HaCKeRz Kr0nlcKLeZ 1/HaCKeRz Kr0nlcKLeZ.iso/chibacity/hackdict.doc

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                 HACKER'S DICTIONARY









                 HACKER'S DICTIONARY

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

          Compiled by Guy L. Steele Jr., Raphael Finkel, Donald
          Woods,  Geoff  Goodfellow  and  Mark  Crispin,   with
          assistance from the MIT  and Stanford AI  communities
          and   Worcester    Polytechnic    Institute.     Some
          contributions were  submitted  via the  ARPAnet  from
          miscellaneous sites.

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



      Verb doubling: a standard construction is to double a verb and use it
     as a comment on what the implied subject does.  Often used to
     terminate a conversation.  Typical examples involve WIN, LOSE,
     HACK, FLAME, BARF, CHOMP:
          "The disk heads just crashed."  "Lose, lose."
          "Mostly he just talked about his --- crock.  Flame, flame."
          "Boy, what a bagbiter!  Chomp, chomp!"

      Sound-a-like slang: similar to Cockney rhyming slang.  Often made up on
     the spur of the moment.  Standard examples:
          Boston Globe => Boston Glob
          Herald American => Horrid (Harried) American
          New York Times => New York Slime
          historical reasons => hysterical raisins
          government property - do not duplicate (seen on keys)
              => government duplicity - do not propagate
     Often the substitution will be made in such a way as to slip in
     a standard jargon word:
          Dr. Dobb's Journal => Dr. Frob's Journal
          creeping featurism => feeping creaturism
          Margaret Jacks Hall => Marginal Hacks Hall

      The -P convention: turning a word into a question by appending the
     syllable "P"; from the LISP convention of appending the letter "P"
     to denote a predicate (a Boolean-values function).  The question
     should expect a yes/no answer, though it needn't.  (See T and NIL.)

          At dinnertime: "Foodp?"  "Yeah, I'm pretty hungry." or "T!"

          "State-of-the-world-P?"  (Straight) "I'm about to go home."

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

        [One of the best of these is a Gosperism (i.e., due to Bill

        Gosper).  When we were at a Chinese restaurant, he wanted to know

        whether someone would like to share with him a two-person-sized

        bowl of soup.  His inquiry was: "Split-p soup?" --GLS]







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     Peculiar nouns: MIT AI hackers love to take various words and add the

        wrong endings to them to make nouns and verbs, often by extending a

        standard rule to nonuniform cases.  Examples:

                     porous => porosity

                     generous => generosity

             Ergo:   mysterious => mysteriosity

                     ferrous => ferocity

        Other examples:  winnitude, disgustitude, hackification.



     Spoken inarticulations:  Words such as "mumble", "sigh", and "groan"

        are spoken in places where their referent might more naturally be

        used.  It has been suggested that this usage derives from the

        impossibility of representing such noises in a com link.  Another

        expression sometimes heard is "complain!"



     @BEGIN (primarily CMU) with @END, used humorously in writing to

        indicate a context or to remark on the surrounded text.  From the

        SCRIBE command of the same name.  For example:

             @Begin(Flame)

             Predicate logic is the only good programming language.

             Anyone who would use anything else is an idiot.  Also,

             computers should be tredecimal instead of binary.

             @End(Flame)



     ANGLE BRACKETS (primarily MIT) n. Either of the characters "<" and

        ">".  See BROKET.



     AOS (aus (East coast) ay-ahs (West coast)) [based on a PDP-10

        increment instruction] v. To increase the amount of something.

        "Aos the campfire."  Usage: considered silly.  See SOS.



     ARG n. Abbreviation for "argument" (to a function), used so often as

        to have become a new word.



     AUTOMAGICALLY adv. Automatically, but in a way which, for some reason

        (typically because it is too complicated, or too ugly, or perhaps

        even too trivial), I don't feel like explaining to you.  See MAGIC.

        Example: Some programs which produce XGP output files spool them

        automagically.



     BAGBITER 1. n. Equipment or program that fails, usually

        intermittently.  2. BAGBITING: adj. Failing hardware or software.

        "This bagbiting system won't let me get out of spacewar."  Usage:

        verges on obscenity.  Grammatically separable; one may speak of

        "biting the bag".  Synonyms: LOSER, LOSING, CRETINOUS, BLETCHEROUS,

        BARFUCIOUS, CHOMPER, CHOMPING.



     BANG n. Common alternate name for EXCL (q.v.), especially at CMU.  See

        SHRIEK.



     BAR 1. The second metasyntactic variable, after FOO.  "Suppose we have

        two functions FOO and BAR.  FOO calls BAR..."  2. Often appended to

        FOO to produce FOOBAR.



     BARF [from the "layman" slang, meaning "vomit"] 1. interj. Term of

        disgust.  See BLETCH.  2. v. Choke, as on input.  May mean to give





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        an error message.  "The function `=' compares two fixnums or two

        flonums, and barfs on anything else."  3. BARFULOUS, BARFUCIOUS:

        adj. Said of something which would make anyone barf, if only for

        aesthetic reasons.



     BELLS AND WHISTLES n. Unnecessary but useful (or amusing) features of

        a program.  "Now that we've got the basic program working, let's go

        back and add some bells and whistles."  Nobody seems to know what

        distinguishes a bell from a whistle.



     BIGNUMS [from Macsyma] n. 1. In backgammon, large numbers on the dice.

        2. Multiple-precision (sometimes infinitely extendible) integers

        and, through analogy, any very large numbers.  3. EL CAMINO BIGNUM:

        El Camino Real, a street through the San Francisco peninsula that

        originally extended (and still appears in places) all the way to

        Mexico City.  It was termed "El Camino Double Precision" when

        someone noted it was a very long street, and then "El Camino

        Bignum" when it was pointed out that it was hundreds of miles long.



     BIN [short for BINARY; used as a second file name on ITS] 1. n.

        BINARY.  2. BIN FILE: A file containing the BIN for a program.

        Usage: used at MIT, which runs on ITS.  The equivalent term at

        Stanford is DMP (pronounced "dump") FILE.  Other names used include

        SAV ("save") FILE (DEC and Tenex), SHR ("share") and LOW FILES

        (DEC), and EXE ("ex'ee") FILE (DEC and Twenex).  Also in this

        category are the input files to the various flavors of linking

        loaders (LOADER, LINK-10, STINK), called REL FILES.



     BINARY n. The object code for a program.



     BIT n. 1. The unit of information; the amount of information obtained

        by asking a yes-or-no question.  "Bits" is often used simply to

        mean information, as in "Give me bits about DPL replicators".  2.

        [By extension from "interrupt bits" on a computer] A reminder that

        something should be done or talked about eventually.  Upon seeing

        someone that you haven't talked to for a while, it's common for one

        or both to say, "I have a bit set for you."



     BITBLT (bit'blit) 1. v. To perform a complex operation on a large

        block of bits, usually involving the bits being displayed on a

        bitmapped raster screen.  See BLT.  2. n. The operation itself.



     BIT BUCKET n. 1. A receptacle used to hold the runoff from the

        computer's shift registers.  2. Mythical destination of deleted

        files, GC'ed memory, and other no-longer-accessible data.  3. The

        physical device associated with "NUL:".



     BLETCH [from German "brechen", to vomit (?)] 1. interj. Term of

        disgust.  2. BLETCHEROUS: adj. Disgusting in design or function.

        "This keyboard is bletcherous!"  Usage: slightly comic.



     BLT (blit, very rarely belt) [based on the PDP-10 block transfer

        instruction; confusing to users of the PDP-11] 1. v. To transfer a

        large contiguous package of information from one place to another.

        2. THE BIG BLT: n. Shuffling operation on the PDP-10 under some

        operating systems that consumes a significant amount of computer





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        time.  3. (usually pronounced B-L-T) n. Sandwich containing bacon,

        lettuce, and tomato.



     BOGOSITY n. The degree to which something is BOGUS (q.v.).  At CMU,

        bogosity is measured with a bogometer; typical use: in a seminar,

        when a speaker says something bogus, a listener might raise his

        hand and say, "My bogometer just triggered."  The agreed-upon unit

        of bogosity is the microLenat (uL).



     BOGUS (WPI, Yale, Stanford) adj. 1. Non-functional.  "Your patches are

        bogus."  2. Useless.  "OPCON is a bogus program."  3. False.  "Your

        arguments are bogus."  4. Incorrect.  "That algorithm is bogus."

        5. Silly.  "Stop writing those bogus sagas."  (This word seems to

        have some, but not all, of the connotations of RANDOM.)

        [Etymological note from Lehman/Reid at CMU:  "Bogus" was originally

        used (in this sense) at Princeton, in the late 60's.  It was used

        not particularly in the CS department, but all over campus.  It

        came to Yale, where one of us (Lehman) was an undergraduate, and

        (we assume) elsewhere through the efforts of Princeton alumni who

        brought the word with them from their alma mater.  In the Yale

        case, the alumnus is Michael Shamos, who was a graduate student at

        Yale and is now a faculty member here.  A glossary of bogus words

        was compiled at Yale when the word was first popularized (e.g.,

        autobogophobia: the fear of becoming bogotified).]



     BOUNCE (Stanford) v. To play volleyball.  "Bounce, bounce!  Stop

        wasting time on the computer and get out to the court!"



     BRAIN-DAMAGED [generalization of "Honeywell Brain Damage" (HBD), a

        theoretical disease invented to explain certain utter cretinisms in

        Multics] adj. Obviously wrong; cretinous; demented.  There is an

        implication that the person responsible must have suffered brain

        damage, because he should have known better.  Calling something

        brain-damaged is really bad; it also implies it is unusable.



     BREAK v. 1. To cause to be broken (in any sense).  "Your latest patch

        to the system broke the TELNET server."  2. (of a program) To stop

        temporarily, so that it may be examined for debugging purposes.

        The place where it stops is a BREAKPOINT.



     BROKEN adj. 1. Not working properly (of programs).  2. Behaving

        strangely; especially (of people), exhibiting extreme depression.



     BROKET [by analogy with "bracket": a "broken bracket"] (primarily

        Stanford) n. Either of the characters "<" and ">".  (At MIT, and

        apparently in The Real World (q.v.) as well, these are usually

        called ANGLE BRACKETS.)



     BUCKY BITS (primarily Stanford) n. The bits produced by the CTRL and

        META shift keys on a Stanford (or Knight) keyboard.  Rumor has it

        that the idea for extra bits for characters came from Niklaus

        Wirth, and that his nickname was `Bucky'.

        DOUBLE BUCKY: adj. Using both the CTRL and META keys.  "The command

        to burn all LEDs is double bucky F."



     BUG [from telephone terminology, "bugs in a telephone cable", blamed





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        for noisy lines; however, Jean Sammet has repeatedly been heard to

        claim that the use of the term in CS comes from a story concerning

        actual bugs found wedged in an early malfunctioning computer] n. An

        unwanted and unintended property of a program.  (People can have

        bugs too (even winners) as in "PHW is a super winner, but he has

        some bugs.")  See FEATURE.



     BUM 1. v. To make highly efficient, either in time or space, often at

        the expense of clarity.  The object of the verb is usually what was

        removed ("I managed to bum three more instructions.") but can be

        the program being changed ("I bummed the inner loop down to seven

        microseconds.")  2. n. A small change to an algorithm to make it

        more efficient.



     BUZZ v. To run in a very tight loop, perhaps without guarantee of

        getting out.



     CANONICAL adj. The usual or standard state or manner of something.

        A true story:  One Bob Sjoberg, new at the MIT AI Lab, expressed

        some annoyance at the use of jargon.  Over his loud objections, we

        made a point of using jargon as much as possible in his presence,

        and eventually it began to sink in.  Finally, in one conversation,

        he used the word "canonical" in jargon-like fashion without

        thinking.

        Steele: "Aha!  We've finally got you talking jargon too!"

        Stallman: "What did he say?"

        Steele: "He just used `canonical' in the canonical way."



     CATATONIA (kat-uh-toe'nee-uh) n. A condition of suspended animation in

        which the system is in a wedged (CATATONIC) state.



     CDR (ku'der) [from LISP] v. With "down", to trace down a list of

        elements.  "Shall we cdr down the agenda?"  Usage: silly.



     CHINE NUAL n. The Lisp Machine Manual, so called because the title is

        wrapped around the cover so only those letters show.



     CHOMP v. To lose; to chew on something of which more was bitten off

        than one can.  Probably related to gnashing of teeth.  See

        BAGBITER.  A hand gesture commonly accompanies this, consisting of

        the four fingers held together as if in a mitten or hand puppet,

        and the fingers and thumb open and close rapidly to illustrate a

        biting action.  The gesture alone means CHOMP CHOMP (see Verb

        Doubling).



     CLOSE n. Abbreviation for "close (or right) parenthesis", used when

        necessary to eliminate oral ambiguity.  See OPEN.



     COKEBOTTLE n. Any very unusual character.  MIT people complain about

        the "control-meta-cokebottle" commands at SAIL, and SAIL people

        complain about the "altmode-altmode-cokebottle" commands at MIT.



     COM MODE (variant: COMM MODE) [from the ITS feature for linking two or

        more terminals together so that text typed on any is echoed on all,

        providing a means of conversation among hackers] n. The state a

        terminal is in when linked to another in this way.  Com mode has a





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        special set of jargon words, used to save typing, which are not

        used orally:

             BCNU    Be seeing you.

             BTW     By the way...

             BYE?    Are you ready to unlink?  (This is the standard way to

                     end a com mode conversation; the other person types

                     BYE to confirm, or else continues the conversation.)

             CUL     See you later.

             FOO?    A greeting, also meaning R U THERE?  Often used in the

                     case of unexpected links, meaning also "Sorry if I

                     butted in" (linker) or "What's up?" (linkee).

             FYI     For your information...

             GA      Go ahead (used when two people have tried to type

                     simultaneously; this cedes the right to type to

                     the other).

             HELLOP  A greeting, also meaning R U THERE?  (An instance

                     of the "-P" convention.)

             MtFBWY  May the Force be with you.  (From Star Wars.)

             NIL     No (see the main entry for NIL).

             OBTW    Oh, by the way...

             R U THERE?      Are you there?

             SEC     Wait a second (sometimes written SEC...).

             T       Yes (see the main entry for T).

             TNX     Thanks.

             TNX 1.0E6       Thanks a million (humorous).

             <double CRLF>  When the typing party has finished, he types

                     two CRLF's to signal that he is done; this leaves a

                     blank line between individual "speeches" in the

                     conversation, making it easier to re-read the

                     preceding text.

             <name>: When three or more terminals are linked, each speech

                     is preceded by the typist's login name and a colon (or

                     a hyphen) to indicate who is typing.  The login name

                     often is shortened to a unique prefix (possibly a

                     single letter) during a very long conversation.

             /\/\/\  The equivalent of a giggle.

        At Stanford, where the link feature is implemented by "talk loops",

        the term TALK MODE is used in place of COM MODE.  Most of the above

        "sub-jargon" is used at both Stanford and MIT.



     CONNECTOR CONSPIRACY [probably came into prominence with the

        appearance of the KL-10, none of whose connectors match anything

        else] n. The tendency of manufacturers (or, by extension,

        programmers or purveyors of anything) to come up with new products

        which don't fit together with the old stuff, thereby making you buy

        either all new stuff or expensive interface devices.



     CONS [from LISP] 1. v. To add a new element to a list.  2. CONS UP:

        v. To synthesize from smaller pieces: "to cons up an example".



     CRASH 1. n. A sudden, usually drastic failure.  Most often said of the

        system (q.v., definition #1), sometimes of magnetic disk drives.

        "Three lusers lost their files in last night's disk crash."  A disk

        crash which entails the read/write heads dropping onto the surface

        of the disks and scraping off the oxide may also be referred to as

        a "head crash".  2. v. To fail suddenly.  "Has the system just





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        crashed?"  Also used transitively to indicate the cause of the

        crash (usually a person or a program, or both).  "Those idiots

        playing spacewar crashed the system."  Sometimes said of people.

        See GRONK OUT.



     CRETIN 1. n. Congenital loser (q.v.).  2. CRETINOUS: adj. See

        BLETCHEROUS and BAGBITING.  Usage: somewhat ad hominem.



     CRLF (cur'lif, sometimes crul'lif) n. A carriage return (CR) followed

        by a line feed (LF).  See TERPRI.



     CROCK [probably from "layman" slang, which in turn may be derived from

        "crock of shit"] n. An awkward feature or programming technique

        that ought to be made cleaner.  Example: Using small integers to

        represent error codes without the program interpreting them to the

        user is a crock.  Also, a technique that works acceptably but which

        is quite prone to failure if disturbed in the least, for example

        depending on the machine opcodes having particular bit patterns so

        that you can use instructions as data words too; a tightly woven,

        almost completely unmodifiable structure.



     CRUFTY [from "cruddy"] adj. 1. Poorly built, possibly overly complex.

        "This is standard old crufty DEC software".  Hence CRUFT, n. shoddy

        construction.  Also CRUFT, v. [from hand cruft, pun on hand craft]

        to write assembler code for something normally (and better) done by

        a compiler.  2. Unpleasant, especially to the touch, often with

        encrusted junk.  Like spilled coffee smeared with peanut butter and

        catsup.  Hence CRUFT, n. disgusting mess.  3. Generally unpleasant.

        CRUFTY or CRUFTIE n. A small crufty object (see FROB); often one

        which doesn't fit well into the scheme of things.  "A LISP property

        list is a good place to store crufties (or, random cruft)."

        [Note:  Does CRUFT have anything to do with the Cruft Lab at

        Harvard?  I don't know, though I was a Harvard student. - GLS]



     CRUNCH v. 1. To process, usually in a time-consuming or complicated

        way.  Connotes an essentially trivial operation which is

        nonetheless painful to perform.  The pain may be due to the

        triviality being imbedded in a loop from 1 to 1000000000.  "FORTRAN

        programs do mostly number crunching."  2. To reduce the size of a

        file by a complicated scheme that produces bit configurations

        completely unrelated to the original data, such as by a Huffman

        code.  (The file ends up looking like a paper document would if

        somebody crunched the paper into a wad.)  Since such compression

        usually takes more computations than simpler methods such as

        counting repeated characters (such as spaces) the term is doubly

        appropriate.  (This meaning is usually used in the construction

        "file crunch(ing)" to distinguish it from "number crunch(ing)".)

        3. n. The character "#".  Usage: used at Xerox and CMU, among other

        places.  Other names for "#" include SHARP, NUMBER, HASH, PIG-PEN,

        POUND-SIGN, and MESH.  GLS adds: I recall reading somewhere that

        most of these are names for the # symbol IN CONTEXT.  The name for

        the sign itself is "octothorp".



     CTY (city) n. The terminal physically associated with a computer's

        operating console.







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     CUSPY [from the DEC acronym CUSP, for Commonly Used System Program,

        i.e., a utility program used by many people] (WPI) adj. 1. (of a

        program) Well-written.  2. Functionally excellent.  A program which

        performs well and interfaces well to users is cuspy.  See RUDE.



     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  See PHASE (of people).



     DEADLOCK 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.



     DEADLY EMBRACE 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.



     DEMENTED adj. Yet another term of disgust used to describe a program.

        The connotation in this case is that the program works as designed,

        but the design is bad.  For example, a program that generates large

        numbers of meaningless error messages implying it is on the point

        of imminent collapse.



     DEMON (dee'mun) n. 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





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        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.



     DIABLO (dee-ah'blow) [from the Diablo printer] 1. n. Any letter-

        quality printing device.  2. v. To produce letter-quality output

        from such a device.



     DIDDLE 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 [from "diagonal cutters"] v. To remove a module or disable it.

        "When in doubt, dike it out."



     DMP (dump)  See BIN.



     DO PROTOCOL [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.



     DOWN 1. adj. Not working.  "The up escalator is down."  2. TAKE DOWN,

        BRING DOWN: v. To deactivate, usually for repair work.  See UP.



     DPB (duh-pib') [from the PDP-10 instruction set] v. To plop something

        down in the middle.



     DRAGON 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.  At MIT, all free TV's display 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.



     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.



     ENGLISH n. The source code for a program, which may be in any

        language, as opposed to BINARY.  Usage: slightly obsolete, used

        mostly by old-time hackers, though recognizable in context.  At

        MIT, directory SYSENG is where the "English" for system programs is

        kept, and SYSBIN, the binaries.  SAIL has many such directories,

        but the canonical one is [CSP,SYS].





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     EPSILON [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 (q.v.).  "We can get

        this feature for epsilon cost."  3. WITHIN EPSILON OF: Close enough

        to be indistinguishable for all practical purposes.



     EXCH (ex'chuh, ekstch) [from the PDP-10 instruction set] v. To

        exchange two things, each for the other.



     EXCL (eks'cul) n. Abbreviation for "exclamation point".  See BANG,

        SHRIEK, WOW.



     EXE (ex'ee)  See BIN.



     FAULTY adj. Same denotation as "bagbiting", "bletcherous", "losing",

        q.v., but the connotation is much milder.



     FEATURE n. 1. A surprising property of a program.  Occasionally docu-

        mented.  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.  An approximately correct spectrum:



        (These terms are all used to describe programs or portions thereof,

        except for the first two, which are included for completeness.)

             CRASH  STOPPAGE  BUG  SCREW  LOSS  MISFEATURE

                     CROCK  KLUGE  HACK  WIN  FEATURE  PERFECTION

        (The last is never actually attained.)



     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 is 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.



     FENCEPOST ERROR 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.)



     FINE (WPI) adj. Good, but not good enough to be CUSPY.  [The word FINE

        is used elsewhere, of course, but without the implicit comparison

        to the higher level implied by CUSPY.]



     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?"





                                        -10-









                                HACKER'S DICTIONARY





     FLAKEY adj. Subject to frequent lossages.  See LOSSAGE.



     FLAME 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.  This punning

        reference to Marvel comics' Human Torch has been lost as

        recent usage completes the circle:  "Flame on" now usually

        means "beginning of flame".



     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 n. 1. Variety, type, kind.  "DDT commands come in two flavors."

        See VANILLA.  2. The attribute of causing something to be

        FLAVORFUL.  "This convention yields additional flavor by allowing

        one to..."  3. On the LispMachine, an object-oriented programming

        system ("flavors"); each class of object is a flavor.



     FLAVORFUL adj. Aesthetically pleasing.  See RANDOM and LOSING for

        antonyms.  See also the entry for TASTE.



     FLUSH 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.



     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.

        MOBY FOO: See MOBY.



     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 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 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





                                        -11-









                                HACKER'S DICTIONARY





        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, 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, FROBULE, and FROBNODULE.  Starting

        perhaps in 1979, FROBBOZ (fruh-bahz'), pl. FROBBOTZIM, has also

        become very popular, largely due to its exposure via the Adventure

        spin-off called Zork (Dungeon).  These can also be applied to

        non-physical objects, such as data structures.



     FROG (variant: PHROG) 1. interj. Term of disgust (we seem to have a

        lot of them).  2. Used as a name for just about anything.  See FOO.

        3. n. Of things, a crock.  Of people, somewhere inbetween a turkey

        and a toad.  4. Jake Brown (FRG@SAIL).  5. FROGGY: adj. Similar to

        BAGBITING (q.v.), but milder.  "This froggy program is taking

        forever to run!"



     FROTZ 1. n. See FROBNITZ.  2. MUMBLE FROTZ: An interjection of very

        mild disgust.



     FRY 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.



     FTP (spelled out, NOT pronounced "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 SAIL."



     FUDGE 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 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.



     GABRIEL [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".







                                        -12-









                                HACKER'S DICTIONARY





     GARBAGE COLLECT v., GARBAGE COLLECTION n. See GC.



     GARPLY n. (Stanford) Another meta-word popular among SAIL hackers.



     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.



     GC [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. To

        recycle, reclaim, or put to another use.  3. To forget.  The

        implication is often that one has done so delibrately.  4. n. An

        instantiation of the GC process.



     GEDANKEN [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.



     GLASS TTY 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.



     GLITCH [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.



     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."



     GOBBLE 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.



     GORP (CMU) [perhaps from the generic term for dried hiker's food,

        stemming from the acronym "Good Old Raisins and Peanuts"] Another

        metasyntactic variable, like FOO and BAR.







                                        -13-









                                HACKER'S DICTIONARY





     GRIND v. 1. (primarily MIT) To format code, especially LISP code, by

        indenting lines so that it looks pretty.  Hence, PRETTY PRINT, the

        generic term for such operations.  2. To run seemingly

        interminably, performing some tedious and inherently useless task.

        Similar to CRUNCH.



     GRITCH 1. n. A complaint (often caused by a GLITCH (q.v.)).  2. v. To

        complain.  Often verb-doubled: "Gritch gritch".  3. Glitch.



     GROK [from the novel "Stranger in a Strange Land", by Robert Heinlein,

        where it is a Martian word meaning roughly "to be one with"] v. To

        understand, usually in a global sense.



     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 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 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.



     GUBBISH [a portmanteau of "garbage" and "rubbish"?] n. Garbage; crap;

        nonsense.  "What is all this gubbish?"



     GUN [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."



     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





                                        -14-









                                HACKER'S DICTIONARY





        useless goal, the point being that the accomplished goal is a hack.

        For example, MacLISP has code to read and print roman numerals,

        which was installed purely for hack value.

        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.

        [The word HACK doesn't really have 69 different meanings.  In fact,

        HACK has only one meaning, an extremely subtle and profound one

        which defies articulation.  Which connotation a given HACK-token

        has depends in similarly profound ways on the context.  Similar

        comments apply to a couple other hacker jargon items, most notably

        RANDOM. - Agre]



     HACKER [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 SAIL hacker".  (Definitions 1 to 5 are correlated,

        and people who fit them congregate.)  6. A malicious or inquisitive

        meddler who tries to discover information by poking around.  Hence

        "password hacker", "network hacker".



     HACKISH adj. Being or involving a hack.  HACKISHNESS n.



     HAIR 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.



     HAIRY 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 n. MIT AI Memo 239 (February 1972).  A collection of neat

        mathematical and programming hacks contributed by many people

        at MIT and elsewhere.



     HANDWAVE 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.



     HARDWARILY adv. In a way pertaining to hardware.  "The system is

        hardwarily unreliable."  The adjective "hardwary" is NOT used.  See

        SOFTWARILY.





                                        -15-









                                HACKER'S DICTIONARY





     HELLO WALL  See WALL.



     HIRSUTE  Occasionally used humorously as a synonym for HAIRY.



     HOOK 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.



     HUMONGOUS, HUMUNGOUS  See HUNGUS.



     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."



     IMPCOM  See TELNET.



     INFINITE adj. Consisting of a large number of objects; extreme.  Used

        very loosely as in: "This program produces infinite garbage."



     IRP (erp) [from the MIDAS pseudo-op which generates a block of code

        repeatedly, substituting in various places the car and/or cdr of

        the list(s) supplied at the IRP] v. To perform a series of tasks

        repeatedly with a minor substitution each time through.  "I guess

        I'll IRP over these homework papers so I can give them some random

        grade for this semester."



     JFCL (djif'kl or dja-fik'l) [based on the PDP-10 instruction that acts

        as a fast no-op] v. To cancel or annul something.  "Why don't you

        jfcl that out?"  [The license plate on Geoff Goodfellow's BMW is

        JFCL.]



     JIFFY n. 1. Interval of CPU time, commonly 1/60 second or 1

        millisecond.  2. Indeterminate time from a few seconds to forever.

        "I'll do it in a jiffy" means certainly not now and possibly never.



     JOCK n. Programmer who is characterized by large and somewhat brute

        force programs.  The term is particularly well-suited for systems

        programmers.



     J. RANDOM  See RANDOM.



     JRST (jerst) [based on the PDP-10 jump instruction] v. To suddenly

        change subjects.  Usage: rather rare.  "Jack be nimble, Jack be

        quick; Jack jrst over the candle stick."



     JSYS (jay'sis), pl. JSI (jay'sigh) [Jump to SYStem] See UUO.



     KLUGE (kloodj) alt. KLUDGE [from the German "kluge", clever] n. 1. A

        Rube Goldberg device in hardware or software.  2. A clever

        programming trick intended to solve a particular nasty case in an

        efficient, if not clear, manner.  Often used to repair bugs.  Often

        verges on being a crock.  3. Something that works for the wrong

        reason.  4. v. To insert a kluge into a program.  "I've kluged this





                                        -16-









                                HACKER'S DICTIONARY





        routine to get around that weird bug, but there's probably a better

        way."  Also KLUGE UP.  5. KLUGE AROUND: To avoid by inserting a

        kluge.  6. (WPI) A feature which is implemented in a RUDE manner.



     LDB (lid'dib) [from the PDP-10 instruction set] v. To extract from the

        middle.



     LIFE n. A cellular-automata game invented by John Horton Conway, and

        first introduced publicly by Martin Gardner (Scientific American,

        October 1970).



     LINE FEED (standard ASCII terminology) 1. v. To feed the paper through

        a terminal by one line (in order to print on the next line).  2. n.

        The "character" which causes the terminal to perform this action.



     LINE STARVE (MIT) Inverse of LINE FEED.



     LOGICAL [from the technical term "logical device", wherein a physical

        device is referred to by an arbitrary name] adj. Understood to have

        a meaning not necessarily corresponding to reality.  E.g., if a

        person who has long held a certain post (e.g., Les Earnest at SAIL)

        left and was replaced, the replacement would for a while be known

        as the "logical Les Earnest".  The word VIRTUAL is also used.  At

        SAIL, "logical" compass directions denote a coordinate system in

        which "logical north" is toward San Francisco, "logical west" is

        toward the ocean, etc., even though logical north varies between

        physical (true) north near SF and physical west near San Jose.

        (The best rule of thumb here is that El Camino Real by definition

        always runs logical north-and-south.)



     LOSE [from MIT jargon] v. 1. To fail.  A program loses when it

        encounters an exceptional condition.  2. To be exceptionally

        unaesthetic.  3. Of people, to be obnoxious or unusually stupid (as

        opposed to ignorant).  4. DESERVE TO LOSE: v. Said of someone who

        willfully does the wrong thing; humorously, if one uses a feature

        known to be marginal.  What is meant is that one deserves the

        consequences of one's losing actions.  "Boy, anyone who tries to

        use MULTICS deserves to lose!"

        LOSE LOSE - a reply or comment on a situation.



     LOSER n. An unexpectedly bad situation, program, programmer, or

        person.  Especially "real loser".



     LOSS n. Something which loses.  WHAT A (MOBY) LOSS!: interjection.



     LOSSAGE n. The result of a bug or malfunction.



     LPT (lip'it) n. Line printer, of course.



     LUSER  See USER.



     MACROTAPE n. An industry standard reel of tape, as opposed to a

        MICROTAPE.



     MAGIC adj. 1. As yet unexplained, or too complicated to explain.

        (Arthur C. Clarke once said that magic was as-yet-not-understood





                                        -17-









                                HACKER'S DICTIONARY





        science.)  "TTY echoing is controlled by a large number of magic

        bits."  "This routine magically computes the parity of an eight-bit

        byte in three instructions."  2. (Stanford) A feature not generally

        publicized which allows something otherwise impossible, or a

        feature formerly in that category but now unveiled.  Example: The

        keyboard commands which override the screen-hiding features.



     MARGINAL adj. 1. Extremely small.  "A marginal increase in core can

        decrease GC time drastically."  See EPSILON.  2. Of extremely small

        merit.  "This proposed new feature seems rather marginal to me."

        3. Of extremely small probability of winning.  "The power supply

        was rather marginal anyway; no wonder it crapped out."  4.

        MARGINALLY: adv. Slightly.  "The ravs here are only marginally

        better than at Small Eating Place."



     MICROTAPE n. Occasionally used to mean a DECtape, as opposed to a

        MACROTAPE.  This was the official DEC term for the stuff until

        someone consed up the word "DECtape".



     MISFEATURE n. A feature which eventually screws someone, possibly

        because it is not adequate for a new situation which has evolved.

        It is not the same as a bug because fixing it involves a gross

        philosophical change to the structure of the system involved.

        Often a former feature becomes a misfeature because a tradeoff was

        made whose parameters subsequently changed (possibly only in the

        judgment of the implementors).  "Well, yeah, it's kind of a

        misfeature that file names are limited to six characters, but we're

        stuck with it for now."



     MOBY [seems to have been in use among model railroad fans years ago.

        Entered the world of AI with the Fabritek 256K moby memory of

        MIT-AI.  Derived from Melville's "Moby Dick" (some say from "Moby

        Pickle").] 1. adj. Large, immense, or complex.  "A moby frob."  2.

        n. The maximum address space of a machine, hence 3. n. 256K words,

        the size of a PDP-10 moby.  (The maximum address space means the

        maximum normally addressable space, as opposed to the amount of

        physical memory a machine can have.  Thus the MIT PDP-10s each have

        two mobies, usually referred to as the "low moby" (0-777777) and

        "high moby" (1000000-1777777), or as "moby 0" and "moby 1".  MIT-AI

        has four mobies of address space: moby 2 is the PDP-6 memory, and

        moby 3 the PDP-11 interface.)  In this sense "moby" is often used

        as a generic unit of either address space (18. bits' worth) or of

        memory (about a megabyte, or 9/8 megabyte (if one accounts for

        difference between 32.- and 36.-bit words), or 5/4 megacharacters).

        4. A title of address (never of third-person reference), usually

        used to show admiration, respect, and/or friendliness to a

        competent hacker.  "So, moby Knight, how's the CONS machine doing?"

        5. adj. In backgammon, doubles on the dice, as in "moby sixes",

        "moby ones", etc.

        MOBY FOO, MOBY WIN, MOBY LOSS: standard emphatic forms.

        FOBY MOO: a spoonerism due to Greenblatt.



     MODE n. A general state, usually used with an adjective describing the

        state.  "No time to hack; I'm in thesis mode."  Usage: in its

        jargon sense, MODE is most often said of people, though it is

        sometimes applied to programs and inanimate objects.  "If you're on





                                        -18-









                                HACKER'S DICTIONARY





        a TTY, E will switch to non-display mode."  In particular, see DAY

        MODE, NIGHT MODE, and YOYO MODE; also COM MODE, TALK MODE, and

        GABRIEL MODE.



     MODULO prep. Except for.  From mathematical terminology: one can

        consider saying that 4=22 "except for the 9's" (4=22 mod 9).

        "Well, LISP seems to work okay now, modulo that GC bug."



     MOON n. 1. A celestial object whose phase is very important to

        hackers.  See PHASE OF THE MOON.  2. Dave Moon (MOON@MC).



     MUMBLAGE n. The topic of one's mumbling (see MUMBLE).  "All that

        mumblage" is used like "all that stuff" when it is not quite clear

        what it is or how it works, or like "all that crap" when "mumble"

        is being used as an implicit replacement for obscenities.



     MUMBLE interj. 1. Said when the correct response is either too

        complicated to enunciate or the speaker has not thought it out.

        Often prefaces a longer answer, or indicates a general reluctance

        to get into a big long discussion.  "Well, mumble."  2. Sometimes

        used as an expression of disagreement.  "I think we should buy it."

        "Mumble!"  Common variant: MUMBLE FROTZ.  3. Yet another

        metasyntactic variable, like FOO.



     MUNCH (often confused with "mung", q.v.) v. To transform information

        in a serial fashion, often requiring large amounts of computation.

        To trace down a data structure.  Related to CRUNCH (q.v.), but

        connotes less pain.



     MUNCHING SQUARES n. A display hack dating back to the PDP-1, which

        employs a trivial computation (involving XOR'ing of x-y display

        coordinates - see HAKMEM items 146-148) to produce an impressive

        display of moving, growing, and shrinking squares.  The hack

        usually has a parameter (usually taken from toggle switches) which

        when well-chosen can produce amazing effects.  Some of these,

        discovered recently on the LISP machine, have been christened

        MUNCHING TRIANGLES, MUNCHING W'S, and MUNCHING MAZES.



     MUNG (variant: MUNGE) [recursive acronym for Mung Until No Good] v. 1.

        To make changes to a file, often large-scale, usually irrevocable.

        Occasionally accidental.  See BLT.  2. To destroy, usually

        accidentally, occasionally maliciously.  The system only mungs

        things maliciously.



     N adj. 1. Some large and indeterminate number of objects; "There were

        N bugs in that crock!"; also used in its original sense of a

        variable name.  2. An arbitrarily large (and perhaps infinite)

        number.  3. A variable whose value is specified by the current

        context.  "We'd like to order N wonton soups and a family dinner

        for N-1."  4. NTH: adj. The ordinal counterpart of N. "Now for the

        Nth and last time..."  In the specific context "Nth-year grad

        student", N is generally assumed to be at least 4, and is usually 5

        or more.  See also 69.



     NIGHT MODE  See PHASE (of people).







                                        -19-









                                HACKER'S DICTIONARY





     NIL [from LISP terminology for "false"] No.  Usage: used in reply to a

        question, particularly one asked using the "-P" convention.  See T.



     OBSCURE adj. Used in an exaggeration of its normal meaning, to imply a

        total lack of comprehensibility.  "The reason for that last crash

        is obscure."  "FIND's command syntax is obscure."  MODERATELY

        OBSCURE implies that it could be figured out but probably isn't

        worth the trouble.



     OPEN n. Abbreviation for "open (or left) parenthesis", used when

        necessary to eliminate oral ambiguity.  To read aloud the LISP form

        (DEFUN FOO (X) (PLUS X 1)) one might say: "Open def-fun foo, open

        eks close, open, plus ekx one, close close."  See CLOSE.



     PARSE [from linguistic terminology] v. 1. To determine the syntactic

        structure of a sentence or other utterance (close to the standard

        English meaning).  Example: "That was the one I saw you."  "I can't

        parse that."  2. More generally, to understand or comprehend.

        "It's very simple; you just kretch the glims and then aos the

        zotz."  "I can't parse that."  3. Of fish, to have to remove the

        bones yourself (usually at a Chinese restaurant).  "I object to

        parsing fish" means "I don't want to get a whole fish, but a sliced

        one is okay."  A "parsed fish" has been deboned.  There is some

        controversy over whether "unparsed" should mean "bony", or also

        mean "deboned".



     PATCH 1. n. A temporary addition to a piece of code, usually as a

        quick-and-dirty remedy to an existing bug or misfeature.  A patch

        may or may not work, and may or may not eventually be incorporated

        permanently into the program.  2. v. To insert a patch into a piece

        of code.



     PDL (piddle or puddle) [acronym for Push Down List] n. 1. A LIFO queue

        (stack); more loosely, any priority queue; even more loosely, any

        queue.  A person's pdl is the set of things he has to do in the

        future.  One speaks of the next project to be attacked as having

        risen to the top of the pdl.  "I'm afraid I've got real work to do,

        so this'll have to be pushed way down on my pdl."  See PUSH and

        POP.  2. Dave Lebling (PDL@DM).



     PESSIMAL [Latin-based antonym for "optimal"] adj. Maximally bad.

        "This is a pessimal situation."



     PESSIMIZING COMPILER n. A compiler that produces object code that is

        worse than the straightforward or obvious translation.



     PHANTOM n. (Stanford) The SAIL equivalent of a DRAGON (q.v.).  Typical

        phantoms include the accounting program, the news-wire monitor, and

        the lpt and xgp spoolers.



     PHASE (of people) 1. n. The phase of one's waking-sleeping schedule

        with respect to the standard 24-hour cycle.  This is a useful

        concept among people who often work at night according to no fixed

        schedule.  It is not uncommon to change one's phase by as much as

        six hours/day on a regular basis.  "What's your phase?"  "I've been

        getting in about 8 PM lately, but I'm going to work around to the





                                        -20-









                                HACKER'S DICTIONARY





        day schedule by Friday."  A person who is roughly 12 hours out of

        phase is sometimes said to be in "night mode".  (The term "day

        mode" is also used, but less frequently.)  2. CHANGE PHASE THE HARD

        WAY: To stay awake for a very long time in order to get into a

        different phase.  3. CHANGE PHASE THE EASY WAY: To stay asleep etc.



     PHASE OF THE MOON n. Used humorously as a random parameter on which

        something is said to depend.  Sometimes implies unreliability of

        whatever is dependent, or that reliability seems to be dependent on

        conditions nobody has been able to determine.  "This feature

        depends on having the channel open in mumble mode, having the foo

        switch set, and on the phase of the moon."



     PLUGH [from the Adventure game] v. See XYZZY.



     POM n. Phase of the moon (q.v.).  Usage: usually used in the phrase

        "POM dependent" which means flakey (q.v.).



     POP [based on the stack operation that removes the top of a stack, and

        the fact that procedure return addresses are saved on the stack]

        dialect: POPJ (pop-jay), based on the PDP-10 procedure return

        instruction.  v. To return from a digression.  By verb doubling,

        "Popj, popj" means roughly, "Now let's see, where were we?"



     PPN (pip'in) [DEC terminology, short for Project-Programmer Number] n.

        1. A combination `project' (directory name) and programmer name,

        used to identify a specific directory belonging to that user.  For

        instance, "FOO,BAR" would be the FOO directory for user BAR.  Since

        the name is restricted to three letters, the programmer name is

        usually the person's initials, though sometimes it is a nickname or

        other special sequence.  (Standard DEC setup is to have two octal

        numbers instead of characters; hence the original acronym.)  2.

        Often used loosely to refer to the programmer name alone.  "I want

        to send you some mail; what's your ppn?"  Usage: not used at MIT,

        since ITS does not use ppn's.  The equivalent terms would be UNAME

        and SNAME, depending on context, but these are not used except in

        their technical senses.



     PROTOCOL  See DO PROTOCOL.



     PSEUDOPRIME n. A backgammon prime (six consecutive occupied points)

        with one point missing.



     PTY (pity) n. Pseudo TTY, a simulated TTY used to run a job under the

        supervision of another job.

        PTYJOB (pity-job) n. The job being run on the PTY.  Also a common

        general-purpose program for creating and using PTYs.

        This is DEC and SAIL terminology; the MIT equivalent is STY.



     PUNT [from the punch line of an old joke: "Drop back 15 yards and

        punt"] v. To give up, typically without any intention of retrying.



     PUSH [based on the stack operation that puts the current information

        on a stack, and the fact that procedure call addresses are saved on

        the stack] dialect: PUSHJ (push-jay), based on the PDP-10 procedure

        call instruction.  v. To enter upon a digression, to save the





                                        -21-









                                HACKER'S DICTIONARY





        current discussion for later.



     QUES (kwess) 1. n. The question mark character ("?").  2. interj.

        What?  Also QUES QUES?  See WALL.



     QUUX [invented by Steele.  Mythically, from the Latin semi-deponent

        verb QUUXO, QUUXARE, QUUXANDUM IRI; noun form variously QUUX

        (plural QUUCES, Anglicized to QUUXES) and QUUXU (genitive plural is

        QUUXUUM, four U's in seven letters).] 1. Originally, a meta-word

        like FOO and FOOBAR.  Invented by Guy Steele for precisely this

        purpose when he was young and naive and not yet interacting with

        the real computing community.  Many people invent such words; this

        one seems simply to have been lucky enough to have spread a little.

        2. interj. See FOO; however, denotes very little disgust, and is

        uttered mostly for the sake of the sound of it.  3. n. Refers to

        one of four people who went to Boston Latin School and eventually

        to MIT:

             THE GREAT QUUX:  Guy L. Steele Jr.

             THE LESSER QUUX:  David J. Littleboy

             THE MEDIOCRE QUUX:  Alan P. Swide

             THE MICRO QUUX:  Sam Lewis

        (This taxonomy is said to be similarly applied to three Frankston

        brothers at MIT.)  QUUX, without qualification, usually refers to

        The Great Quux, who is somewhat infamous for light verse and for

        the "Crunchly" cartoons.  4. QUUXY: adj. Of or pertaining to a

        QUUX.



     RANDOM adj. 1. Unpredictable (closest to mathematical definition);

        weird.  "The system's been behaving pretty randomly."  2. Assorted;

        undistinguished.  "Who was at the conference?"  "Just a bunch of

        random business types."  3.  Frivolous; unproductive; undirected

        (pejorative).  "He's just a random loser."  4. Incoherent or

        inelegant; not well organized.  "The program has a random set of

        misfeatures."  "That's a random name for that function."  "Well,

        all the names were chosen pretty randomly."  5. Gratuitously wrong,

        i.e., poorly done and for no good apparent reason.  For example, a

        program that handles file name defaulting in a particularly useless

        way, or a routine that could easily have been coded using only

        three ac's, but randomly uses seven for assorted non-overlapping

        purposes, so that no one else can invoke it without first saving

        four extra ac's.  6. In no particular order, though deterministic.

        "The I/O channels are in a pool, and when a file is opened one is

        chosen randomly."  n. 7. A random hacker; used particularly of high

        school students who soak up computer time and generally get in the

        way.  8. (occasional MIT usage) One who lives at Random Hall.

        J. RANDOM is often prefixed to a noun to make a "name" out of it

        (by comparison to common names such as "J. Fred Muggs").  The most

        common uses are "J. Random Loser" and "J. Random Nurd" ("Should

        J. Random Loser be allowed to gun down other people?"), but it

        can be used just as an elaborate version of RANDOM in any sense.

        [See also the note at the end of the entry for HACK.]



     RANDOMNESS n. An unexplainable misfeature; gratuitous inelegance.

        Also, a hack or crock which depends on a complex combination

        of coincidences (or rather, the combination upon which the

        crock depends).  "This hack can output characters 40-57 by





                                        -22-









                                HACKER'S DICTIONARY





        putting the character in the accumulator field of an XCT and

        then extracting 6 bits -- the low two bits of the XCT opcode

        are the right thing."  "What randomness!"



     RAPE v. To (metaphorically) screw someone or something, violently.

        Usage: often used in describing file-system damage.  "So-and-so was

        running a program that did absolute disk I/O and ended up raping

        the master directory."



     RAVE (WPI) v. 1. To persist in discussing a specific subject.  2. To

        speak authoritatively on a subject about which one knows very

        little.  3. To complain to a person who is not in a position to

        correct the difficulty.  4. To purposely annoy another person

        verbally.  5. To evangelize.  See FLAME.  Also used to describe

        a less negative form of blather, such as friendly bullshitting.



     REAL USER n. 1. A commercial user.  One who is paying "real" money for

        his computer usage.  2. A non-hacker.  Someone using the system for

        an explicit purpose (research project, course, etc.).  See USER.



     REAL WORLD, THE n. 1. In programming, those institutions at which

        programming may be used in the same sentence as FORTRAN, COBOL,

        RPG, IBM, etc.  2. To programmers, the location of non-programmers

        and activities not related to programming.  3. A universe in which

        the standard dress is shirt and tie and in which a person's working

        hours are defined as 9 to 5.  4. The location of the status quo.

        5. Anywhere outside a university.  "Poor fellow, he's left MIT and

        gone into the real world."  Used pejoratively by those not in

        residence there.  In conversation, talking of someone who has

        entered the real world is not unlike talking about a deceased

        person.



     RECURSION n. See RECURSION, TAIL RECURSION.



     REL  See BIN.



     RIGHT THING, THE n. That which is "obviously" the correct or

        appropriate thing to use, do, say, etc.  Use of this term often

        implies that in fact reasonable people may disagree.  "Never let

        your conscience keep you from doing the right thing!"  "What's the

        right thing for LISP to do when it reads '(.)'?"



     RUDE (WPI) adj. 1. (of a program) Badly written.  2. Functionally

        poor, e.g. a program which is very difficult to use because of

        gratuitously poor (random?) design decisions.  See CUSPY.



     SACRED adj. Reserved for the exclusive use of something (a

        metaphorical extension of the standard meaning).  "Accumulator 7 is

        sacred to the UUO handler."  Often means that anyone may look at

        the sacred object, but clobbering it will screw whatever it is

        sacred to.



     SAGA (WPI) n. A cuspy but bogus raving story dealing with N random

        broken people.



     SAV (save)  See BIN.





                                        -23-









                                HACKER'S DICTIONARY





     SEMI 1. n. Abbreviation for "semicolon", when speaking.  "Commands to

        GRIND are prefixed by semi-semi-star" means that the prefix is

        ";;*", not 1/4 of a star.  2. Prefix with words such as

        "immediately", as a qualifier.  "When is the system coming up?"

        "Semi-immediately."



     SERVER n. A kind of DAEMON which performs a service for the requester,

        which often runs on a computer other than the one on which the

        server runs.



     SHIFT LEFT (RIGHT) LOGICAL [from any of various machines' instruction

        sets] 1. v. To move oneself to the left (right).  To move out of

        the way.  2. imper. Get out of that (my) seat!  Usage: often used

        without the "logical", or as "left shift" instead of "shift left".

        Sometimes heard as LSH (lish), from the PDP-10 instruction set.



     SHR (share or shir)  See BIN.



     SHRIEK  See EXCL.  (Occasional CMU usage.)



     69 adj. Large quantity.  Usage: Exclusive to MIT-AI.  "Go away, I have

        69 things to do to DDT before worrying about fixing the bug in the

        phase of the moon output routine..."

        [Note: Actually, any number less than 100 but large enough to have

        no obvious magic properties will be recognized as a "large number".

        There is no denying that "69" is the local favorite.  I don't know

        whether its origins are related to the obscene interpretation, but

        I do know that 69 decimal = 105 octal, and 69 hexadecimal = 105

        decimal, which is a nice property. - GLS]



     SLOP n. 1. A one-sided fudge factor (q.v.).  Often introduced to avoid

        the possibility of a fencepost error (q.v.).  2. (used by compiler

        freaks) The ratio of code generated by a compiler to hand-compiled

        code, minus 1; i.e., the space (or maybe time) you lose because you

        didn't do it yourself.



     SLURP v. To read a large data file entirely into core before working

        on it.  "This program slurps in a 1K-by-1K matrix and does an FFT."



     SMART adj. Said of a program that does the Right Thing (q.v.) in a

        wide variety of complicated circumstances.  There is a difference

        between calling a program smart and calling it intelligent; in

        particular, there do not exist any intelligent programs.



     SMOKING CLOVER n. A psychedelic color munch due to Gosper.



     SMOP [Simple (or Small) Matter of Programming] n. A piece of code, not

        yet written, whose anticipated length is significantly greater than

        its complexity.  Usage: used to refer to a program that could

        obviously be written, but is not worth the trouble.



     SNARF v. To grab, esp. a large document or file for the purpose of

        using it either with or without the author's permission.  See BLT.

        Variant: SNARF (IT) DOWN.  (At MIT on ITS, DDT has a command called

        :SNARF which grabs a job from another (inferior) DDT.)







                                        -24-









                                HACKER'S DICTIONARY





     SOFTWARE ROT n. Hypothetical disease the existence of which has been

        deduced from the observation that unused programs or features will

        stop working after sufficient time has passed, even if "nothing has

        changed".  Also known as "bit decay".



     SOFTWARILY adv. In a way pertaining to software.  "The system is

        softwarily unreliable."  The adjective "softwary" is NOT used.  See

        HARDWARILY.



     SOS 1. (ess-oh-ess) n. A losing editor, SON OF STOPGAP.  2. (sahss) v.

        Inverse of AOS, from the PDP-10 instruction set.



     SPAZZ 1. v. To behave spastically or erratically; more often, to

        commit a single gross error.  "Boy, is he spazzing!"  2. n. One who

        spazzes.  "Boy, what a spazz!"  3. n. The result of spazzing.

        "Boy, what a spazz!"



     SPLAT n. 1. Name used in many places (DEC, IBM, and others) for the

        ASCII star ("*") character.  2. (MIT) Name used by some people for

        the ASCII pound-sign ("#") character.  3. (Stanford) Name used by

        some people for the Stanford/ITS extended ASCII circle-x character.

        (This character is also called "circle-x", "blobby", and "frob",

        among other names.)  4. (Stanford) Name for the semi-mythical

        extended ASCII circle-plus character.  5. Canonical name for an

        output routine that outputs whatever the the local interpretation

        of splat is.  Usage: nobody really agrees what character "splat"

        is, but the term is common.



     SUPDUP v. To communicate with another ARPAnet host using the SUPDUP

        program, which is a SUPer-DUPer TELNET talking a special display

        protocol used mostly in talking to ITS sites.  Sometimes

        abbreviated to SD.



     STATE n. Condition, situation.  "What's the state of NEWIO?"  "It's

        winning away."  "What's your state?"  "I'm about to gronk out."  As

        a special case, "What's the state of the world?" (or, more silly,

        "State-of-world-P?") means "What's new?" or "What's going on?"



     STOPPAGE n. Extreme lossage (see LOSSAGE) resulting in something

        (usually vital) becoming completely unusable.



     STY (pronounced "sty", not spelled out) n. A pseudo-teletype, which is

        a two-way pipeline with a job on one end and a fake keyboard-tty on

        the other.  Also, a standard program which provides a pipeline from

        its controlling tty to a pseudo-teletype (and thence to another

        tty, thereby providing a "sub-tty").

        This is MIT terminology; the SAIL and DEC equivalent is PTY.



     SUPERPROGRAMMER n. See "wizard", "hacker".  Usage: rare.  (Becoming

        more common among IBM and Yourdon types.)



     SWAPPED adj. From the use of secondary storage devices to implement

        virtual memory in computer systems.  Something which is SWAPPED IN

        is available for immediate use in main memory, and otherwise is

        SWAPPED OUT.  Often used metaphorically to refer to people's

        memories ("I read TECO ORDER every few months to keep the





                                        -25-









                                HACKER'S DICTIONARY





        information swapped in.") or to their own availability ("I'll swap

        you in as soon as I finish looking at this other problem.").



     SYSTEM n. 1. The supervisor program on the computer.  2. Any

        large-scale program.  3. Any method or algorithm.  4. The way

        things are usually done.  Usage: a fairly ambiguous word.  "You

        can't beat the system."

        SYSTEM HACKER: one who hacks the system (in sense 1 only; for sense

        2 one mentions the particular program: e.g., LISP HACKER)



     T [from LISP terminology for "true"] 1. Yes.  Usage: used in reply to

        a question, particularly one asked using the "-P" convention).  See

        NIL.  2. See TIME T.



     TAIL RECURSION n. See TAIL RECURSION.



     TALK MODE  See COM MODE.



     TASTE n. (primarily MIT-DMS) The quality in programs which tends to be

        inversely proportional to the number of features, hacks, and kluges

        programmed into it.  Also, TASTY, TASTEFUL, TASTEFULNESS.  "This

        feature comes in N tasty flavors."  Although TASTEFUL and FLAVORFUL

        are essentially synonyms, TASTE and FLAVOR are not.



     TECO (tee'koe) [acronym for Text Editor and COrrector] 1. n. A text

        editor developed at MIT, and modified by just about everybody.  If

        all the dialects are included, TECO might well be the single most

        prolific editor in use.  Noted for its powerful pseudo-programming

        features and its incredibly hairy syntax.  2. v. To edit using the

        TECO editor in one of its infinite forms; sometimes used to mean

        "to edit" even when not using TECO!  Usage: rare at SAIL, where

        most people wouldn't touch TECO with a TENEX pole.

        [Historical note: DEC grabbed an ancient version of MIT TECO many

        years ago when it was still a TTY-oriented editor.  By now, TECO at

        MIT is highly display-oriented and is actually a language for

        writing editors, rather than an editor.  Meanwhile, the outside

        world's various versions of TECO remain almost the same as the MIT

        version of ten years ago.  DEC recently tried to discourage its

        use, but an underground movement of sorts kept it alive.]

        [Since this note was written I found out that DEC tried to force

        their hackers by administrative decision to use a hacked up and

        generally lobotomized version of SOS instead of TECO, and they

        revolted. - MRC]



     TELNET v. To communicate with another ARPAnet host using the TELNET

        protocol.  TOPS-10 people use the word IMPCOM since that is the

        program name for them.  Sometimes abbreviated to TN.  "I usually TN

        over to SAIL just to read the AP News."



     TENSE adj. Of programs, very clever and efficient.  A tense piece of

        code often got that way because it was highly bummed, but sometimes

        it was just based on a great idea.  A comment in a clever display

        routine by Mike Kazar: "This routine is so tense it will bring

        tears to your eyes.  Much thanks to Craig Everhart and James

        Gosling for inspiring this hack attack."  A tense programmer is one

        who produces tense code.





                                        -26-









                                HACKER'S DICTIONARY





     TERPRI (tur'pree) [from the LISP 1.5 (and later, MacLISP) function to

        start a new line of output] v. To output a CRLF (q.v.).



     THEORY n. Used in the general sense of idea, plan, story, or set of

        rules.  "What's the theory on fixing this TECO loss?"  "What's the

        theory on dinner tonight?"  ("Chinatown, I guess.")  "What's the

        current theory on letting losers on during the day?"  "The theory

        behind this change is to fix the following well-known screw..."



     THRASH v. To move wildly or violently, without accomplishing anything

        useful.  Swapping systems which are overloaded waste most of their

        time moving pages into and out of core (rather than performing

        useful computation), and are therefore said to thrash.



     TICK n. 1. Interval of time; basic clock time on the computer.

        Typically 1/60 second.  See JIFFY.  2. In simulations, the discrete

        unit of time that passes "between" iterations of the simulation

        mechanism.  In AI applications, this amount of time is often left

        unspecified, since the only constraint of interest is that caused

        things happen after their causes.  This sort of AI simulation is

        often pejoratively referred to as "tick-tick-tick" simulation,

        especially when the issue of simultaneity of events with long,

        independent chains of causes is handwaved.



     TIME T n. 1. An unspecified but usually well-understood time, often

        used in conjunction with a later time T+1.  "We'll meet on campus

        at time T or at Louie's at time T+1."  2. SINCE (OR AT) TIME T

        EQUALS MINUS INFINITY: A long time ago; for as long as anyone can

        remember; at the time that some particular frob was first designed.



     TOOL v.i. To work; to study.  See HACK (def #9).



     TRAP 1. n. A program interrupt, usually used specifically to refer to

        an interrupt caused by some illegal action taking place in the user

        program.  In most cases the system monitor performs some action

        related to the nature of the illegality, then returns control to

        the program.  See UUO.  2. v. To cause a trap.  "These instructions

        trap to the monitor."  Also used transitively to indicate the cause

        of the trap.  "The monitor traps all input/output instructions."



     TTY (titty) n. Terminal of the teletype variety, characterized by a

        noisy mechanical printer, a very limited character set, and poor

        print quality.  Usage: antiquated (like the TTY's themselves).

        Sometimes used to refer to any terminal at all; sometimes used

        to refer to the particular terminal controlling a job.



     TWEAK v. To change slightly, usually in reference to a value.  Also

        used synonymously with TWIDDLE.  See FROBNICATE and FUDGE FACTOR.



     TWENEX n. The TOPS-20 operating system by DEC.  So named because

        TOPS-10 was a typically crufty DEC operating system for the PDP-10.

        BBN developed their own system, called TENEX (TEN EXecutive), and

        in creating TOPS-20 for the DEC-20 DEC copied TENEX and adapted it

        for the 20.  Usage: DEC people cringe when they hear TOPS-20

        referred to as "Twenex", but the term seems to be catching on

        nevertheless.  Release 3 of TOPS-20 is sufficiently different from





                                        -27-









                                HACKER'S DICTIONARY





        release 1 that some (not all) hackers have stopped calling it

        TWENEX, though the written abbreviation "20x" is still used.



     TWIDDLE n. 1. tilde (ASCII 176, "").  Also called "squiggle",

        "sqiggle" (sic--pronounced "skig'gul"), and "twaddle", but twiddle

        is by far the most common term.  2. A small and insignificant

        change to a program.  Usually fixes one bug and generates several

        new ones.  3. v. To change something in a small way.  Bits, for

        example, are often twiddled.  Twiddling a switch or knob implies

        much less sense of purpose than toggling or tweaking it; see

        FROBNICATE.



     UP adj. 1. Working, in order.  "The down escalator is up."  2. BRING

        UP: v. To create a working version and start it.  "They brought up

        a down system."



     USER n. A programmer who will believe anything you tell him.  One who

        asks questions.  Identified at MIT with "loser" by the spelling

        "luser".  See REAL USER.

        [Note by GLS: I don't agree with RF's definition at all.

        Basically, there are two classes of people who work with a program:

        there are implementors (hackers) and users (losers).  The users are

        looked down on by hackers to a mild degree because they don't

        understand the full ramifications of the system in all its glory.

        (A few users who do are known as real winners.)  It is true that

        users ask questions (of necessity).  Very often they are annoying

        or downright stupid.]



     UUO (you-you-oh) [short for "Un-Used Operation"] n. A DEC-10 system

        monitor call.  The term "Un-Used Operation" comes from the fact

        that, on DEC-10 systems, monitor calls are implemented as invalid

        or illegal machine instructions, which cause traps to the monitor

        (see TRAP).  The SAIL manual describing the available UUO's has a

        cover picture showing an unidentified underwater object.  See YOYO.

        [Note: DEC sales people have since decided that "Un-Used Operation"

        sounds bad, so UUO now stands for "Unimplemented User Operation".]

        Tenex and Twenex systems use the JSYS machine instruction (q.v.),

        which is halfway between a legal machine instruction and a UUO,

        since KA-10 Tenices implement it as a hardware instruction which

        can be used as an ordinary subroutine call (sort of a "pure JSR").



     VANILLA adj. Ordinary flavor, standard.  See FLAVOR.  When used of

        food, very often does not mean that the food is flavored with

        vanilla extract!  For example, "vanilla-flavored wonton soup" (or

        simply "vanilla wonton soup") means ordinary wonton soup, as

        opposed to hot and sour wonton soup.



     VAXEN [from "oxen", perhaps influenced by "vixen"] n. pl. The plural

        of VAX (a DEC machine).



     VIRGIN adj. Unused, in reference to an instantiation of a program.

        "Let's bring up a virgin system and see if it crashes again."

        Also, by extension, unused buffers and the like within a program.



     VIRTUAL adj. 1. Common alternative to LOGICAL (q.v.), but never used

        with compass directions.  2.  Performing the functions of.  Virtual





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        memory acts like real memory but isn't.



     VISIONARY n. One who hacks vision (in an AI context, such as the

        processing of visual images).



     WALDO [probably taken from the story "Waldo", by Heinlein, which is

        where the term was first used to mean a mechanical adjunct to a

        human limb] Used at Harvard, particularly by Tom Cheatham and

        students, instead of FOOBAR as a meta-syntactic variable and

        general nonsense word.  See FOO, BAR, FOOBAR, QUUX.



     WALL [shortened form of HELLO WALL, apparently from the phrase "up

        against a blank wall"] (WPI) interj. 1. An indication of confusion,

        usually spoken with a quizzical tone.  "Wall??"  2. A request for

        further explication.



     WALLPAPER n. A file containing a listing (e.g., assembly listing) or

        transcript, esp. a file containing a transcript of all or part of a

        login session.  (The idea was that the LPT paper for such listings

        was essentially good only for wallpaper, as evidenced at SAIL where

        it was used as such to cover windows.)  Usage: not often used now,

        esp. since other systems have developed other terms for it (e.g.,

        PHOTO on TWENEX).  The term possibly originated on ITS, where the

        commands to begin and end transcript files are still :WALBEG and

        :WALEND, with default file DSK:WALL PAPER.



     WATERBOTTLE SOCCER n. A deadly sport practiced mainly by Sussman's

        graduate students.  It, along with chair bowling, is the most

        evident manifestation of the "locker room atmosphere" said to

        reign in that sphere.  (Sussman doesn't approve.)  [As of 11/82,

        it's reported that the sport has given way to a new game called

        "disc-boot", and Sussman even participates occasionally.]



     WEDGED [from "head wedged up ass"] adj. To be in a locked state,

        incapable of proceeding without help.  (See GRONK.)  Often refers

        to humans suffering misconceptions.  "The swapper is wedged."

        This term is sometimes used as a synonym for DEADLOCKED (q.v.).



     WHAT n. The question mark character ("?").  See QUES.  Usage: rare,

        used particularly in conjunction with WOW.



     WHEEL n. 1. A privilege bit that canonically allows the possessor to

        perform any operation on a timesharing system, such as read or

        write any file on the system regardless of protections, change or

        or look at any address in the running monitor, crash or reload the

        system, and kill/create jobs and user accounts.  The term was

        invented on the TENEX operating system, and carried over to

        TOPS-20, Xerox-IFS and others.  2. A person who posses a wheel bit.

        "We need to find a wheel to unwedge the hung tape drives."



     WHEEL WARS [from LOTS at Stanford University] A period during which

        student wheels hack each other by attempting to log each other out

        of the system, delete each other's files, or otherwise wreak havoc,

        usually at the expense of the lesser users.



     WIN [from MIT jargon] 1. v. To succeed.  A program wins if no





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                                HACKER'S DICTIONARY





        unexpected conditions arise.  2. BIG WIN: n. Serendipity.

        Emphatic forms: MOBY WIN, SUPER WIN, HYPER-WIN (often used

        interjectively as a reply).  For some reason SUITABLE WIN is also

        common at MIT, usually in reference to a satisfactory solution to a

        problem.  See LOSE.



     WINNAGE n. The situation when a lossage is corrected, or when

        something is winning.  Quite rare.  Usage: also quite rare.



     WINNER 1. n. An unexpectedly good situation, program, programmer or

        person.  2. REAL WINNER: Often sarcastic, but also used as high

        praise.



     WINNITUDE n. The quality of winning (as opposed to WINNAGE, which is

        the result of winning).  "That's really great!  Boy, what

        winnitude!"



     WIZARD n. 1. A person who knows how a complex piece of software or

        hardware works; someone who can find and fix his bugs in an

        emergency.  Rarely used at MIT, where HACKER is the preferred term.

        2. A person who is permitted to do things forbidden to ordinary

        people, e.g., a "net wizard" on a TENEX may run programs which

        speak low-level host-imp protocol; an ADVENT wizard at SAIL may

        play Adventure during the day.



     WORMHOLE n. A location in a monitor which contains the address of a

        routine, with the specific intent of making it easy to substitute a

        different routine.  The following quote comes from "Polymorphic

        Systems", vol. 2, p. 54:



        "Any type of I/O device can be substituted for the standard device

        by loading a simple driver routine for that device and installing

        its address in one of the monitor's `wormholes.'*

        ----------

        *The term `wormhole' has been used to describe a hypothetical

        astronomical situation where a black hole connects to the `other

        side' of the universe.  When this happens, information can pass

        through the wormhole, in only one direction, much as `assumptions'

        pass down the monitor's wormholes."



     WOW  See EXCL.



     XGP 1. n. Xerox Graphics Printer.  2. v. To print something on the

        XGP.  "You shouldn't XGP such a large file."



     XYZZY [from the Adventure game] adj. See PLUGH.



     YOYO n. DEC service engineers' slang for UUO (q.v.).  Usage: rare at

        Stanford and MIT, has been found at random DEC installations.



     YOYO MODE n. State in which the system is said to be when it rapidly

        alternates several times between being up and being down.



     YU-SHIANG WHOLE FISH n. The character gamma (extended SAIL ASCII 11),

        which with a loop in its tail looks like a fish.  Usage: used

        primarily by people on the MIT LISP Machine.  Tends to elicit





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                                HACKER'S DICTIONARY





        incredulity from people who hear about it second-hand.



     ZERO v. 1. To set to zero.  Usually said of small pieces of data, such

        as bits or words.  2. To erase; to discard all data from.  Said of

        disks and directories, where "zeroing" need not involve actually

        writing zeroes throughout the area being zeroed.









































































































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