Phoenix Rising BBS/phoenixrising.zip/phoenixrising/vir-docs/jargon.arj/JARGON2

Text File | 1990-06-14 | 77KB | 1,461 lines

            = 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.

            = 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.

            = 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.
   They want 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.

            = 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 ([e-mail]), 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".


            = 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; RETROCOMPUTING; 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."

            = 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 [e-mail], 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.

            = 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.