The Jargon Lexicon
= T =
=====
T: /T/ 1. [from LISP terminology for `true'] Yes. Used
in reply to a question (particularly one asked using {The `-P'
convention}). In LISP, the constant T means `true', among other
things. Some hackers use `T' and `NIL' instead of `Yes' and `No'
almost reflexively. This sometimes causes misunderstandings. When
a waiter or flight attendant asks whether a hacker wants coffee, he
may well respond `T', meaning that he wants coffee; but of course
he will be brought a cup of tea instead. As it happens, most
hackers (particularly those who frequent Chinese restaurants) like
tea at least as well as coffee -- so it is not that big a problem.
2. See {time T} (also {since time T equals minus infinity}).
3. [techspeak] In transaction-processing circles, an abbreviation
for the noun `transaction'. 4. [Purdue] Alternate spelling of
{tee}. 5. A dialect of {LISP} developed at Yale.
tail recursion: n. If you aren't sick of it already, see
{tail recursion}.
talk mode: n. A feature supported by UNIX, ITS, and some
other OSes that allows two or more logged-in users to set up a
real-time on-line conversation. It combines the immediacy of
talking with all the precision (and verbosity) that written
language entails. It is difficult to communicate inflection,
though conventions have arisen for some of these (see the section
on writing style in the Prependices for details).
Talk mode has a special set of jargon words, used to save typing,
which are not used orally. Some of these are identical to (and
probably derived from) Morse-code jargon used by ham-radio amateurs
since the 1920s.
AFAIK
as far as I know
BCNU
be seeing you
BTW
by the way
BYE?
are you ready to unlink? (this is the standard way to end a
talk-mode conversation; the other person types `BYE' to
confirm, or else continues the conversation)
CUL
see you later
ENQ?
are you busy? (expects `ACK' or `NAK' in return)
FOO?
are you there? (often used on unexpected links, meaning also
"Sorry if I butted in ..." (linker) or "What's up?"
(linkee))
FWIW
for what it's worth
FYI
for your information
FYA
for your amusement
GA
go ahead (used when two people have tried to type
simultaneously; this cedes the right to type to the other)
GRMBL
grumble (expresses disquiet or disagreement)
HELLOP
hello? (an instance of the `-P' convention)
JAM
just a minute (equivalent to `SEC....')
MIN
same as `JAM'
NIL
no (see {NIL})
O
over to you
OO
over and out
/
another form of "over to you" (from x/y as "x over y")
\
lambda (used in discussing LISPy things)
OBTW
oh, by the way
OTOH
on the other hand
R U THERE?
are you there?
SEC
wait a second (sometimes written `SEC...')
T
yes (see the main entry for {T})
TNX
thanks
TNX 1.0E6
thanks a million (humorous)
TNXE6
another form of "thanks a million"
WRT
with regard to, or with respect to.
WTF
the universal interrogative particle; WTF knows what it
means?
WTH
what the hell?
When the typing party has finished, he/she types two
newlines to signal that he/she is done; this leaves a blank
line between `speeches' in the conversation, making it
easier to reread the preceding text.
:
When three or more terminals are linked, it is conventional
for each typist to {prepend} his/her login name or handle
and a colon (or a hyphen) to each line to indicate who is
typing (some conferencing facilities do this automatically).
The login name is often shortened to a unique prefix
(possibly a single letter) during a very long conversation.
/\/\/\
A giggle or chuckle. On a MUD, this usually means
`earthquake fault'.
Most of the above sub-jargon is used at both Stanford and MIT.
Several of these expressions are also common in {email}, esp.
FYI, FYA, BTW, BCNU, WTF, and CUL. A few other abbreviations have
been reported from commercial networks, such as GEnie and
CompuServe, where on-line `live' chat including more than two
people is common and usually involves a more `social' context,
notably the following:
grin
grinning, running, and ducking
BBL
be back later
BRB
be right back
HHOJ
ha ha only joking
HHOK
ha ha only kidding
HHOS
{ha ha only serious}
IMHO
in my humble opinion (see {IMHO})
LOL
laughing out loud
NHOH
Never Heard of Him/Her (often used in {initgame})
ROTF
rolling on the floor
ROTFL
rolling on the floor laughing
AFK
away from keyboard
b4
before
CU l8tr
see you later
MORF
male or female?
TTFN
ta-ta for now
TTYL
talk to you later
OIC
oh, I see
rehi
hello again
Most of these are not used at universities or in the UNIX world,
though ROTF and TTFN have gained some currency there and IMHO is
common; conversely, most of the people who know these are
unfamiliar with FOO?, BCNU, HELLOP, {NIL}, and {T}.
The {MUD} community uses a mixture of Usenet/Internet emoticons,
a few of the more natural of the old-style talk-mode abbrevs, and
some of the `social' list above; specifically, MUD respondents
report use of BBL, BRB, LOL, b4, BTW, WTF, TTFN, and WTH. The use
of `rehi' is also common; in fact, mudders are fond of re-
compounds and will frequently `rehug' or `rebonk' (see
{bonk/oif}) people. The word `re' by itself is taken as
`regreet'. In general, though, MUDders express a preference for
typing things out in full rather than using abbreviations; this may
be due to the relative youth of the MUD cultures, which tend to
include many touch typists and to assume high-speed links. The
following uses specific to MUDs are reported:
CU l8er
see you later (mutant of `CU l8tr')
FOAD
fuck off and die (use of this is generally OTT)
OTT
over the top (excessive, uncalled for)
ppl
abbrev for "people"
THX
thanks (mutant of `TNX'; clearly this comes in batches of
1138 (the Lucasian K)).
UOK?
are you OK?
Some {B1FF}isms (notably the variant spelling `d00d')
appear to be passing into wider use among some subgroups of
MUDders.
One final note on talk mode style: neophytes, when in talk mode,
often seem to think they must produce letter-perfect prose because
they are typing rather than speaking. This is not the best
approach. It can be very frustrating to wait while your partner
pauses to think of a word, or repeatedly makes the same spelling
error and backs up to fix it. It is usually best just to leave
typographical errors behind and plunge forward, unless severe
confusion may result; in that case it is often fastest just to type
"xxx" and start over from before the mistake.
See also {hakspek}, {emoticon}.
talker system: n. British hackerism for software that
enables real-time chat or {talk mode}.
tall card: n. A PC/AT-size expansion card (these can be
larger than IBM PC or XT cards because the AT case is bigger). See
also {short card}. When IBM introduced the PS/2 model 30 (its
last gasp at supporting the ISA) they made the case lower and many
industry-standard tall cards wouldn't fit; this was felt to be a
reincarnation of the {connector conspiracy}, done with less
style.
tanked: adj. Same as {down}, used primarily by UNIX
hackers. See also {hosed}. Popularized as a synonym for
`drunk' by Steve Dallas in the late lamented "Bloom County"
comic strip.
TANSTAAFL: /tan'stah-fl/ [acronym, from Robert Heinlein's
classic "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress".] "There Ain't No
Such Thing As A Free Lunch", often invoked when someone is balking
at the prospect of using an unpleasantly {heavyweight}
technique, or at the poor quality of some piece of free software,
or at the {signal-to-noise ratio} of unmoderated Usenet
newsgroups. "What? Don't tell me I have to implement a database
back end to get my address book program to work!" "Well,
TANSTAAFL you know." This phrase owes some of its popularity to
the high concentration of science-fiction fans and political
libertarians in hackerdom (see {A Portrait of J. Random
Hacker} in Appendix B).
tar and feather: vi. [from UNIX `tar(1)'] To create a
transportable archive from a group of files by first sticking them
together with `tar(1)' (the Tape ARchiver) and then
compressing the result (see {compress}). The latter action is
dubbed `feathering' partly for euphony and (if only for contrived
effect) by analogy to what you do with an airplane propeller to
decrease wind resistance, or with an oar to reduce water
resistance; smaller files, after all, slip through comm links more
easily.
taste: [primarily MIT] n. 1. The quality in a program that
tends to be inversely proportional to the number of features,
hacks, and kluges programmed into it. Also `tasty',
`tasteful', `tastefulness'. "This feature comes in N
tasty flavors." Although `tasty' and `flavorful' are
essentially synonyms, `taste' and {flavor} are not. Taste
refers to sound judgment on the part of the creator; a program or
feature can *exhibit* taste but cannot *have* taste. On
the other hand, a feature can have {flavor}. Also, {flavor}
has the additional meaning of `kind' or `variety' not shared by
`taste'. The marked sense of {flavor} is more popular than
`taste', though both are widely used. See also {elegant}.
2. Alt. sp. of {tayste}.
tayste: /tayst/ n. Two bits; also as {taste}.
Syn. {crumb}, {quarter}. See {nybble}.
TCB: /T-C-B/ n. [IBM] 1. Trouble Came Back. An
intermittent or difficult-to-reproduce problem that has failed to
respond to neglect or {shotgun debugging}. Compare
{heisenbug}. Not to be confused with: 2. Trusted Computing
Base, an `official' jargon term from the {Orange Book}.
TCP/IP: n. 1. [Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol]
The wide-area-networking protocol that makes the Internet work, and
the only one most hackers can speak the name of without laughing or
retching. Unlike such allegedly `standard' competitors such as
X.25, DECnet, and the ISO 7-layer stack, TCP/IP evolved primarily by
actually being *used*, rather than being handed down from on
high by a vendor or a heavily-politicized standards committee.
Consequently, it (a) works, (b) actually promotes cheap
cross-platform connectivity, and (c) annoys the hell out of
corporate and governmental empire-builders everywhere. Hackers
value all three of these properties. See {creationism}. 2.
[Amateur Packet Redio] Sometimes expanded as "The Crap Phil Is
Pushing". The reference is to Phil Karn, KA9NQ, and the context
is an ongoing technical/political war between the majority of sites
still running AX.25 and a growing minority of TCP/IP relays.
tea, ISO standard cup of: n. [South Africa] A cup of tea
with milk and one teaspoon of sugar, where the milk is poured into
the cup before the tea. Variations are ISO 0, with no sugar; ISO
2, with two spoons of sugar; and so on.
Like many ISO standards, this one has a faintly alien ring in North
America, where hackers generally shun the decadent British practice
of adulterating perfectly good tea with dairy products and
prefer instead to add a wedge of lemon, if anything. If one were
feeling extremely silly, one might hypothesize an analogous `ANSI
standard cup of tea' and wind up with a political situation
distressingly similar to several that arise in much more serious
technical contexts. Milk and lemon don't mix very well.
TechRef: /tek'ref/ n. [MS-DOS] The original "IBM PC
Technical Reference Manual", including the BIOS listing and
complete schematics for the PC. The only PC documentation in the
issue package that's considered serious by real hackers.
TECO: /tee'koh/ n.,v.,obs. 1. [originally an acronym for
`[paper] Tape Editor and COrrector'; later, `Text Editor and
COrrector'] n. A text editor developed at MIT and modified by just
about everybody. With all the dialects included, TECO may have
been the most prolific editor in use before {EMACS}, to which it
was directly ancestral. Noted for its powerful
programming-language-like features and its unspeakably hairy
syntax. It is literally the case that every string of characters
is a valid TECO program (though probably not a useful one); one
common game used to be mentally working out what the TECO commands
corresponding to human names did. 2. vt. Originally, to edit using
the TECO editor in one of its infinite variations (see below).
3. vt.,obs. To edit even when TECO is *not* the editor being
used! This usage is rare and now primarily historical.
As an example of TECO's obscurity, here is a TECO program that
takes a list of names such as:
Loser, J. Random
Quux, The Great
Dick, Moby
sorts them alphabetically according to surname, and then puts the
surname last, removing the comma, to produce the following:
Moby Dick
J. Random Loser
The Great Quux
The program is
[1 J^P$L$$
J <.-Z; .,(S,$ -D .)FX1 @F^B $K :L I $ G1 L>$$
(where ^B means `Control-B' (ASCII 0000010) and $ is actually
an {alt} or escape (ASCII 0011011) character).
In fact, this very program was used to produce the second, sorted
list from the first list. The first hack at it had a {bug}: GLS
(the author) had accidentally omitted the `@' in front
of `F^B', which as anyone can see is clearly the {Wrong Thing}. It
worked fine the second time. There is no space to describe all the
features of TECO, but it may be of interest that `^P' means
`sort' and `J<.-Z; ... L>' is an idiomatic series of commands
for `do once for every line'.
In mid-1991, TECO is pretty much one with the dust of history,
having been replaced in the affections of hackerdom by {EMACS}.
Descendants of an early (and somewhat lobotomized) version adopted
by DEC can still be found lurking on VMS and a couple of crufty
PDP-11 operating systems, however, and ports of the more advanced
MIT versions remain the focus of some antiquarian interest. See
also {retrocomputing}, {write-only language}.
tee: n.,vt. [Purdue] A carbon copy of an electronic
transmission. "Oh, you're sending him the {bits} to that?
Slap on a tee for me." From the UNIX command `tee(1)',
itself named after a pipe fitting (see {plumbing}). Can also
mean `save one for me', as in "Tee a slice for me!" Also
spelled `T'.
teledildonics: /tel`*-dil-do'-niks/ n. Sex in a computer
simulated virtual reality, esp. computer-mediated sexual
interaction between the {VR} presences of two humans. This
practice is not yet possible except in the rather limited form of
erotic conversation on {MUD}s and the like. The term, however,
is widely recognized in the VR community as a {ha ha only
serious} projection of things to come. "When we can sustain a
multi-sensory surround good enough for teledildonics, *then*
we'll know we're getting somewhere." See also {hot chat}.
Telerat: /tel'*-rat/ n. Unflattering hackerism for
`Teleray', a line of extremely losing terminals. Compare
{AIDX}, {Macintrash} {Nominal Semidestructor}, {Open
DeathTrap}, {ScumOS}, {sun-stools}, {HP-SUX}.
TELNET: /tel'net/ vt. (also commonly lowercased as
`telnet') To communicate with another Internet host using the
TELNET ({RFC} 854) protocol (usually using a program of the same
name). TOPS-10 people used the word IMPCOM, since that was the
program name for them. Sometimes abbreviated to TN /T-N/. "I
usually TN over to SAIL just to read the AP News."
ten-finger interface: n. The interface between two networks
that cannot be directly connected for security reasons; refers to
the practice of placing two terminals side by side and having an
operator read from one and type into the other.
tense: adj. Of programs, very clever and efficient. A tense
piece of code often got that way because it was highly {bum}med,
but sometimes it was just based on a great idea. A comment in a
clever routine by Mike Kazar, once a grad-student hacker at CMU:
"This routine is so tense it will bring tears to your eyes." A
tense programmer is one who produces tense code.
tentacle: n. A covert {pseudo}, sense 1. An artificial
identity created in cyberspace for nefarious and deceptive
purposes. The implication is that single person may have multiple
tentacles. This term was originally floated in some paranoid
ravings on the cypherpunks list (see {cypherpunk}, and adopted
in a spirit of irony by other members. It has since shown up, used
seriously, in the documentation for some remailer software, and is
now (1994) widely recognized on the net.
tenured graduate student: n. One who has been in graduate
school for 10 years (the usual maximum is 5 or 6): a `ten-yeared'
student (get it?). Actually, this term may be used of any grad
student beginning in his seventh year. Students don't really get
tenure, of course, the way professors do, but a tenth-year graduate
student has probably been around the university longer than any
untenured professor.
tera-: /te'r*/ pref. [SI] See {{quantifiers}}.
teraflop club: /te'r*-flop kluhb/ n. [FLOP = Floating
Point Operation] A mythical association of people who consume
outrageous amounts of computer time in order to produce a few
simple pictures of glass balls with intricate ray-tracing
techniques. Caltech professor James Kajiya is said to have been
the founder. Compare {Knights of the Lambda Calculus}.
terminak: /ter'mi-nak`/ n. [Caltech, ca. 1979] Any
malfunctioning computer terminal. A common failure mode of
Lear-Siegler ADM 3a terminals caused the `L' key to produce the `K'
code instead; complaints about this tended to look like "Terminak
#3 has a bad keyboard. Pkease fix." See {AIDX}, {Nominal
Semidestructor}, {Open DeathTrap}, {ScumOS}, {sun-stools},
{Telerat}, {HP-SUX}.
terminal brain death: n. The extreme form of {terminal
illness} (sense 1). What someone who has obviously been hacking
continuously for far too long is said to be suffering from.
terminal illness: n. 1. Syn. {raster burn}. 2. The
`burn-in' condition your CRT tends to get if you don't have a
screen saver.
terminal junkie: n. [UK] A {wannabee} or early {larval
stage} hacker who spends most of his or her time wandering the
directory tree and writing {noddy} programs just to get a fix of
computer time. Variants include `terminal jockey', `console
junkie', and {console jockey}. The term `console jockey'
seems to imply more expertise than the other three (possibly
because of the exalted status of the {{console}} relative to an
ordinary terminal). See also {twink}, {read-only
user}.
terpri: /ter'pree/ vi. [from LISP 1.5 (and later,
MacLISP)] To output a {newline}. Now rare as jargon, though
still used as techspeak in Common LISP. It is a contraction of
`TERminate PRInt line', named for the fact that, on some early OSes
and hardware, no characters would be printed until a complete line
was formed, so this operation terminated the line and emitted the
output.
test: n. 1. Real users bashing on a prototype long enough to
get thoroughly acquainted with it, with careful monitoring and
followup of the results. 2. Some bored random user trying a couple
of the simpler features with a developer looking over his or her
shoulder, ready to pounce on mistakes. Judging by the quality of
most software, the second definition is far more prevalent. See
also {demo}.
TeX:: /tekh/ n. X An extremely powerful {macro}-based text formatter
written by Donald E. {Knuth}, very popular in the computer-science
community (it is good enough to have displaced UNIX {{troff}}, the
other favored formatter, even at many UNIX installations). TeX
fans insist on the correct (guttural) pronunciation, and the
correct spelling (all caps, squished together, with the E depressed
below the baseline; the mixed-case `TeX' is considered an
acceptable kluge on ASCII-only devices). Fans like to proliferate
names from the word `TeX' -- such as TeXnician (TeX
user), TeXhacker (TeX programmer), TeXmaster (competent
TeX programmer), TeXhax, and TeXnique. See also
{CrApTeX}.
Knuth began TeX because he had become annoyed at the declining
quality of the typesetting in volumes I--III of his monumental
"Art of Computer Programming" (see {Knuth}, also
{bible}). In a manifestation of the typical hackish urge to
solve the problem at hand once and for all, he began to design his
own typesetting language. He thought he would finish it on his
sabbatical in 1978; he was wrong by only about 8 years. The
language was finally frozen around 1985, but volume IV of "The
Art of Computer Programming" has yet to appear as of mid-1993. The
impact and influence of TeX's design has been such that nobody
minds this very much. Many grand hackish projects have started as
a bit of {toolsmith}ing on the way to something else; Knuth's
diversion was simply on a grander scale than most.
TeX has also been a noteworthy example of free, shared, but
high-quality software. Knuth used to offer monetary awards to
people who found and reported bugs in it; as the years wore on and
the few remaining bugs were fixed (and new ones even harder to
find), the bribe went up. Though well-written, TeX is so large
(and so full of cutting edge technique) that it is said to have
unearthed at least one bug in every Pascal system it has been
compiled with.
text: n. 1. [techspeak] Executable code, esp. a `pure
code' portion shared between multiple instances of a program
running in a multitasking OS. Compare {English}. 2. Textual
material in the mainstream sense; data in ordinary {{ASCII}} or
{{EBCDIC}} representation (see {flat-ASCII}). "Those are
text files; you can review them using the editor." These two
contradictory senses confuse hackers, too.
thanks in advance: [Usenet] Conventional net.politeness
ending a posted request for information or assistance. Sometimes
written `advTHANKSance' or `aTdHvAaNnKcSe' or abbreviated `TIA'.
See {net.-}, {netiquette}.
That's not a bug, that's a feature!: The {canonical}
first parry in a debate about a purported bug. The complainant, if
unconvinced, is likely to retort that the bug is then at best a
{misfeature}. See also {feature}.
the X that can be Y is not the true X: Yet another instance
of hackerdom's peculiar attraction to mystical references -- a
common humorous way of making exclusive statements about a class of
things. The template is from the "Tao te Ching": "The Tao
which can be spoken of is not the true Tao." The implication is
often that the X is a mystery accessible only to the enlightened.
See the {trampoline} entry for an example, and compare {has
the X nature}.
theology: n. 1. Ironically or humorously used to refer to
{religious issues}. 2. Technical fine points of an abstruse
nature, esp. those where the resolution is of theoretical
interest but is relatively {marginal} with respect to actual use
of a design or system. Used esp. around software issues with a
heavy AI or language-design component, such as the smart-data vs.
smart-programs dispute in AI.
theory: n. The consensus, idea, plan, story, or set of rules
that is currently being used to inform a behavior. This usage is a
generalization and (deliberate) abuse of the technical meaning.
"What's the theory on fixing this TECO loss?" "What's the
theory on dinner tonight?" ("Chinatown, I guess.") "What's
the current theory on letting lusers on during the day?" "The
theory behind this change is to fix the following well-known
screw...."
thinko: /thing'koh/ n. [by analogy with `typo'] A
momentary, correctable glitch in mental processing, especially one
involving recall of information learned by rote; a bubble in the
stream of consciousness. Syn. {braino}; see also {brain
fart}. Compare {mouso}.
This can't happen: Less clipped variant of {can't
happen}.
This time, for sure!: excl. Ritual affirmation frequently
uttered during protracted debugging sessions involving numerous
small obstacles (e.g., attempts to bring up a UUCP connection).
For the proper effect, this must be uttered in a fruity imitation
of Bullwinkle J. Moose. Also heard: "Hey, Rocky! Watch me pull a
rabbit out of my hat!" The {canonical} response is, of course,
"But that trick *never* works!" See {{Humor, Hacker}}.
thrash: vi. To move wildly or violently, without
accomplishing anything useful. Paging or swapping systems that are
overloaded waste most of their time moving data into and out of
core (rather than performing useful computation) and are therefore
said to thrash. Someone who keeps changing his mind (esp. about
what to work on next) is said to be thrashing. A person
frantically trying to execute too many tasks at once (and not
spending enough time on any single task) may also be described as
thrashing. Compare {multitask}.
thread: n. [Usenet, GEnie, CompuServe] Common abbreviation
of `topic thread', a more or less continuous chain of postings on
a single topic. To `follow a thread' is to read a series of
Usenet postings sharing a common subject or (more correctly) which
are connected by Reference headers. The better newsreaders can
present news in thread order automatically.
Interestingly, this is far from a neologism. The OED says:
"That which connects the successive points in anything, esp. a
narrative, train of thought, or the like; the sequence of events
or ideas continuing throughout the whole course of anything;"
Citations are given going back to 1642!
three-finger salute: n. Syn. {Vulcan nerve pinch}.
thud: n. 1. Yet another {metasyntactic variable} (see
{foo}). It is reported that at CMU from the mid-1970s the
canonical series of these was `foo', `bar', `thud', `blat'.
2. Rare term for the hash character, `#' (ASCII 0100011). See
{ASCII} for other synonyms.
thumb: n. The slider on a window-system scrollbar. So
called because moving it allows you to browse through the contents
of a text window in a way analogous to thumbing through a book.
thunk: /thuhnk/ n. 1. "A piece of coding which provides
an address", according to P. Z. Ingerman, who invented thunks in
1961 as a way of binding actual parameters to their formal
definitions in Algol-60 procedure calls. If a procedure is called
with an expression in the place of a formal parameter, the compiler
generates a thunk which computes the expression and leaves the
address of the result in some standard location. 2. Later
generalized into: an expression, frozen together with its
environment, for later evaluation if and when needed (similar to
what in techspeak is called a `closure'). The process of
unfreezing these thunks is called `forcing'. 3. A
{stubroutine}, in an overlay programming environment, that loads
and jumps to the correct overlay. Compare {trampoline}.
4. People and activities scheduled in a thunklike manner. "It
occurred to me the other day that I am rather accurately modeled by
a thunk -- I frequently need to be forced to completion." ---
paraphrased from a {plan file}.
Historical note: There are a couple of onomatopoeic myths
circulating about the origin of this term. The most common is that
it is the sound made by data hitting the stack; another holds that
the sound is that of the data hitting an accumulator. Yet another
suggests that it is the sound of the expression being unfrozen at
argument-evaluation time. In fact, according to the inventors, it
was coined after they realized (in the wee hours after hours of
discussion) that the type of an argument in Algol-60 could be
figured out in advance with a little compile-time thought,
simplifying the evaluation machinery. In other words, it had
`already been thought of'; thus it was christened a `thunk',
which is "the past tense of `think' at two in the morning".
tick: n. 1. A {jiffy} (sense 1). 2. In simulations, the
discrete unit of time that passes between iterations of the
simulation mechanism. In AI applications, this amount of time is
often left unspecified, since the only constraint of interest is
the ordering of events. This sort of AI simulation is often
pejoratively referred to as `tick-tick-tick' simulation,
especially when the issue of simultaneity of events with long,
independent chains of causes is {handwave}d. 3. In the FORTH
language, a single quote character.
tick-list features: n. [Acorn Computers] Features in
software or hardware that customers insist on but never use
(calculators in desktop TSRs and that sort of thing). The American
equivalent would be `checklist features', but this jargon sense
of the phrase has not been reported.
tickle a bug: vt. To cause a normally hidden bug to manifest
itself through some known series of inputs or operations. "You
can tickle the bug in the Paradise VGA card's highlight handling by
trying to set bright yellow reverse video."
tiger team: n. [U.S. military jargon] 1. Originally, a team
(of {sneaker}s) whose purpose is to penetrate security, and thus
test security measures. These people are paid professionals who do
hacker-type tricks, e.g., leave cardboard signs saying "bomb" in
critical defense installations, hand-lettered notes saying "Your
codebooks have been stolen" (they usually haven't been) inside
safes, etc. After a successful penetration, some high-ranking
security type shows up the next morning for a `security review'
and finds the sign, note, etc., and all hell breaks loose. Serious
successes of tiger teams sometimes lead to early retirement for
base commanders and security officers (see the {patch} entry for
an example). 2. Recently, and more generally, any official
inspection team or special {firefighting} group called in to
look at a problem.
A subset of tiger teams are professional {cracker}s, testing the
security of military computer installations by attempting remote
attacks via networks or supposedly `secure' comm channels. Some of
their escapades, if declassified, would probably rank among the
greatest hacks of all times. The term has been adopted in
commercial computer-security circles in this more specific sense.
time bomb: n. A subspecies of {logic bomb} that is
triggered by reaching some preset time, either once or
periodically. There are numerous legends about time bombs set up
by programmers in their employers' machines, to go off if the
programmer is fired or laid off and is not present to perform the
appropriate suppressing action periodically.
Interestingly, the only such incident for which we have been
pointed to documentary evidence took place in the Soviet Union in
1986! A disgruntled programmer at the Volga Automobile Plant
(where the Fiat clones called Ladas were manufactured) planted a
time bomb which, a week after he'd left on vacation, stopped the
entire main assembly line for a day. The case attracted lots of
attention in the Soviet Union because it was the first cracking
case to make it to court there. The perpetrator got a suspended
sentence of 3 years in jail and was barred from future work as a
programmer.
time sink: n. [poss. by analogy with `heat sink' or
`current sink'] A project that consumes unbounded amounts of
time.
time T: /ti:m T/ n. 1. An unspecified but usually
well-understood time, often used in conjunction with a later time
T+1. "We'll meet on campus at time T or at Louie's
at time T+1" means, in the context of going out for dinner:
"We can meet on campus and go to Louie's, or we can meet at
Louie's itself a bit later." (Louie's was a Chinese restaurant in
Palo Alto that was a favorite with hackers.) Had the number 30
been used instead of the number 1, it would have implied that the
travel time from campus to Louie's is 30 minutes; whatever time
T is (and that hasn't been decided on yet), you can meet
half an hour later at Louie's than you could on campus and end up
eating at the same time. See also {since time T equals minus
infinity}.
times-or-divided-by: quant. [by analogy with
`plus-or-minus'] Term occasionally used when describing the
uncertainty associated with a scheduling estimate, for either
humorous or brutally honest effect. For a software project, the
scheduling uncertainty factor is usually at least 2.
Tinkerbell program: n. A monitoring program used to scan
incoming network calls and generate alerts when calls are received
from particular sites, or when logins are attempted using certain
IDs. Named after `Project Tinkerbell', an experimental
phone-tapping program developed by British Telecom in the early
1980s.
tip of the ice-cube: n. [IBM] The visible part of
something small and insignificant. Used as an ironic comment in
situations where `tip of the iceberg' might be appropriate if the
subject were at all important.
tired iron: n. [IBM] Hardware that is perfectly functional but far
enough behind the state of the art to have been superseded by new
products, presumably with sufficient improvement in bang-per-buck
that the old stuff is starting to look a bit like a {dinosaur}.
tits on a keyboard: n. Small bumps on certain keycaps to
keep touch-typists registered (usually on the `5' of a numeric
keypad, and on the `F' and `J' of a {QWERTY} keyboard;
but the Mac, perverse as usual, has them on the `D' and
`K' keys).
TLA: /T-L-A/ n. [Three-Letter Acronym] 1. Self-describing
abbreviation for a species with which computing terminology is
infested. 2. Any confusing acronym. Examples include MCA, FTP,
SNA, CPU, MMU, SCCS, DMU, FPU, NNTP, TLA. People who like this
looser usage argue that not all TLAs have three letters, just as
not all four-letter words have four letters. One also hears of
`ETLA' (Extended Three-Letter Acronym, pronounced /ee tee el
ay/) being used to describe four-letter acronyms. The term
`SFLA' (Stupid Four-Letter Acronym) has also been reported. See
also {YABA}.
The self-effacing phrase "TDM TLA" (Too Damn Many...) is
often used to bemoan the plethora of TLAs in use. In 1989, a
random of the journalistic persuasion asked hacker Paul Boutin
"What do you think will be the biggest problem in computing in
the 90s?" Paul's straight-faced response: "There are only
17,000 three-letter acronyms." (To be exact, there are 26^3
= 17,576.)
TMRC: /tmerk'/ n. The Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT, one
of the wellsprings of hacker culture. The 1959 "Dictionary of
the TMRC Language" compiled by Peter Samson included several terms
that became basics of the hackish vocabulary (see esp. {foo},
{mung}, and {frob}).
By 1962, TMRC's legendary layout was already a marvel of complexity
(and has grown in the thirty years since; all the features
described here are still present). The control system alone
featured about 1200 relays. There were {scram switch}es located
at numerous places around the room that could be thwacked if
something undesirable was about to occur, such as a train going
full-bore at an obstruction. Another feature of the system was a
digital clock on the dispatch board, which was itself something of
a wonder in those bygone days before cheap LEDS and seven-segment
displays. When someone hit a scram switch the clock stopped and
the display was replaced with the word `FOO'; at TMRC the scram
switches are therefore called `foo switches'.
Steven Levy, in his book "Hackers" (see the
{Bibliography} in Appendix C), gives a stimulating account of
those early years. TMRC's Power and Signals group included most of
the early PDP-1 hackers and the people who later bacame the core of
the MIT AI Lab staff. Thirty years later that connection is still
very much alive, and this lexicon accordingly includes a number of
entries from a recent revision of the TMRC dictionary.
TMRCie: /tmerk'ee/, n. [MIT] A denizen of {TMRC}.
to a first approximation: 1. [techspeak] When one is doing
certain numerical computations, an approximate solution may be
computed by any of several heuristic methods, then refined to a
final value. By using the starting point of a first approximation
of the answer, one can write an algorithm that converges more
quickly to the correct result. 2. In jargon, a preface to any
comment that indicates that the comment is only approximately true.
The remark "To a first approximation, I feel good" might indicate
that deeper questioning would reveal that not all is perfect (e.g.,
a nagging cough still remains after an illness).
to a zeroth approximation: [from `to a first
approximation'] A *really* sloppy approximation; a wild
guess. Compare {social science number}.
toad: vt. [MUD] 1. Notionally, to change a {MUD} player into
a toad. 2. To permanently and totally exile a player from the MUD.
A very serious action, which can only be done by a MUD {wizard};
often involves a lot of debate among the other characters first.
See also {frog}, {FOD}.
toast: 1. n. Any completely inoperable system or component,
esp. one that has just crashed and burned: "Uh, oh ... I
think the serial board is toast." 2. vt. To cause a system to
crash accidentally, especially in a manner that requires manual
rebooting. "Rick just toasted the {firewall machine} again."
Compare {fried}.
toaster: n. 1. The archetypal really stupid application for
an embedded microprocessor controller; often used in comments that
imply that a scheme is inappropriate technology (but see
{elevator controller}). "{DWIM} for an assembler? That'd
be as silly as running UNIX on your toaster!" 2. A very, very
dumb computer. "You could run this program on any dumb toaster."
See {bitty box}, {Get a real computer!}, {toy}, {beige
toaster}. 3. A Macintosh, esp. the Classic Mac. Some hold that
this is implied by sense 2. 4. A peripheral device. "I bought my
box without toasters, but since then I've added two boards and a
second disk drive."
toeprint: n. A {footprint} of especially small size.
toggle: vt. To change a {bit} from whatever state it is
in to the other state; to change from 1 to 0 or from 0 to 1. This
comes from `toggle switches', such as standard light switches,
though the word `toggle' actually refers to the mechanism that
keeps the switch in the position to which it is flipped rather than
to the fact that the switch has two positions. There are four
things you can do to a bit: set it (force it to be 1), clear (or
zero) it, leave it alone, or toggle it. (Mathematically, one would
say that there are four distinct boolean-valued functions of one
boolean argument, but saying that is much less fun than talking
about toggling bits.)
tool: 1. n. A program used primarily to create, manipulate,
modify, or analyze other programs, such as a compiler or an editor
or a cross-referencing program. Oppose {app}, {operating
system}. 2. [UNIX] An application program with a simple,
`transparent' (typically text-stream) interface designed
specifically to be used in programmed combination with other tools
(see {filter}, {plumbing}). 3. [MIT: general to students
there] vi. To work; to study (connotes tedium). The TMRC
Dictionary defined this as "to set one's brain to the
grindstone". See {hack}. 4. n. [MIT] A student who studies
too much and hacks too little. (MIT's student humor magazine
rejoices in the name "Tool and Die".)
toolsmith: n. The software equivalent of a tool-and-die
specialist; one who specializes in making the {tool}s with which
other programmers create applications. Many hackers consider this
more fun than applications per se; to understand why, see
{uninteresting}. Jon Bentley, in the "Bumper-Sticker Computer
Science" chapter of his book "More Programming Pearls",
quotes Dick Sites from DEC as saying "I'd rather write programs to
write programs than write programs".
topic drift: n. Term used on GEnie, Usenet and other
electronic fora to describe the tendency of a {thread} to drift
away from the original subject of discussion (and thus, from the
Subject header of the originating message), or the results of that
tendency. Often used in gentle reminders that the discussion has
strayed off any useful track. "I think we started with a question
about Niven's last book, but we've ended up discussing the sexual
habits of the common marmoset. Now *that's* topic drift!"
topic group: n. Syn. {forum}.
TOPS-10:: /tops-ten/ n. DEC's proprietary OS for the
fabled {PDP-10} machines, long a favorite of hackers but now
effectively extinct. A fountain of hacker folklore; see Appendix
A. See also {{ITS}}, {{TOPS-20}}, {{TWENEX}}, {VMS},
{operating system}. TOPS-10 was sometimes called BOTS-10 (from
`bottoms-ten') as a comment on the inappropriateness of describing
it as the top of anything.
TOPS-20:: /tops-twen'tee/ n. See {{TWENEX}}.
tourist: n. [ITS] A guest on the system, especially one who
generally logs in over a network from a remote location for
{comm mode}, email, games, and other trivial purposes. One step
below {luser}. Hackers often spell this {turist}, perhaps by
some sort of tenuous analogy with {luser} (this also expresses
the ITS culture's penchant for six-letterisms). Compare
{twink}, {read-only user}.
tourist information: n. Information in an on-line display
that is not immediately useful, but contributes to a viewer's
gestalt of what's going on with the software or hardware behind it.
Whether a given piece of info falls in this category depends partly
on what the user is looking for at any given time. The `bytes
free' information at the bottom of an MS-DOS `dir' display is
tourist information; so (most of the time) is the TIME information
in a UNIX `ps(1)' display.
touristic: adj. Having the quality of a {tourist}. Often
used as a pejorative, as in `losing touristic scum'. Often
spelled `turistic' or `turistik', so that phrase might be more
properly rendered `lusing turistic scum'.
toy: n. A computer system; always used with qualifiers.
1. `nice toy': One that supports the speaker's hacking style
adequately. 2. `just a toy': A machine that yields insufficient
{computron}s for the speaker's preferred uses. This is not
condemnatory, as is {bitty box}; toys can at least be fun. It
is also strongly conditioned by one's expectations; Cray XMP users
sometimes consider the Cray-1 a `toy', and certainly all RISC
boxes and mainframes are toys by their standards. See also {Get
a real computer!}.
toy language: n. A language useful for instructional
purposes or as a proof-of-concept for some aspect of
computer-science theory, but inadequate for general-purpose
programming. {Bad Thing}s can result when a toy language is
promoted as a general purpose solution for programming (see
{bondage-and-discipline language}); the classic example is
{{Pascal}}. Several moderately well-known formalisms for
conceptual tasks such as programming Turing machines also qualify
as toy languages in a less negative sense. See also {MFTL}.
toy problem: n. [AI] A deliberately oversimplified case of a
challenging problem used to investigate, prototype, or test
algorithms for a real problem. Sometimes used pejoratively. See
also {gedanken}, {toy program}.
toy program: n. 1. One that can be readily comprehended;
hence, a trivial program (compare {noddy}). 2. One for which
the effort of initial coding dominates the costs through its life
cycle. See also {noddy}.
trampoline: n. An incredibly {hairy} technique, found in
some {HLL} and program-overlay implementations (e.g., on the
Macintosh), that involves on-the-fly generation of small executable
(and, likely as not, self-modifying) code objects to do indirection
between code sections. These pieces of {live data} are called
`trampolines'. Trampolines are notoriously difficult to
understand in action; in fact, it is said by those who use this
term that the trampoline that doesn't bend your brain is not the
true trampoline. See also {snap}.
trap: 1. n. A program interrupt, usually an interrupt caused
by some exceptional situation in the user program. In most cases,
the OS performs some action, then returns control to the program.
2. vi. To cause a trap. "These instructions trap to the
monitor." Also used transitively to indicate the cause of the
trap. "The monitor traps all input/output instructions."
This term is associated with assembler programming (`interrupt'
or `exception' is more common among {HLL} programmers) and
appears to be fading into history among programmers as the role of
assembler continues to shrink. However, it is still important to
computer architects and systems hackers (see {system},
sense 1), who use it to distinguish deterministically repeatable
exceptions from timing-dependent ones (such as I/O interrupts).
trap door: n. (alt. `trapdoor') 1. Syn. {back door}
-- a {Bad Thing}. 2. [techspeak] A `trap-door function' is
one which is easy to compute but very difficult to compute the
inverse of. Such functions are {Good Thing}s with important
applications in cryptography, specifically in the construction of
public-key cryptosystems.
trash: vt. To destroy the contents of (said of a data
structure). The most common of the family of near-synonyms
including {mung}, {mangle}, and {scribble}.
trawl: v. To sift through large volumes of data (e.g.,
Usenet postings, FTP archives, or the Jargon File) looking for
something of interest.
tree-killer: n. [Sun] 1. A printer. 2. A person who wastes
paper. This epithet should be interpreted in a broad sense;
`wasting paper' includes the production of {spiffy} but
{content-free} documents. Thus, most {suit}s are
tree-killers. The negative loading of this term may reflect the
epithet `tree-killer' applied by Treebeard the Ent to the Orcs
in J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings" (see also
{elvish}, {elder days}).
treeware: /tree'weir/ n. Printouts, books, and other
information media made from pulped dead trees. Compare
{tree-killer}, see {documentation}.
trit: /trit/ n. [by analogy with `bit'] One base-3
digit; the amount of information conveyed by a selection among one
of three equally likely outcomes (see also {bit}). Trits arise,
for example, in the context of a {flag} that should actually be
able to assume *three* values -- such as yes, no, or unknown.
Trits are sometimes jokingly called `3-state bits'. A trit may
be semi-seriously referred to as `a bit and a half', although it
is linearly equivalent to 1.5849625 bits (that is,
log2(3)
bits).
trivial: adj. 1. Too simple to bother detailing. 2. Not
worth the speaker's time. 3. Complex, but solvable by methods so
well known that anyone not utterly {cretinous} would have
thought of them already. 4. Any problem one has already solved
(some claim that hackish `trivial' usually evaluates to `I've
seen it before'). Hackers' notions of triviality may be quite at
variance with those of non-hackers. See {nontrivial},
{uninteresting}.
troff:: /T'rof/ or /trof/ n. [UNIX] The gray
eminence of UNIX text processing; a formatting and phototypesetting
program, written originally in PDP-11 assembler and then in
barely-structured early C by the late Joseph Ossanna, modeled after
the earlier ROFF which was in turn modeled after Multics' RUNOFF by
Jerome Saltzer (*that* name came from the expression "to run
off a copy"). A companion program, {nroff}, formats output for
terminals and line printers.
In 1979, Brian Kernighan modified `troff' so that it could
drive phototypesetters other than the Graphic Systems CAT. His
paper describing that work ("A Typesetter-independent troff,"
AT&T CSTR #97) explains troff's durability. After discussing the
program's "obvious deficiencies -- a rebarbative input syntax,
mysterious and undocumented properties in some areas, and a
voracious appetite for computer resources" and noting the ugliness
and extreme hairiness of the code and internals, Kernighan
concludes:
None of these remarks should be taken as denigrating Ossanna's
accomplishment with TROFF. It has proven a remarkably robust
tool, taking unbelievable abuse from a variety of preprocessors
and being forced into uses that were never conceived of in the
original design, all with considerable grace under fire.
The success of {{TeX}} and desktop publishing systems have
reduced `troff''s relative importance, but this tribute
perfectly captures the strengths that secured `troff' a place
in hacker folklore; indeed, it could be taken more generally as an
indication of those qualities of good programs that, in the long
run, hackers most admire.
troglodyte: n. [Commodore] 1. A hacker who never leaves his
cubicle. The term `Gnoll' (from Dungeons & Dragons) is also
reported. 2. A curmudgeon attached to an obsolescent computing
environment. The combination `ITS troglodyte' was flung around
some during the Usenet and email wringle-wrangle attending the
2.x.x revision of the Jargon File; at least one of the people it
was intended to describe adopted it with pride.
troglodyte mode: n. [Rice University] Programming with the
lights turned off, sunglasses on, and the terminal inverted (black
on white) because you've been up for so many days straight that
your eyes hurt (see {raster burn}). Loud music blaring from a
stereo stacked in the corner is optional but recommended. See
{larval stage}, {hack mode}.
Trojan horse: n. [coined by MIT-hacker-turned-NSA-spook Dan
Edwards] A malicious, security-breaking program that is disguised
as something benign, such as a directory lister, archiver, game, or
(in one notorious 1990 case on the Mac) a program to find and
destroy viruses! See {back door}, {virus}, {worm},
{phage}, {mockingbird}.
troll: v.,n. To utter a posting on {Usenet} designed to
attract stupid responses or {flame}s. May derive from the
phrase "trolling for {newbie}s" or some similar construction.
The well-constructed troll is a post that induces lots of newbies
and flamers to make themselves look even more like idiots than they
already do, while subtly conveying to the more savvy and
experienced that it is in fact a deliberate troll. If you don't
fall for the joke, you get to be in on it.
Some people claim that the troll is properly a narrower category
than {flame bait}, that a troll is categorized by containing
some assertion that is wrong but not overtly controversial.
tron: v. [NRL, CMU; prob. fr. the movie "Tron"] To
become inaccessible except via email or `talk(1)', especially
when one is normally available via telephone or in person.
Frequently used in the past tense, as in: "Ran seems to have
tronned on us this week" or "Gee, Ran, glad you were able to
un-tron yourself". One may also speak of `tron mode'; compare
{spod}.
true-hacker: n. [analogy with `trufan' from SF fandom] One
who exemplifies the primary values of hacker culture, esp.
competence and helpfulness to other hackers. A high compliment.
"He spent 6 hours helping me bring up UUCP and netnews on my
FOOBAR 4000 last week -- manifestly the act of a true-hacker."
Compare {demigod}, oppose {munchkin}.
tty: /T-T-Y/, /tit'ee/ n. The latter pronunciation was
primarily ITS, but some UNIX people say it this way as well; this
pronunciation is *not* considered to have sexual
undertones. 1. A terminal of the teletype variety, characterized by
a noisy mechanical printer, a very limited character set, and poor
print quality. usage: antiquated (like the TTYs themselves). See
also {bit-paired keyboard}. 2. [especially UNIX] Any terminal
at all; sometimes used to refer to the particular terminal
controlling a given job. 3. [UNIX] Any serial port, whether or not
the device connected to it is a terminal; so called because under
UNIX such devices have names of the form tty*. Ambiguity between
senses 2 and 3 is common but seldom bothersome.
tube: 1. n. A CRT terminal. Never used in the mainstream
sense of TV; real hackers don't watch TV, except for Loony Toons,
Rocky & Bullwinkle, Trek Classic, the Simpsons, and the occasional
cheesy old swashbuckler movie. 2. [IBM] To send a copy of
something to someone else's terminal. "Tube me that
note?"
tube time: n. Time spent at a terminal or console. More
inclusive than hacking time; commonly used in discussions of what
parts of one's environment one uses most heavily. "I find I'm
spending too much of my tube time reading mail since I started this
revision."
tunafish: n. In hackish lore, refers to the mutated
punchline of an age-old joke to be found at the bottom of the
manual pages of `tunefs(8)' in the original {BSD} 4.2
distribution. The joke was removed in later releases once
commercial sites started using 4.2. Tunefs relates to the
`tuning' of file-system parameters for optimum performance, and
at the bottom of a few pages of wizardly inscriptions was a `BUGS'
section consisting of the line "You can tune a file system, but
you can't tunafish". Variants of this can be seen in other BSD
versions, though it has been excised from some versions by
humorless management {droid}s. The [nt]roff source for SunOS
4.1.1 contains a comment apparently designed to prevent this:
"Take this out and a Unix Demon will dog your steps from now until
the `time_t''s wrap around."
tune: vt. [from automotive or musical usage] To optimize a
program or system for a particular environment, esp. by adjusting
numerical parameters designed as {hook}s for tuning, e.g., by
changing `#define' lines in C. One may `tune for time'
(fastest execution), `tune for space' (least memory use), or
`tune for configuration' (most efficient use of hardware). See
{bum}, {hot spot}, {hand-hacking}.
turbo nerd: n. See {computer geek}.
Turing tar-pit: n. 1. A place where anything is possible but
nothing of interest is practical. Alan Turing helped lay the
foundations of computer science by showing that all machines and
languages capable of expressing a certain very primitive set of
operations are logically equivalent in the kinds of computations
they can carry out, and in principle have capabilities that differ
only in speed from those of the most powerful and elegantly
designed computers. However, no machine or language exactly
matching Turing's primitive set has ever been built (other than
possibly as a classroom exercise), because it would be horribly
slow and far too painful to use. A `Turing tar-pit' is any
computer language or other tool that shares this property. That
is, it's theoretically universal -- but in practice, the harder
you struggle to get any real work done, the deeper its inadequacies
suck you in. Compare {bondage-and-discipline language}. 2. The
perennial {holy wars} over whether language A or B is the "most
powerful".
turist: /too'rist/ n. Var. sp. of {tourist}, q.v. Also
in adjectival form, `turistic'. Poss. influenced by {luser}
and `Turing'.
tweak: vt. 1. To change slightly, usually in reference to a
value. Also used synonymously with {twiddle}. If a program is
almost correct, rather than figure out the precise problem you
might just keep tweaking it until it works. See {frobnicate}
and {fudge factor}; also see {shotgun debugging}. 2. To
{tune} or {bum} a program; preferred usage in the U.K.
tweeter: n. [University of Waterloo] Syn. {perf},
{chad} (sense 1). This term (like {woofer}) has been in use
at Waterloo since 1972 but is elsewhere unknown. In audio jargon,
the word refers to the treble speaker(s) on a hi-fi.
TWENEX:: n. /twe'neks/ The TOPS-20 operating system by DEC
-- the second proprietary OS for the PDP-10 -- preferred by most
PDP-10 hackers over TOPS-10 (that is, by those who were not
{{ITS}} or {{WAITS}} partisans). TOPS-20 began in 1969 as Bolt,
Beranek & Newman's TENEX operating system using special paging
hardware. By the early 1970s, almost all of the systems on the
ARPANET ran TENEX. DEC purchased the rights to TENEX from BBN and
began work to make it their own. The first in-house code name for
the operating system was VIROS (VIRtual memory Operating System);
when customers started asking questions, the name was changed to
SNARK so DEC could truthfully deny that there was any project
called VIROS. When the name SNARK became known, the name was
briefly reversed to become KRANS; this was quickly abandoned when
someone objected that `krans' meant `funeral wreath' in Swedish
(though some Swedish speakers have since said it means simply
`wreath'; this part of the story may be apocryphal). Ultimately
DEC picked TOPS-20 as the name of the operating system, and it was
as TOPS-20 that it was marketed. The hacker community, mindful of
its origins, quickly dubbed it TWENEX (a contraction of `twenty
TENEX'), even though by this point very little of the original
TENEX code remained (analogously to the differences between AT&T V6
UNIX and BSD). DEC people cringed when they heard "TWENEX", but
the term caught on nevertheless (the written abbreviation `20x'
was also used). TWENEX was successful and very popular; in fact,
there was a period in the early 1980s when it commanded as fervent
a culture of partisans as UNIX or ITS -- but DEC's decision to
scrap all the internal rivals to the VAX architecture and its
relatively stodgy VMS OS killed the DEC-20 and put a sad end to
TWENEX's brief day in the sun. DEC attempted to convince TOPS-20
users to convert to {VMS}, but instead, by the late 1980s, most
of the TOPS-20 hackers had migrated to UNIX.
twiddle: n. 1. Tilde (ASCII 1111110, `~'). Also called
`squiggle', `sqiggle' (sic -- pronounced /skig'l/), and
`twaddle', but twiddle is the most common term. 2. A small and
insignificant change to a program. Usually fixes one bug and
generates several new ones (see also {shotgun debugging}).
3. vt. To change something in a small way. Bits, for example, are
often twiddled. Twiddling a switch or knob implies much less sense
of purpose than toggling or tweaking it; see {frobnicate}. To
speak of twiddling a bit connotes aimlessness, and at best doesn't
specify what you're doing to the bit; `toggling a bit' has a more
specific meaning (see {bit twiddling}, {toggle}).
twilight zone: n. [IRC] Notionally, the area of
cyberspace where {IRC} operators live. An {op} is said to
have a "connection to the twilight zone".
twink: /twink/ n. [UCSC] Equivalent to {read-only
user}. Also reported on the Usenet group soc.motss; may derive
from gay slang for a cute young thing with nothing upstairs
(compare mainstream `chick').
twirling baton: n. [PLATO] The overstrike sequence -/|\-/|\-
which produces an animated twirling baton. If you output it with a
single backspace between characters, the baton spins in place. If
you output the sequence BS SP between characters, the baton spins
from left to right. If you output BS SP BS BS between characters,
the baton spins from right to left.
The twirling baton was a popular component of animated signature
files on the pioneering PLATO educational timesharing system. The
`archie' Internet service is perhaps the best-known baton
program today; it uses the twirling baton as an idler indicating
that the program is working on a query.
two pi: quant. The number of years it takes to finish one's
thesis. Occurs in stories in the following form: "He started on
his thesis; 2 pi years later..."
two-to-the-N: quant. An amount much larger than {N} but
smaller than {infinity}. "I have 2-to-the-N things to
do before I can go out for lunch" means you probably won't show
up.
twonkie: /twon'kee/ n. The software equivalent of a
Twinkie (a variety of sugar-loaded junk food, or (in gay slang) the
male equivalent of `chick'); a useless `feature' added to look
sexy and placate a {marketroid} (compare {Saturday-night
special}). The term may also be related to "The Twonky",
title menace of a classic SF short story by Lewis Padgett (Henry
Kuttner and C. L. Moore), first published in the September 1942
"Astounding Science Fiction" and subsequently much
anthologized.