiler scrozzled itself again!" SCRIBBLE (skri'bl) 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. SEARCH-AND-DESTROY MODE (serch-@nd-d@s-troy' mohd) 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 SYNDROME (sek'@nd sis'tm sin'drohm) n. When designing the successor to a relatively small, elegant and successful system, there is a tendency to become grandiose in one's success and perpetrate an ELEPHANTINE feature-laden monstrosity. The term `second-system syndrome' was first used for this affliction in describing how the success of CTSS led to the debacle that was MULTICS. SEGGIE (seg'ee) [UNIX] n. Reported from Britain as a shorthand for `segment violation', an attempted access to a protected memory area usually resulting in a CORE DUMP. SELF-REFERENCE (self ref'@-rens) n. See SELF-REFERENCE. SELVAGE (selv'@j) n. See CHAD (sense #1). SEMI (se'mee) 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. Prefix with words such as "immediately", as a qualifier. "When is the system coming up?" "Semi-immediately." SERVER (ser'vr) n. A kind of DAEMON which performs a service for the requester, which often runs on a computer other than the one on which the server runs. A particularly common term on the Internet, which is rife with "name servers" "domain servers" "news servers" "finger servers" and the like. SEX (seks) [Sun User's Group & elsewhere] n. 1. Software EXchange. A technique invented by the blue-green algae hundereds 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. 2. The rather Freudian mnemonic often used for Sign Extend, a machine instruction found in many architectures. SHAREWARE (sheir'weir) n. FREEWARE for which the author requests some payment, usually in the accompanying documentation files or in an announcement made by the software itself. Such payment may or may not buy additional support or functionality. See GUILTWARE, CRIPPLEWARE. SHELFWARE (shelf'weir) n. Software purchased on a whim (by an individual user) or in accordance with policy (by a corporation or government) but not actually required for any particular use. Therefore, it often ends up on some shelf. SHELL (shel) [from UNIX, now used elsewhere] n. 1. On an operating system with a well-defined KERNEL (q.v.), the SHELL is the loadable command interpreter program used to pass commands to the kernel. A single kernel may support several shells with different interface styles. 2. More generally, any interface program which 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. SHIFT LEFT (RIGHT) LOGICAL (shift left (riet) lah'ji-kl) [from any of various machines' instruction sets] 1. v. To move oneself to the left (right). To move out of the way. 2. imper. Get out of that (my) seat! Usage: often used without the "logical", or as "left shift" instead of "shift left". Sometimes heard as LSH (lish), from the PDP-10 instruction set. SHRIEK (shreek) See EXCL. Occasional CMU usage, also in common use among mathematicians, especially category theorists. SIG (sig) or SIG BLOCK (sig blahk) [UNIX; often written ".sig" there] n. Short for "signature", used specifically to refer to the electronic signature block which most UNIX mail- and news-posting software will allow you to automatically 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; 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 NETWORK. SILICON (sil'i-kon) n. Hardware, esp. ICs or microprocessor-based computer systems (compare IRON). Contrasted with software. SILLY WALK (si'lee wahk) [from Monty Python] v. 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." SILO (sie'loh) 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. SILVER BOOK, THE (sil'vr buk) n. Jensen & 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. See WHITE BOOK, PURPLE BOOK, ORANGE BOOK. 16-INCH ROTARY DEBUGGER (piz'uh) [Commodore] n. Essential equipment for those late night or early morning debugging sessions. Mainly used as sustenance for the hacker. Comes in many decorator colours such as Sausage, Pepperoni, and Garbage. SLEEP (sleep) [from the UNIX sleep(3)] On a timesharing system, a process which relinquishes its claim on the scheduler until some given event occurs or a specified time delay elapses is said to `go to sleep'. SLOP (slop) n. 1. A one-sided fudge factor (q.v.). Often introduced to avoid the possibility of a fencepost error (q.v.). 2. (used by compiler freaks) The ratio of code generated by a compiler to hand-compiled code, minus 1; i.e., the space (or maybe time) you lose because you didn't do it yourself. SLOPSUCKER (slop'suhkr) n. a lowest-priority task that must wait around until everything else has "had its fill" of machine resources. Only when the machine would otherwise be idle is the task allowed to "suck up the slop." Also called a HUNGRY PUPPY. One common variety of slopsucker hunts for large prime numbers. Compare BACKGROUND. SLUGGY (sluh'gee) adj. Hackish variant of `sluggish'. Used only of people, esp. someone just waking up after a long GRONK-OUT. SLURP (slerp) v. To read a large data file entirely into core before working on it. "This program slurps in a 1K-by-1K matrix and does an FFT." SMART (smart) adj. Said of a program that does the RIGHT THING (q.v.) 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). Compare ROBUST (smart programs can be BRITTLE). SMASH THE STACK (smash dh@ stak) [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 text address. This can produce some of the most insidious data-dependent bugs known to mankind. Variants include `trash the stack', `SCRIBBLE ON the stack', `MANGLE the stack'; `*MUNG the stack' is not used as this is never done intentionally. See ALIASING SCREW, FANDANGO ON CORE, MEMORY LEAK, PRECEDENCE SCREW, OVERRUN SCREW. SMILEY (smie'lee) n. See EMOTICON. SMOKE TEST (smohk test) n. 1. A rudimentary form of testing applied to electronic equipment following repair or reconfiguration in which AC power is applied and during which the tester checks for sparks, smoke, or other dramatic signs of fundamental failure. 2. By extension, the first run of a piece of software after construction or a critical change. See MAGIC SMOKE. SMOKING CLOVER (smoh'king kloh'vr) 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 color map is then rotated. 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. This results in a striking, rainbow-hued, shimmering four-leaf clover. Gosper joked about keeping it hidden from the FDA lest it be banned. SMOP (smop) [Simple (or Small) Matter of Programming] n. A piece of code, not yet written, whose anticipated length is significantly greater than its complexity. Usage: used to refer to a program that could obviously be written, but is not worth the trouble. SNAIL-MAIL (snayl-mayl) n. Paper mail, as opposed to electronic. See EMAIL. SNARF (snarf) v. 1. To grab, esp. a large document or file for the purpose of using it either with or without the author's permission. See BLT. Variant: SNARF (IT) DOWN. (At MIT on ITS, DDT has a command called :SNARF which grabs a job from another (inferior) DDT.) 2. [in the UNIX community] to fetch a file or set of files across a network. See also BLAST. SNARF & BARF (snarf-n-barf) n. The act of grabbing a region of text using a WIMP (q.v.) environment (Window, Icon, Mouse, Pointer) and then "stuffing" the contents of that region into another region or into the same region, to avoid re-typing a command line. 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" SNIFF (snif) v.,n. Synonym for POLL. SNOG (snog) [from old-time science-fiction fandom] v.i. Equivalent to mainstream "make out" describing sexual activity, especially exploratory. Most often encountered as participle SNOGGING. "Oh, they're off snogging somewhere." S.O. (ess-oh) n. Acronym for Significant Other, almost invariably written abbreviated and pronounced "ess-oh" by hackers. In fact the form without periods "SO" is most common. Used to refer to one's primary relationship, esp. a live-in to whom one is not married. See MOTAS, MOTOS, MOTSS. SOFTWARE ROT (soft'weir raht) n. Hypothetical disease the existence of which has been deduced from the observation that unused programs or features will stop working after sufficient time has passed, even if "nothing has changed". Also known as BIT DECAY, BIT ROT. Occasionally this turns out to be a real problem due to media failure. 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. SOME RANDOM X (suhm randm eks) adj. Used to indicate a member of class X, with the implication that the particular X is interchangeable with most other Xs in whatever context was being discussed. "I think some random cracker tripped over the gust timeout last night" SORCEROR'S APPRENTICE MODE (sor'ser'ers @-pren'tis mohd) n. A bug in a protocol where, under some circumstances, the receipt of a message causes more than one message 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. SPACEWAR (spays'wohr) n. A space-combat simulation game first implemented on the PDP-1 at MIT in 1960-61. SPACEWAR aficionados formed the core of the early hacker culture at MIT. Ten years later a descendent of the game motivated Ken Thompson to invent UNIX (q.v.). Ten years after that, SPACEWAR was commercialized as one of the first video games; descendants are still feeping in video arcades everywhere. SPAGHETTI CODE (sp@-get'ee kohd) n. Describes code with a complex and tangled control structure, esp. one using many GOTOs, exceptions or other `unstructured' branching constructs. Pejorative. SPAGHETTI INHERITANCE (sp@-get'ee in-her'i-t@ns) 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. 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 programs which are perceived to have little more than a flashy interface going for them. Which meaning should be drawn depends delicately on tone of voice and context. SPIN (spin) v. Equivalent to BUZZ (q.v.). More common among C and UNIX programmers. SPLAT (splat) n. 1. Name used in many places (DEC, IBM, and others) for the ASCII star ("*") character. 2. [MIT] Name used by some people for the ASCII pound-sign ("#") character. 3. [Stanford] Name used by some people for the Stanford/ITS extended ASCII circle-x character. (This character is also called "circle-x", "blobby", and "frob", among other names.) 4. [Stanford] Name for the semi-mythical extended ASCII circle-plus character. 5. Canonical name for an output routine that outputs whatever the the local interpretation of splat is. Usage: nobody really agrees what character "splat" is, but the term is common. SPOOGE (spooj) 1. n. inexplicable or arcane code, or random and probably incorrect output from a computer program 2. v. to generate code or output as in definition 1. STACK (stak) n. See PDL. The STACK usage is probably more common outside universities. STATE (stayt) n. Condition, situation. "What's the state of NEWIO?" "It's winning away." "What's your state?" "I'm about to gronk out." As a special case, "What's the state of the world?" (or, more silly, "State-of-world-P?") means "What's new?" or "What's going on?" STIR-FRIED RANDOM (ster-fried ran'dm) alt. STIR-FRIED MUMBLE (ster-fried mum'bl) n. Term used for frequent best dish of those hackers who can cook. Conists of random fresh veggies and meat wokked with random spices. Tasty and economical. See RANDOM, GREAT-WALL, CHINESE RAVS, ORIENTAL FOOD. STOMP ON (stomp on) v. To inadvertently overwrite something important, usually automatically. Example: "All the work I did this weekend got stomped on last night by the nightly-server script." Compare SCRIBBLE, MANGLE, TRASH, SCROG, ROACH. STOPPAGE (sto'p@j) n. Extreme lossage (see LOSSAGE) resulting in something (usually vital) becoming completely unusable. STUNNING (stuhn'ning) adj. Mind-bogglingly stupid. Usually used in sarcasm. "You want to code *what* in ADA? That's...a stunning idea!" See also NON-OPTIMAL SOLUTION. SUBSHELL (suhb'shel) [UNIX, MS-DOS] n. An OS command interpreter (see SHELL) spawned from within a program, such that exit from the command interpreter returns one to the parent program in a state that allows it to continue execution. Oppose CHAIN. SUIT (soot) n. 1. Ugly and uncomfortable `business clothing' often worn by non-hackers. Invariably worn with a `tie', a strangulation device which partially cuts off the blood supply to the brain. It is thought that this explains much about the behavior of suit- wearers. 2. A person who habitually wears suits, as distinct from a techie or hacker. See LOSER, BURBLE and BRAIN-DAMAGED. SUPERPROGRAMMER (soo'per-pro'gra-mr) n. See WIZARD, HACKER, GURU. Usage: rare. (Becoming more common among IBM and Yourdon types.) SUZIE COBOL (soo'zee koh'bol) 1. [IBM, prob. fr. Frank Zappa's "little Suzy Creamcheese"] n. A coder straight out of training school who knows everything except the benefits of comments in plain English. Also (fashionable among personkind wishing to avoid accusations of sexism) `Sammy Cobol' 2. [generalization proposed by ESR] Meta-name for any CODE GRINDER, analogous to J. RANDOM HACKER. SWAB (swob) [From the PDP-11 "byte swap" instruction] 1. v. to solve the NUXI PROBLEM by swapping bytes in a file. 2. Also, the program in V7 UNIX used to perform this action. See also BIG-ENDIAN, LITTLE-ENDIAN, BYTESEXUAL. SWAPPED (swopt) adj. From the use of secondary storage devices to implement virtual memory in computer systems. Something which is SWAPPED IN is available for immediate use in main memory, and otherwise is SWAPPED OUT. Often used metaphorically to refer to people's memories ("I read TECO ORDER every few months to keep the information swapped in.") or to their own availability ("I'll swap you in as soon as I finish looking at this other problem."). Compare PAGE IN, PAGE OUT. SWIZZLE (swi'zl) v. To convert external names or references within a data structure into direct pointers when the data structure is brought into main memory from external storage; also called POINTER SWIZZLING; the converse operation is sometimes termed UNSWIZZLING. SYNC (sink) [from UNIX] n.,v. 1. To force all pending I/O to the disk. 2. 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. See FLUSH. SYNTACTIC SUGAR (sin-tak'tik shu'gr) n. Features added to a language or formalism to make it `sweeter' for humans, that do not affect the expressiveness of the formalism (compare CHROME). Used esp. when there is an obvious and trivial translation of the `sugar' feature into other constructs already present in the notation. Example: the \n, \t, \r, and \b escapes in C strings, which could be expressed as octal escapes. SYSTEM (sis'tem) n. 1. The supervisor program on the computer. 2. Any large-scale program. 3. Any method or algorithm. 4. The way things are usually done. Usage: a fairly ambiguous word. "You can't beat the system." SYSTEM HACKER: one who hacks the system (in sense 1 only; for sense 2 one mentions the particular program: e.g., LISP HACKER) Back to Top = T = T (tee) 1. [from LISP terminology for "true"] Yes. Usage: used in reply to a question, particularly one asked using the "-P" convention). See NIL. 2. See TIME T. 3. In transaction-processing circles, an abbreviation for the noun "transaction". TALK MODE n. The state a terminal is in when linked to another via a bidirectional character pipe to support on-line dialogue between two or more users. Talk mode has a special set of jargon words, used to save typing, which are not used orally: BCNU Be seeing you. BTW By the way... BYE? Are you ready to unlink? (This is the standard way to end a com mode conversation; the other person types BYE to confirm, or else continues the conversation.) CUL See you later. FOO? A greeting, also meaning R U THERE? Often used in the case of unexpected links, meaning also "Sorry if I butted in" (linker) or "What's up?" (linkee). FYI For your information... GA Go ahead (used when two people have tried to type simultaneously; this cedes the right to type to the other). HELLOP A greeting, also meaning R U THERE? (An instance of the "-P" convention.) NIL No (see the main entry for NIL). 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). WTH What the hell [double CRLF] When the typing party has finished, he types two CRLFs to signal that he is done; this leaves a blank line between individual "speeches" in the conversation, making it easier to re-read the preceding text. [name]: When three or more terminals are linked, each speech is preceded by the typist's login name and a colon (or a hyphen) to indicate who is typing. The login name often is shortened to a unique prefix (possibly a single letter) during a very long conversation. Most of the above "sub-jargon" is used at both Stanford and MIT. A few other abbrevs 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 grin BRB be right back HHOJ ha ha only joking HHOS HA HA ONLY SERIOUS LOL laughing out load ROTF rolling on the floor AFK away from keyboard b4 before CU l8tr see you later MORF Male or Female? TTFN ta-ta for now OIC Oh, I see rehi hello again These are not used at universities; conversely, most of the people who know these are unfamiliar with FOO?, BCNU, HELLOP, NIL, and T. TANKED (tankt) 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" comix. TASTE (tayst) n. [primarily MIT-DMS] The quality in programs which 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. TCB (tee see bee) [IBM] Trouble Came Back. Intermittent or difficult-to reproduce problem which has failed to respond to neglect. Compare HEISENBUG. TELNET (telnet) v. To communicate with another ARPAnet host using the TELNET program. TOPS-10 people use the word IMPCOM since that is the program name for them. Sometimes abbreviated to TN. "I usually TN over to SAIL just to read the AP News." TENSE (tens) adj. Of programs, very clever and efficient. A tense piece of code often got that way because it was highly bummed, but sometimes it was just based on a great idea. A comment in a clever display routine by Mike Kazar: "This routine is so tense it will bring tears to your eyes. Much thanks to Craig Everhart and James Gosling for inspiring this hack attack." A tense programmer is one who produces tense code. TERAFLOP CLUB (ter'a-flop kluhb) n. Mythical group of people who consume outragous amounts of computer time in order to produce a few simple pictures of glass balls with intricate ray tracing techniques. Cal Tech professor James Kajiya is said to be the founding member. TERMINAK (ter'mi-nak) [Caltech, ca. 1979] n. Any malfunctioning computer terminal. A common failure mode of Lear-Siegler ADM3a 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." TERMINAL ILLNESS (ter'mi-nl il'nes) n. 1. Syn. with RASTER BURN. 2. The `burn-in' condition your CRT tends to get if you don't have a screen saver. TERPRI (ter'pree) [from the LISP 1.5 (and later, MacLISP) function to start a new line of output] v. To output a CRLF (q.v.). THANKS IN ADVANCE [USENET] Conventional net.politeness ending a posted request for information or assistance. Sometimes written "advTHANKSance". See "NET.", NETIQUETTE. THEOLOGY (thee-o'l@-gee) n. 1. Ironically used to refer to RELIGIOUS ISSUES. 2. Technical fine points of an abstruse nature, esp. those where the resolution is of theoretical interest but 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. Example: the deep- vs. shallow-binding debate in the design of dynamically-scoped LISPS. THEORY (theer'ee) n. Used in the general sense of idea, plan, story, or set of rules. "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 (thin'ko) [by analogy with `typo'] n. A bubble in the stream of consciousness; a momentary, correctable glitch in mental processing, especially one involving recall of information learned by rote. Compare MOUSO. THRASH (thrash) v. To move wildly or violently, without accomplishing anything useful. Swapping systems which are overloaded waste most of their time moving pages into and out of core (rather than performing useful computation), and are therefore said to thrash. TICK (tick) n. 1. Interval of time; basic clock time on the computer. Typically 1/60 second. See JIFFY. 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 that caused things happen after their causes. 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 handwaved. TIME T (tiem tee) 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." 2. SINCE (OR AT) TIME T EQUALS MINUS INFINITY: A long time ago; for as long as anyone can remember; at the time that some particular frob was first designed. TIP OF THE ICE-CUBE (tip uhv dh@ ies-kyoob) [IBM] n. The visible part of something small and insignificant. Used as an ironic comment in situations where "tip of the iceberg" might be appropriate if the subject were actually nontrivial. TIRED IRON (tierd iern) [IBM] n. Hardware that is perfectly functional but enough behind the state of the art to have been superseded by new products, presumably with enough improvement in bang-per-buck that the old stuff is starting to look a bit like a DINOSAUR. TLA (tee el ay) [Three-Letter-Acronym] n. 1. Self-describing acronym for a species with which computing terminology is infested. 2. Any confusing acronym at all. Examples include MCA, FTP, SNA, CPU, MMU, SCCS, DMU, FPU, TLA, NNTP. People who like this looser usage argue that not all TLAs have three letters, just as not all four letter words have four letters. TOAST (tohst) 1. n. any completely inoperable system, esp. one that has just crashed;"I think BUACCA is toast." 2. v. to cause a system to crash accidentally, especially in a manner that requires manual rebooting; "Rick just toasted harp again." TOASTER (tohs'tr) n. 1. The archetypal really stupid application for an embedded microprocessor controller esp. `toaster oven'; often used in comments which imply that a scheme is inappropriate technology. "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, TOASTER, TOY. TOOL (tool) 1. n. A program primarily used to create other programs, such as a compiler or editor or cross-referencing program. Oppose APP, OPERATING SYSTEM. 2. [UNIX] An application program with a simple, "transparent" (typically text-stream) designed specifically to be used in programmed combination with other tools (see FILTER). 3. [MIT] v.i. To work; to study. See HACK (def #9). 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 B. See also ITS, TOPS-20, TWENEX, VMS, OPERATING SYSTEM. TOPS-20 (tops-twen'tee) n. See TWENEX. TOURIST (too'rist) [from MIT's ITS system] n. A guest on the system, especially one who generally logs in over a network from a remote location for games and other trivial purposes. One step below LUSER. TOURISTIC is often used as a pejorative, as in "losing touristic scum". TOY (toy) n. A computer system; always used with qualifiers. 1. NICE TOY One which supports the speaker's hacking style adequately. 2. JUST A TOY A machine that yields insufficient COMPUTRONS for the speaker's preferred uses (this is not condemnatory as is BITTY BOX, toys can at least be fun). See also GET A REAL COMPUTER, BITTY BOX. TOY PROBLEM (toy pro'blm) [AI] n. A deliberately simplified or even oversimplified case of a challenging problem used to investigate, prototype, or test algorithms for the real problem. Sometimes used pejoratively. See also GEDANKEN. TRAP (trap) 1. n. A program interrupt, usually used specifically to refer to an interrupt caused by some illegal action taking place in the user program. In most cases the system monitor performs some action related to the nature of the illegality, then returns control to the program. See UUO. 2. v. 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." TRASH (trash) v. To destroy the contents of (said of a data structure). The most common of the family of near-synonyms including MUNG, MANGLE and SCRIBBLE. TRIVIAL (tri'vi-@l) adj. 1. In explanation, 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. Hackers' notions of triviality may be quite at variance with those of non-hackers. See NONTRIVIAL, UNINTERESTING. TROGLODYTE (trog'lo-diet) [Commodore] n. A hacker who never leaves his cubicle. The term `Gnoll' is also reported. TROGLODYTE MODE (trog'lo-diet mohd) [Rice University] n. Programming with the lights turned off, sunglasses on, and the (character) terminal inverted (black on white) because you've been up for so many days straight that your eyes hurt. Loud music blaring from a stereo stacked in the corner is optional but recommended. See LARVAL STAGE, MODE. TROJAN HORSE (troh'jn hors) n. A program designed to break security or damage a system that is disguised as something else benign, such as a directory lister or archiver. See VIRUS, WORM. TRUE-HACKER (troo-hak'r) [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 complement. "He spent six hours helping me bring up UUCP and netnews on my FOOBAR 4000 last week -- truly the act of a true-hacker." Compare DEMIGOD, oppose MUNCHKIN. TTY (tee-tee-wie [UNIX], titty [ITS]) n. 1. 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). 2. [especially UNIX] Any terminal at all; sometimes used to refer to the particular terminal controlling a job. TUBE (t[y]oob) n. A CRT terminal. Never used in the mainstream sense of TV; real hackers don't watch TV, except for Loony Toons and Bullwinkle & Rocky and the occasional cheesy old swashbuckle movie. TUNE (toon) [from automotive or musical usage] v. to optimize a program or system for a particular environment. One may `tune for time' (fastest execution) `tune for space' (least memory utilization) or `tune for configuration' (most efficient use of hardware). See BUM, HOT SPOT, HAND-HACK. TWEAK (tweek) v. To change slightly, usually in reference to a value. Also used synonymously with TWIDDLE. See FROBNICATE and FUDGE FACTOR. TWENEX (twe'nex) n. The TOPS-20 operating system by DEC. So named because TOPS-10 was a typically crufty DEC operating system for the PDP-10. BBN developed their own system, called TENEX (TEN EXecutive), and in creating TOPS-20 for the DEC-20 DEC copied TENEX and adapted it for the 20. Usage: DEC people cringe when they hear TOPS-20 referred to as "Twenex", but the term seems to be catching on nevertheless. Release 3 of TOPS-20 is sufficiently different from release 1 that some (not all) hackers have stopped calling it TWENEX, though the written abbreviation "20x" is still used. TWIDDLE (twid'l) n. 1. tilde (ASCII 176, "~"). Also called "squiggle", "sqiggle" (sic--pronounced "skig'gul"), and "twaddle", but twiddle is by far the most common term. 2. A small and insignificant change to a program. Usually fixes one bug and generates several new ones. 3. v. 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. TWINK (twink) [UCSC] n. Equivalent to READ-ONLY USER. TWO-PI (too-pie, should be written with math symbols) q. The number of years it takes to finish one's thesis. Occurs in stories in the form: "He started on his thesis; two pi years later...". Back to Top = U = UNINTERESTING (un-in'ter-est-ing) adj. 1. Said of a problem which, while 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. True hackers regard uninteresting problems as an intolerable waste of time, to be solved (if at all) by lesser mortals. See WOMBAT. U*IX, UN*X n. Used to refer to the Unix operating system (trademark and/or copyright 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, some lawyers now claim (1990) that the requirement for superscript-tm has no legal force, but the asterisk usage is entrenched anyhow. UNWIND THE STACK (un-wiend' thuh stack) v. 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. This is sometimes necessary when handling exceptional conditions. See also SMASH THE STACK. UNWIND-PROTECT (un-wiend'pr@-tekt) [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." UNIX (yoo'nix) [In the authors' words, "A weak pun on MULTICS"] n. A popular interactive time-sharing system originally invented in 1969 by Ken Thompson after Bell Labs left the MULTICS project, mostly so he could play SPACEWAR on a scavenged PDP7. The turning point in UNIX's history came when it was reimplemented almost entirely in C in 1974, making it the first source-portable operating system. Fifteen years and a lot of changes later UNIX is the most widely used multiuser general-purpose operating system in the world. This fact probably represents the single most important victory yet of hackerdom over industry opposition. See VERSION 7, BSD UNIX, USG UNIX. UP (uhp) adj. 1. Working, in order. "The down escalator is up." 2. BRING UP: v. To create a working version and start it. "They brought up a down system." UPLOAD [uhp'lohd] v. 1. To transfer code or data over a digital comm line from a smaller `client' system to a larger `host' one. Oppose DOWNLOAD. 2. [speculatively] To move the essential patterns and algorithms which make up one's mind from one's brain into a computer. Only those who are convinced that such patterns and algorithms capture the complete essence of the self view this prospect with aplomb. URCHIN (er'chin) n. See MUNCHKIN. USENET (yooz'net) n. A distributed bulletin board system supported mainly by UNIX machines, international in scope and probably the largest non-profit information utility in existence. As of early 1990 it hosts over 300 topic groups and distributes up to 15 megabytes of new technical articles, news, discussion, chatter, and FLAMAGE every day. See NEWSGROUP. USER (yoo'zr) n. A programmer who will believe anything you tell him. One who asks questions. Identified at MIT with "loser" by the spelling "luser". See REAL USER. [Note by GLS: I don't agree with RF's definition at all. Basically, there are two classes of people who work with a program: there are implementors (hackers) and users (losers). The users are looked down on by hackers to a mild degree because they don't understand the full ramifications of the system in all its glory. (A few users who do are known as real winners.) It is true that users ask questions (of necessity). Very often they are annoying or downright stupid.] USER FRIENDLY (yoo'zr fren'dlee) adj. Programmer-hostile. Generally used by hackers in a hostile tone, to describe systems which 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. USG UNIX (yoo-ess-jee yoo'nix) n. Refers to AT&T UNIX versions after VERSION 7, especially System III and System V releases 1, 2 and 3. So called because at that time AT&T's support crew was called the `Unix Support Group' See BSD, UNIX Back to Top = V = VADDING (vad'ing) [permutation of ADV, an abbreviated form of ADVENT (q.v.)] 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'. The most extreme and dangerous form of vadding is ELEVATOR RODEO, aka ELEVATOR SURFING, a sport played by using the escape hatches in elevator cars to move between pairs of them as they conjunct within the shafts. Kids, don't try this at home! VANILLA (v@-nil'luh) adj. Ordinary flavor, standard. See FLAVOR. When used of food, very often does not mean that the food is flavored with vanilla extract! For example, "vanilla-flavored wonton soup" (or simply "vanilla wonton soup") means ordinary wonton soup, as opposed to hot and sour wonton soup. VAPORWARE (vay-per-weir) n. Products announced far in advance of any shipment (which may or may not actually take place*** Read Ref:185 VAX n. (vaks) [allegedly from Virtual Extended Architecture] 1. The most successful minicomputer design in industry history, possibly excepting its immediate ancestor the PDP-11. Between its release in 1978 and eclipse by KILLER MICROS after about 1986 the VAX was probably the favorite hacker machine of them all, esp. after the 1982 release of 4.2BSD UNIX (see BSD UNIX). Esp. noted for its large, assembler-programmer-friendly instruction set, an asset which became a liability after the RISC revolution following about 1985. 2. A major brand of vacuum cleaner in Britain. Cited here because its sales pitch, "Nothing sucks like a VAX!" became a sort of battle-cry of RISC partisans. VAXEN (vak'sn) [from "oxen", perhaps influenced by "vixen"] n. pl. The plural of VAX (a DEC machine). See BOXEN. VEEBLEFESTER (vee'b@l-fes-tr) [Commodore] n. Any obnoxious person engaged in the alleged professions of marketing or management. Antonym of HACKER. Compare SUIT, MARKETROID. VENUS FLYTRAP (vee'n:s flie'trap) [after the plant] n. See FIREWALL. VERBIAGE (ver'bee-@j) [IBM] n. Documentation. VERSION 7 (ver'zh@n se'vn) alt. V7 (vee-se'v@n) n. The 1978 unsupported release of UNIX (q.v.) 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. VIRGIN (ver'jn) adj. Unused, in reference to an instantiation of a program. "Let's bring up a virgin system and see if it crashes again." Also, by extension, unused buffers and the like within a program. VIRUS (vie'r@s) [from SF] n. A cracker program that propagates itself by `infecting' (embedding itself in) other trusted programs, especially operating systems. See WORM, TROJAN HORSE. VMS (vee em ess) n. DEC's proprietary operating system for their VAX minicomputer; one of the seven or so environments that looms 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. See also TOPS-10, TOPS-20, UNIX. VIRTUAL (ver'tyoo-uhl) adj. 1. Common alternative to LOGICAL (q.v.), but never used with compass directions. 2. Performing the functions of. Virtual memory acts like real memory but isn't. VIRTUAL REALITY (ver'tyoo-@l) n. 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" which 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. VISIONARY (viz-yuhn-eir-ee) n. One who hacks vision (in an AI context, such as the processing of visual images). VULCAN NERVE PINCH (vuhl'kn nerv 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). Back to Top = W = WABBIT (wabb'it) [almost certainly from Elmer Fudd's immortal line "you wascal wabbit!"] n. 1. A legendary early hack reported on the PDP-10s at RPI and elsewhere around 1978. The program would reproduce itself twice every time it was run, eventually crashing the system. 2. By extension, any hack that includes infinite self-replication but is not a VIRUS or WORM. See also COOKIE MONSTER. WALDO (wahl'doh) [probably taken from the story "Waldo", by Heinlein, which is where the term was first used to mean a mechanical adjunct to a human limb] Used at Harvard, particularly by Tom Cheatham and students, instead of FOOBAR as a meta-syntactic variable and general nonsense word. See FOO, BAR, FOOBAR, QUUX. WALKING DRIVES (wahk'ing drievz) An occasional failure mode of magnetic-disk drives back in the days when they were 14" wide WASHING MACHINES. Those old DINOSAURS 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. This 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). It is known that 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. This is not a joke! WALL (wahl) [shortened form of HELLO WALL, apparently from the phrase "up against a blank wall"] [WPI] interj. 1. An indication of confusion, usually spoken with a quizzical tone. "Wall??" 2. A request for further explication. Compare OCTAL FORTY. WALL TIME (wahl tiem) n. 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). WALLPAPER (wahl pay'pr) n. A file containing a listing (e.g., assembly listing) or transcript, esp. a file containing a transcript of all or part of a login session. (The idea was that the LPT paper for such listings was essentially good only for wallpaper, as evidenced at SAIL where it was used as such to cover windows.) Usage: not often used now, esp. since other systems have developed other terms for it (e.g., PHOTO on TWENEX). The term possibly originated on ITS, where the commands to begin and end transcript files were :WALBEG and :WALEND, with default file DSK:WALL PAPER. WASHING MACHINE (wash'ing m@-sheen') n. Old-style hard disks in floor-standing cabinets. So called because of the size of the cabinet and the "top-loading" access to the media packs. See WALKING DRIVES. WEDGED (wejd) [from "head wedged up ass"] adj. 1. To be in a locked state, incapable of proceeding without help. (See GRONK.) Often refers to humans suffering misconceptions. "The swapper is wedged." This term is sometimes used as a synonym for DEADLOCKED (q.v.). 2. [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. WEEDS (weeds) n. 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..." WELL BEHAVED (wel-bee-hayvd') adj. Of software: conforming to coding 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. WETWARE (wet'weir) n. 1. The human brain, as opposed to computer hardware or software (as in "Wetware has at most 7 registers"). 2. Human beings (programmers, operators, administrators) attached to a computer system, as opposed to the system's hardware or software. WHAT (hwuht) n. The question mark character ("?"). See QUES. Usage: rare, used particularly in conjunction with WOW. WHEEL (hweel) [from Twenex, q.v.] n. A privileged user or WIZARD (sense #2). Now spreading into the UNIX culture. Privilege bits are sometimes called WHEEL BITS. The state of being in a privileged logon is sometimes called WHEEL MODE. WHEEL WARS (hweel worz) [Stanford University] A period in LARVAL STAGE during which student wheels hack each other by attempting to log each other out of the system, delete each other's files, or otherwise wreak havoc, usually at the expense of the lesser users. WHITE BOOK, THE (hwiet buk) n. Kernighan & Ritchie's _The_C_Programming_Language_, esp. the classic and influential first edition. Also called simply "K&R". See SILVER BOOK, PURPLE BOOK, ORANGE BOOK. WIBNI [Bell Labs, Wouldn't It Be Nice If] n. What most requirements documents/specifications consist entirely of. Compare IWBNI. WIMP ENVIRONMENT n. [acronymic from Window, Icon, Mouse, Pointer] A graphical-user-interface based environmend, as described by a hacker who prefers command-line interfaces for their superior flexibility and extensibility. WIN (win) [from MIT jargon] 1. v. To succeed. A program wins if no unexpected conditions arise. 2. BIG WIN: n. Serendipity. 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. See LOSE. WINNAGE (win'@j) n. The situation when a lossage is corrected, or when something is winning. Quite rare. Usage: also quite rare. WINNER (win'r) 1. n. An unexpectedly good situation, program, programmer or person. 2. REAL WINNER: Often sarcastic, but also used as high praise. WINNITUDE (win'i-tood) n. The quality of winning (as opposed to WINNAGE, which is the result of winning). "That's really great! Boy, what winnitude!" WIREHEAD (wier'hed) n. 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. WIZARD (wiz'rd) n. 1. A person who knows how a complex piece of software or hardware works; someone who can find and fix his bugs in an emergency. Rarely used at MIT, where HACKER is the preferred term. 2. A person who is permitted to do things forbidden to ordinary people, e.g., a "net wizard" on a TENEX may run programs which speak low-level host-imp protocol; an ADVENT wizard at SAIL may play Adventure during the day. 3. A UNIX expert. See GURU. WIZARD MODE (wiz'rd mohd) [from nethack] 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). WOMBAT (wom'bat) [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. WONKY (won'kee) [from Australian slang] adj. Yet another approximate synonym for BROKEN. Specifically connotes a malfunction which 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 Elvish". Also in WONKED OUT. See FUNKY. WORM (werm) [from `tapeworm' in John Brunner's _Shockwave_Rider_, via XEROX PARC] n. A cracker program that propagates itself over a network, reproducing itself as it goes. See `VIRUS'. Perhaps the best known example was RTM's `Internet Worm' in '87, a `benign' one that got out of control and shut down hundreds of Suns and VAXen nationwide. See VIRUS, TROJAN HORSE, ICE. WOW (wow) See EXCL. WRONG THING, THE (rahng thing, dh@) n. A design, action or decision which is clearly incorrect or inappropriate. Often capitalized; always emphasized in speech as if capitalized. Antonym: THE RIGHT THING (q.v.). WUGGA WUGGA (wuh'guh wuh'guh) n. Imaginary sound that a computer program makes as it labors with a tedious or difficult task. Compare CRUNCHA CHRUNCHA CRUNCHA. Back to Top = X = X (eks) Used in various speech and writing contexts 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[01234]0 and 80[1234]86 or 680?00 and 80?86 respectively, see REGULAR EXPRESSIONS). XYZZY (exs-wie-zee-zee-wie) [from the ADVENT game] adj. See PLUGH. Back to Top = Y = YOW! (yow) [from Zippy the Pinhead comix] interj. 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, MUMBLE FROTZ. YOYO MODE (yoh'yoh mohd) n. State in which the system is said to be when it rapidly alternates several times between being up and being down. YU-SHIANG WHOLE FISH (yoo-shyang hohl fish) n. The character gamma (extended SAIL ASCII 11), which with a loop in its tail looks like a fish. Usage: used primarily by people on the MIT LISP Machine. Tends to elicit incredulity from people who hear about it second-hand. Back to Top = Z = ZEN (zen) v. 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". ZERO (zee'roh) v. 1. To set to zero. Usually said of small pieces of data, such as bits or words. 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. See SCRIBBLE. ZIPPERHEAD (zip'r-hed) [IBM] n. A person with a closed mind. ZOMBIE (zom'bee) [UNIX] n. A process which has been killed but has not yet relinquished its process table slot. These show up in ps(1) listings occasionally. ZORK (zork) n. Second of the great early experiments in computer fantasy gaming, see ADVENT. Originally written on MIT-DMS during the late seventies, later distributed with BSD UNIX and commercialized as "The Zork Trilogy" by Infocom. Back to Top APPENDIX A: THE UNTIMELY DEMISE OF MABEL THE MONKEY a cautionary tale The following, modulo a couple of inserted commas and capitalization changes for readability, is the exact text of a famous USENET message. The reader may wish to review the definitions of PM and MOUNT in the main text before continuing. Date: Wed 3 Sep 86 16:46:31-EDT >From: "Art Evans" Subject: Always Mount a Scratch Monkey To: Risks@CSL.SRI.COM My friend Bud used to be the intercept man at a computer vendor for calls when an irate customer called. Seems one day Bud was sitting at his desk when the phone rang. Bud: Hello. Voice: YOU KILLED MABEL!! B: Excuse me? V: YOU KILLED MABEL!! This went on for a couple of minutes and Bud was getting nowhere, so he decided to alter his approach to the customer. B: HOW DID I KILL MABEL? V: YOU PM'ED MY MACHINE!! Well, to avoid making a long story even longer, I will abbreviate what had happened. The customer was a Biologist at the University of Blah-de-blah, and he had one of our computers that controlled gas mixtures that Mabel (the monkey) breathed. Now, Mabel was not your ordinary monkey. The University had spent years teaching Mabel to swim, and they were studying the effects that different gas mixtures had on her physiology. It turns out that the repair folks had just gotten a new Calibrated Power Supply (used to calibrate analog equipment), and at their first opportunity decided to calibrate the D/A converters in that computer. This changed some of the gas mixtures and poor Mabel was asphyxiated. Well, Bud then called the branch manager for the repair folks: Manager: Hello B: This is Bud, I heard you did a PM at the University of Blah-de-blah. M: Yes, we really performed a complete PM. What can I do for you? B: Can you swim? The moral is, of course, that you should always mount a scratch monkey. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ There are several morals here related to risks in use of computers. Examples include, "If it ain't broken, don't fix it." However, the cautious philosophical approach implied by "always mount a scratch monkey" says a lot that we should keep in mind. Art Evans Tartan Labs Back to Top APPENDIX B: OBSOLESCENT TERMS FROM THE JARGON FILE The following terms appeared in the main listing of the original Jargon File, but have been rendered obsolescent by the passage of time, the march of technology, the death of the DEC PDP-10, and the May 1990 shutdown of the ITS machines. They are collected here for possible historical interest. AOS (aus (East coast) ay-ahs (West coast)) [based on a PDP-10 increment instruction] v. To increase the amount of something. "Aos the campfire." Usage: considered silly, and now obsolescent. See SOS. Now largely supplanted by BUMP. BIG BLT, THE (big belt, th:) n., obs. Shuffling operation on the PDP-10 under some operating systems that consumes a significant amount of computer time. See BLT in the main listing. BIN (bin) [short for BINARY; used as a second file name on ITS] 1. n. BINARY. 2. BIN FILE: A file containing the BIN for a program. Usage: used at MIT, which runs on ITS. The equivalent term at Stanford was DMP (pronounced "dump") FILE. Other names used include SAV ("save") FILE (DEC and Tenex), SHR ("share") and LOW FILES (DEC), and COM FILES (CP/M), and EXE ("ex'ee") FILE (DEC, Twenex, MS-DOS, occasionally UNIX). Also in this category are the input files to the various flavors of linking loaders (LOADER, LINK-10, STINK), called REL FILES. See EXE in main text. COM[M] MODE (kom mohd) [from the ITS feature for linking two or more terminals together so that text typed on any is echoed on all, providing a means of conversation among hackers; spelled with one or two Ms] Syn. for TALK MODE in main text. DIABLO (dee-ah'blow) [from the Diablo printer] 1. n. Any letter- quality printing device. 2. v. To produce letter-quality output from such a device. See LASE in main listing. DMP (dump) See BIN. DPB (duh-pib') [from the PDP-10 instruction set] v., obs. To plop something down in the middle. ENGLISH (ing'lish) n. The source code for a program, which may be in any language, as opposed to BINARY. Usage: obsolete, used mostly by old-time hackers, though recognizable in context. On ITS, directory SYSENG was where the "English" for system programs is kept, and SYSBIN, the binaries. SAIL had many such directories, but the canonical one is [CSP,SYS]. EXCH (ex'chuh, ekstch) [from the PDP-10 instruction set] v., obs. To exchange two things, each for the other. IMPCOM (imp'kahm) See TELNET. This term is now nearly obsolete. IRP (erp) [from the MIDAS pseudo-op which generates a block of code repeatedly, substituting in various places the car and/or cdr of the list(s) supplied at the IRP] v. To perform a series of tasks repeatedly with a minor substitution each time through. "I guess I'll IRP over these homework papers so I can give them some random grade for this semester." Usage: rare, now obsolescent. JFCL (djif'kl or djafik'l) [based on the PDP-10 instruction that acts as a fast no-op] v., obs. To cancel or annul something. "Why don't you jfcl that out?" JRST (jerst) [based on the PDP-10 jump instruction] v., obs. To suddenly change subjects. Usage: rather rare. "Jack be nimble, Jack be quick; Jack jrst over the candle stick." JSYS (jay'sis), pl. JSI (jay'sigh) [Jump to SYStem] v.,obs. See UUO. LDB (lid'dib) [from the PDP-10 instruction set] v. To extract from the middle. MOBY (moh'bee) n. This term entered the world of AI with the Fabritek 256K moby memory of MIT-AI. Thus, classically, 256K words, the size of a PDP-10 moby. (The maximum address space means the maximum normally addressable space, as opposed to the amount of physical memory a machine can have. Thus the MIT PDP-10s each have two mobies, usually referred to as the "low moby" (0-777777) and "high moby" (1000000-1777777), or as "moby 0" and "moby 1". MIT-AI had four mobies of address space: moby 2 was the PDP-6 memory, and moby 3 the PDP-11 interface.) In this sense "moby" is often used as a generic unit of either address space (18. bits' worth) or of memory (about a megabyte, or 9/8 megabyte (if one accounts for difference between 32.- and 36.-bit words), or 5/4 megacharacters). PHANTOM (fan'tm) [Stanford] n. The SAIL equivalent of a DRAGON (q.v.). Typical phantoms include the accounting program, the news-wire monitor, and the lpt and xgp spoolers. UNIX and most other environments call this sort of program a background DEMON or DAEMON. PPN (pip'in) [DEC terminology, short for Project-Programmer Number] n. 1. A combination `project' (directory name) and programmer name, used to identify a specific directory belonging to that user. For instance, "FOO,BAR" would be the FOO directory for user BAR. Since the name is restricted to three letters, the programmer name is usually the person's initials, though sometimes it is a nickname or other special sequence. (Standard DEC setup is to have two octal numbers instead of characters; hence the original acronym.) 2. Often used loosely to refer to the programmer name alone. "I want to send you some mail; what's your ppn?" Usage: not used at MIT, since ITS does not use ppn's. The equivalent terms would be UNAME and SNAME, depending on context, but these are not used except in their technical senses. REL (rel) See BIN in the main listing. Short for `relocatable', used on the old TOPS-10 OS. SAV (sayv) See BIN. SHR (sheir) See BIN. SOS 1. (ess-oh-ess) n. A losing editor, SON OF STOPGAP. 2. (sahss) v. Inverse of AOS, from the PDP-10 instruction set. STY (pronounced "stie", not spelled out) n. A pseudo-teletype, which is a two-way pipeline with a job on one end and a fake keyboard-tty on the other. Also, a standard program which provides a pipeline from its controlling tty to a pseudo-teletype (and thence to another tty, thereby providing a "sub-tty"). This is MIT terminology; the SAIL, DEC and UNIX equivalent is PTY (see main text). SUPDUP (soop'doop) v. To communicate with another ARPAnet host using the SUPDUP program, which is a SUPer-DUPer TELNET talking a special display protocol used mostly in talking to ITS sites. Sometimes abbreviated to SD. TECO (tee'koh) [acronym for Text Editor and COrrector] 1. n. A text editor developed at MIT, and modified by just about everybody. If all the dialects are included, TECO might well be the single most prolific editor in use. Noted for its powerful pseudo-programming features and its incredibly hairy syntax. 2. v. obs. To edit using the TECO editor in one of its infinite forms; sometimes used to mean "to edit" even when not using TECO! Usage: rare at SAIL, where most people wouldn't touch TECO with a TENEX pole. [Historical note, c. 1982: DEC grabbed an ancient version of MIT TECO many years ago when it was still a TTY-oriented editor. By now, TECO at MIT is highly display-oriented and is actually a language for writing editors, rather than an editor. Meanwhile, the outside world's various versions of TECO remain almost the same as the MIT version of the early 1970s. DEC recently tried to discourage its use, but an underground movement of sorts kept it alive. - GLS] [Since this note was written I found out that DEC tried to force their hackers by administrative decision to use a hacked up and generally lobotomized version of SOS instead of TECO, and they revolted. - MRC] [1990 update: TECO is now pretty much one with the dust of history, having been replaced (both functionally and psychologically) almost everywhere by GNU EMACS -- ESR] UUO (yoo-yoo-oh) [short for "Un-Used Operation"] n. A PDP-10 system monitor call. The term "Un-Used Operation" comes from the fact that, on PDP-10 systems, monitor calls are implemented as invalid or illegal machine instructions, which cause traps to the monitor (see TRAP). The SAIL manual describing the available UUOs has a cover picture showing an unidentified underwater object. See YOYO. [Note: DEC sales people have since decided that "Un-Used Operation" sounds bad, so UUO now stands for "Unimplemented User Operation".] Tenex and Twenex systems use the JSYS machine instruction (q.v.), which is halfway between a legal machine instruction and a UUO, since KA-10 Tenices implement it as a hardware instruction which can be used as an ordinary subroutine call (sort of a "pure JSR"). WORMHOLE (werm'hohl) n. A location in a monitor which contains the address of a routine, with the specific intent of making it easy to substitute a different routine. The following quote comes from "Polymorphic Systems", vol. 2, p. 54: "Any type of I/O device can be substituted for the standard device by loading a simple driver routine for that device and installing its address in one of the monitor's `wormholes.'* ---------- *The term `wormhole' has been used to describe a hypothetical astronomical situation where a black hole connects to the `other side' of the universe. When this happens, information can pass through the wormhole, in only one direction, much as `assumptions' pass down the monitor's wormholes." This term is now obsolescent. Modern operating systems use clusters of wormholes extensively (for modularization of I/O handling in particular, as in the UNIX device-driver organization) but the preferred jargon for these clusters is `device tables', `jump tables' or `capability tables'. XGP (eks-jee) 1. n. Xerox Graphics Printer. 2. v. To print something on the XGP. "You shouldn't XGP such a large file." YOYO (yoh'yoh) n. DEC service engineers' slang for UUO (q.v.). Usage: rare at Stanford and MIT, has been found at random DEC installations.