Chapter V: Rare: book (13)

:Red Book: n. 1. Informal name for one of the three standard
references on {PostScript} (`PostScript Language Reference
Manual', Adobe Systems (Addison-Wesley, 1985; QA76.73.P67P67; ISBN
0-201-10174-2, or the 1990 second edition ISBN 0-201-18127-4); the
others are known as the {Green Book}, the {Blue Book}, and
the {White Book} (sense 2). 2. Informal name for one of the 3
standard references on Smalltalk (`Smalltalk-80: The
Interactive Programming Environment' by Adele Goldberg
(Addison-Wesley, 1984; QA76.8.S635G638; ISBN 0-201-11372-4); this
too is associated with blue and green books). 3. Any of the
1984 standards issued by the CCITT eighth plenary assembly. Until
now, these have changed color each review cycle (1988 was {Blue
Book}, 1992 will be {Green Book}); however, it is rumored that
this convention is going to be dropped before 1992. These include,
among other things, the X.400 email spec and the Group 1 through 4
fax standards. 4. The new version of the {Green Book} (sense 4)
--- IEEE 1003.1-1990, a.k.a ISO 9945-1 --- is (because of the color
and the fact that it is printed on A4 paper) known in the U.S.A. as
"the Ugly Red Book That Won't Fit On The Shelf" and in Europe as
"the Ugly Red Book That's A Sensible Size". 5. The NSA
`Trusted Network Interpretation' companion to the {Orange
Book}. See also {{book titles}}.

:red wire: [IBM] n. Patch wires installed by programmers who have
no business mucking with the hardware. It is said that the only
thing more dangerous then a hardware guy with a code patch is a
{softy} with a soldering iron....

:regexp: /reg'eksp/ [UNIX] n. (alt. `regex' or `reg-ex')
1. Common written and spoken abbreviation for `regular
expression', one of the wildcard patterns used, e.g., by UNIX
utilities such as `grep(1)', `sed(1)', and `awk(1)'.
These use conventions similar to but more elaborate than those
described under {glob}. For purposes of this lexicon, it is
sufficient to note that regexps also allow complemented character
sets using `^'; thus, one can specify `any non-alphabetic
character' with `[^A-Za-z]'. 2. Name of a well-known PD
regexp-handling package in portable C, written by revered USENETter
Henry Spencer <[email protected]>.

:register dancing: n. Many older processor architectures suffer
from a serious shortage of general-purpose registers. This is
especially a problem for compiler-writers, because their generated
code needs places to store temporaries for things like intermediate
values in expression evaluation. Some designs with this problem,
like the Intel 80x86, do have a handful of special-purpose
registers that can be pressed into service, providing suitable care
is taken to avoid unpleasant side-effects on the state of the
processor: while the special-purpose register is being used to hold
an intermediate value, a delicate minuet is required in which the
previous value of the register is saved and then restored just before
the official function (and value) of the special-purpose register is
again needed.

:reincarnation, cycle of: n. See {cycle of reincarnation}.

:reinvent the wheel: v. To design or implement a tool equivalent to
an existing one or part of one, with the implication that doing so
is silly or a waste of time. This is often a valid criticism.
On the other hand, automobiles don't use wooden rollers, and some
kinds of wheel have to be reinvented many times before you get them
right. On the third hand, people reinventing the wheel do tend to
come up with the moral equivalent of a trapezoid with an offset
axle.

:religious issues: n. Questions which seemingly cannot be raised
without touching off {holy wars}, such as "What is the best
operating system (or editor, language, architecture, shell, mail
reader, news reader)?", "What about that Heinlein guy, eh?",
"What should we add to the new Jargon File?" See {holy wars};
see also {theology}, {bigot}.

This term is an example of {ha ha only serious}. People
actually develop the most amazing and religiously intense
attachments to their tools, even when the tools are intangible.
The most constructive thing one can do when one stumbles into the
crossfire is mumble {Get a life!} and leave --- unless, of course,
one's *own* unassailably rational and obviously correct
choices are being slammed.

:replicator: n. Any construct that acts to produce copies of
itself; this could be a living organism, an idea (see {meme}), a
program (see {worm}, {wabbit}, {fork bomb}, and
{virus}), a pattern in a cellular automaton (see {life},
sense 1), or (speculatively) a robot or {nanobot}. It is even
claimed by some that {{UNIX}} and {C} are the symbiotic halves
of an extremely successful replicator; see {UNIX conspiracy}.

:reply: n. See {followup}.

:reset: [the MUD community] v. In AberMUD, to bring all dead mobiles
to life and move items back to their initial starting places. New
players who can't find anything shout "Reset! Reset!" quite a bit.
Higher-level players shout back "No way!" since they know where
points are to be found. Used in {RL}, it means to put things back
to the way they were when you found them.

:restriction: n. A {bug} or design error that limits a program's
capabilities, and which is sufficiently egregious that nobody can
quite work up enough nerve to describe it as a {feature}. Often
used (esp. by {marketroid} types) to make it sound as though
some crippling bogosity had been intended by the designers all
along, or was forced upon them by arcane technical constraints of a
nature no mere user could possibly comprehend (these claims are
almost invariably false).

Old-time hacker Joseph M. Newcomer advises that whenever choosing a
quantifiable but arbitrary restriction, you should make it either a
power of 2 or a power of 2 minus 1. If you impose a limit of
17 items in a list, everyone will know it is a random number --- on
the other hand, a limit of 15 or 16 suggests some deep reason
(involving 0- or 1-based indexing in binary) and you will get less
{flamage} for it. Limits which are round numbers in base 10 are
always especially suspect.

:retcon: /ret'kon/ [`retroactive continuity', from the USENET
newsgroup rec.arts.comics] 1. n. The common situation in pulp
fiction (esp. comics or soap operas) where a new story
`reveals' things about events in previous stories, usually
leaving the `facts' the same (thus preserving continuity) while
completely changing their interpretation. For example, revealing
that a whole season of "Dallas" was a dream was a retcon.
2. vt. To write such a story about a character or fictitious
object. "Byrne has retconned Superman's cape so that it is no
longer unbreakable." "Marvelman's old adventures were retconned
into synthetic dreams." "Swamp Thing was retconned from a
transformed person into a sentient vegetable." "Darth Vader was
retconned into Luke Skywalker's father in "The Empire Strikes
Back".

[This is included because it is a good example of hackish
linguistic innovation in a field completely unrelated to computers.
The word `retcon' will probably spread through comics fandom and
lose its association with hackerdom within a couple of years; for
the record, it started here. --- ESR]

:RETI: v. Syn. {RTI}

:retrocomputing: /ret'-roh-k*m-pyoo'ting/ n. Refers to emulations
of way-behind-the-state-of-the-art hardware or software, or
implementations of never-was-state-of-the-art; esp. if such
implementations are elaborate practical jokes and/or parodies,
written mostly for {hack value}, of more `serious' designs.
Perhaps the most widely distributed retrocomputing utility was the
`pnch(6)' or `bcd(6)' program on V7 and other early UNIX
versions, which would accept up to 80 characters of text argument
and display the corresponding pattern in {{punched card}} code.
Other well-known retrocomputing hacks have included the programming
language {INTERCAL}, a {JCL}-emulating shell for UNIX, the
card-punch-emulating editor named 029, and various elaborate PDP-11
hardware emulators and RT-11 OS emulators written just to keep an
old, sourceless {Zork} binary running.

:RFC: /R-F-C/ [Request For Comment] n. One of a long-established
series of numbered Internet standards widely followed by commercial
and PD software in the Internet and UNIX communities. Perhaps the
single most influential one has been RFC-822 (the Internet
mail-format standard). The RFCs are unusual in that they are
floated by technical experts acting on their own initiative and
reviewed by the Internet at large, rather than formally promulgated
through an institution such as ANSI. For this reason, they remain
known as RFCs even once adopted.

The RFC tradition of pragmatic, experience-driven, after-the-fact
standard-writing done by individuals or small working groups has
important advantages over the more formal, committee-driven process
typical of ANSI or ISO. Emblematic of some of these is the
existence of a flourishing tradition of `joke' RFCs; usually at
least one a year is published, usually on April 1st. Well-known
joke RFCs have included 527 ("ARPAWOCKY", R. Merryman, UCSD; 22
June 1973), 748 ("Telnet Randomly-Lose Option", Mark R. Crispin;
1 April 1978), and 1149 ("A Standard for the Transmission of IP
Datagrams on Avian Carriers", D. Waitzman, BBN STC; 1 April 1990).
The first was a Lewis Carrol pastiche; the second a parody of the
TCP-IP documentation style, and the third a deadpan skewering of
standards-document legalese describing protocols for transmiitting
Internet data packets by carrier pigeon.

The RFCs are most remarkable for how well they work --- they manage to
have neither the ambiguities which are usually rife in informal
specifications, nor the committee-perpetrated misfeatures which often
haunt formal standards, and they define a network which has grown to
truly worldwide proportions.

:RFE: /R-F-E/ n. 1. [techspeak] Request For Enhancement.
2. [from `Radio Free Europe', Bellcore and Sun] Radio Free
Ethernet, a system (originated by Peter Langston) for broadcasting
audio among Sun SPARCstations over the ethernet.

:rib site: [by analogy with {backbone site}] n. A machine that
has an on-demand high-speed link to a {backbone site} and serves
as a regional distribution point for lots of third-party traffic in
email and USENET news. Compare {leaf site}, {backbone site}.

:rice box: [from ham radio slang] n. Any Asian-made commodity
computer, esp. an 80x86-based machine built to IBM PC-compatible
ISA or EISA-bus standards.

:Right Thing: n. That which is *compellingly* the correct or
appropriate thing to use, do, say, etc. Often capitalized, always
emphasized in speech as though capitalized. Use of this term often
implies that in fact reasonable people may disagree. "What's the
right thing for LISP to do when it sees `(mod a 0)'? Should
it return `a', or give a divide-by-0 error?" Oppose
{Wrong Thing}.

:RL: // [MUD community] n. Real Life. "Firiss laughs in RL"
means that Firiss's player is laughing. Oppose {VR}.

:roach: [Bell Labs] vt. To destroy, esp. of a data structure. Hardware
gets {toast}ed or {fried}, software gets roached.

:robot: [IRC, MUD] n. An {IRC} or {MUD} user who is actually
a program. On IRC, typically the robot provides some useful
service. Examples are NickServ, which tries to prevent random
users from adopting {nick}s already claimed by others, and
MsgServ, which allows one to send asynchronous messages to be
delivered when the recipient signs on. Also common are
"annoybots", such as KissServ, which perform no useful function
except to send cute messages to other people. Service robots are
less common on MUDs; but some others, such as the `Julia' robot
active in 1990-91, have been remarkably impressive Turing-test
experiments, able to pass as human for as long as ten or fifteen
minutes of conversation.

:robust: adj. Said of a system that has demonstrated an ability to
recover gracefully from the whole range of exceptional inputs and
situations in a given environment. One step below {bulletproof}.
Carries the additional connotation of elegance in addition to just
careful attention to detail. Compare {smart}, oppose
{brittle}.

:rococo: adj. {Baroque} in the extreme. Used to imply that a
program has become so encrusted with the software equivalent of
gold leaf and curlicues that they have completely swamped the
underlying design. Called after the later and more extreme forms
of Baroque architecture and decoration prevalent during the
mid-1700s in Europe. Alan Perlis said: "Every program eventually
becomes rococo, and then rubble." Compare {critical
mass}.

:rogue: [UNIX] n. A Dungeons-and-Dragons-like game using character
graphics, written under BSD UNIX and subsequently ported to other
UNIX systems. The original BSD `curses(3)' screen-handling
package was hacked together by Ken Arnold to support
`rogue(6)' and has since become one of UNIX's most important
and heavily used application libraries. Nethack, Omega, Larn, and
an entire subgenre of computer dungeon games all took off from the
inspiration provided by `rogue(6)'. See {nethack}.

:room-temperature IQ: [IBM] quant. 80 or below. Used in describing the
expected intelligence range of the {luser}. "Well, but
how's this interface going to play with the room-temperature IQ
crowd?" See {drool-proof paper}. This is a much more insulting
phrase in countries that use Celsius thermometers.

:root: [UNIX] n. 1. The {superuser} account that ignores
permission bits, user number 0 on a UNIX system. This account
has the user name `root'. The term {avatar} is also used.
2. The top node of the system directory structure (home directory
of the root user). 3. By extension, the privileged
system-maintenance login on any OS. See {root mode}, {go root}.

:root mode: n. Syn. with {wizard mode} or `wheel mode'. Like
these, it is often generalized to describe privileged states in
systems other than OSes.

:rot13: /rot ther'teen/ [USENET: from `rotate alphabet
13 places'] n., v. The simple Caesar-cypher encryption that
replaces each English letter with the one 13 places forward or back
along the alphabet, so that "The butler did it!" becomes "Gur
ohgyre qvq vg!" Most USENET news reading and posting programs
include a rot13 feature. It is used to enclose the text in a
sealed wrapper that the reader must choose to open --- e.g., for
posting things that might offend some readers, or answers to
puzzles. A major advantage of rot13 over rot(N) for
other N is that it is self-inverse, so the same code can be
used for encoding and decoding.

:rotary debugger: [Commodore] n. Essential equipment for those
late-night or early-morning debugging sessions. Mainly used as
sustenance for the hacker. Comes in many decorator colors, such as
Sausage, Pepperoni, and Garbage. See {pizza, ANSI standard}.

:round tape: n. Industry-standard 1/2" magnetic tape (7- or
9-track) on traditional circular reels; oppose {square tape}.

:RSN: /R-S-N/ adj. See {Real Soon Now}.

:RTBM: /R-T-B-M/ [UNIX] imp. Commonwealth Hackish variant of
{RTFM}; expands to `Read The Bloody Manual'. RTBM is often the
entire text of the first reply to a question from a {newbie};
the *second* would escalate to "RTFM".

:RTFAQ: /R-T-F-A-Q/ [USENET: primarily written, by analogy with
{RTFM}] imp. Abbrev. for `Read the FAQ!', an exhortation that
the person addressed ought to read the newsgroup's {FAQ list}
before posting questions.

:RTFB: /R-T-F-B/ [UNIX] imp. Acronym for `Read The Fucking
Binary'. Used when neither documentation nor the the source for the
problem at hand exists and the only thing to do is use some
debugger or monitor and directly analyze the assembler or even
the machine code. "No source for the buggy port driver? Aaargh! I
*hate* proprietary operating systems. Time to RTFB."

:RTFM: /R-T-F-M/ [UNIX] imp. Acronym for `Read The Fucking
Manual'. 1. Used by {guru}s to brush off questions they
consider trivial or annoying. Compare {Don't do that, then!}
2. Used when reporting a problem to indicate that you aren't just
asking out of {randomness}. "No, I can't figure out how to
interface UNIX to my toaster, and yes, I have RTFM." Unlike
sense 1, this use is considered polite. See also {FM},
{RTFAQ}, {RTFB}, {RTFS}, {RTM}, all of which mutated
from RTFM, and compare {UTSL}.

:RTFS: /R-T-F-S/ [UNIX] 1. imp. Acronym for `Read The Fucking
Source'. Stronger form of {RTFM}, used when the problem
at hand is not necessarily obvious and not available from
the manuals --- or the manuals are not yet written and maybe
never will be. For even more tricky situations, see {RTFB}.
2. imp. `Read The Fucking Standard;' this oath can only be used when
the problem area (e.g. a language or operating system interface) has
actually been codified in a ratified standards document. The
existence of these standards documents (and the technically
inappropriate but politically mandated compromises which they
inevitably contain, and the stifling language in which they are
invariably written, and the unbelievably tedious bureaucratic process
by which they are produced) can be unnerving to hackers, who are used
to a certain amount of ambiguity in the specifications of the systems
they use. (Hackers feel that such ambiguities are acceptable as long
as the {Right Thing} to do is obvious to any thinking observer;
sadly, this casual attitude towards specifications becomes unworkable
when a system becomes popular in the {real world}.) Since a hacker
is likely to feel that a standards document is both unnecessary and
technically deficient, the deprecation inherent in this term may be
directed as much against the standard as against the person who ought
to read it.

:RTI: /R-T-I/ interj. The mnemonic for the `return from
interrupt' instruction on many computers including the 6502 and
6800. The variant `RETI' is found among former Z80 hackers
(almost nobody programs these things in assembler anymore).
Equivalent to "Now, where was I?" or used to end a
conversational digression. See {pop}; see also {POPJ}.

:RTM: /R-T-M/ [USENET: abbreviation for `Read The Manual']
1. Politer variant of {RTFM}. 2. Robert T. Morris Jr.,
perpetrator of the great Internet worm of 1988 (see {Great Worm,
the}); villain to many, na"ive hacker gone wrong to a few. Morris
claimed that the worm that brought the Internet to its knees was a
benign experiment that got out of control as the result of a coding
error. After the storm of negative publicity that followed this
blunder, Morris's name on ITS was hacked from RTM to {RTFM}.

:rude: [WPI] adj. 1. (of a program) Badly written. 2. Functionally
poor, e.g., a program that is very difficult to use because of
gratuitously poor (random?) design decisions. Oppose {cuspy}.
3. Anything that manipulates a shared resource without regard for
its other users in such a way as to cause a (non-fatal) problem is
said to be `rude'. Examples: programs that change tty modes
without resetting them on exit, or windowing programs that keep
forcing themselves to the top of the window stack. Compare
{all-elbows}.

:runes: pl.n. 1. Anything that requires {heavy wizardry} or
{black art} to {parse}: core dumps, JCL commands, APL, or code
in a language you haven't a clue how to read. Compare {casting
the runes}, {Great Runes}. 2. Special display characters (for
example, the high-half graphics on an IBM PC).

:runic: adj. Syn. {obscure}. VMS fans sometimes refer to UNIX as
`Runix'; UNIX fans return the compliment by expanding VMS to `Very
Messy Syntax' or `Vachement Mauvais Syst`eme' (French; lit.
"Cowlike Bad System", idiomatically "Bitchy Bad System").

:rusty iron: n. Syn. {tired iron}. It has been claimed that this
is the inevitable fate of {water MIPS}.

:rusty memory: n. Mass-storage that uses iron-oxide-based magnetic
media (esp. tape and the pre-Winchester removable disk packs used
in {washing machine}s). Compare {donuts}.

= S = =====

:S/N ratio: // n. (also `s/n ratio', `s:n ratio'). Syn.
{signal-to-noise ratio}. Often abbreviated `SNR'.

:sacred: adj. Reserved for the exclusive use of something (an
extension of the standard meaning). Often means that anyone may
look at the sacred object, but clobbering it will screw whatever it
is sacred to. The comment "Register 7 is sacred to the interrupt
handler" appearing in a program would be interpreted by a hacker
to mean that if any *other* part of the program changes the
contents of register 7, dire consequences are likely to ensue.

:saga: [WPI] n. A cuspy but bogus raving story about N random
broken people.

Here is a classic example of the saga form, as told by Guy L.
Steele:

Jon L. White (login name JONL) and I (GLS) were office mates at MIT
for many years. One April, we both flew from Boston to California
for a week on research business, to consult face-to-face with some
people at Stanford, particularly our mutual friend Richard P.
Gabriel (RPG; see {Gabriel}).

RPG picked us up at the San Francisco airport and drove us back to
Palo Alto (going {logical} south on route 101, parallel to {El
Camino Bignum}). Palo Alto is adjacent to Stanford University and
about 40 miles south of San Francisco. We ate at The Good Earth, a
`health food' restaurant, very popular, the sort whose milkshakes
all contain honey and protein powder. JONL ordered such a shake
--- the waitress claimed the flavor of the day was "lalaberry". I
still have no idea what that might be, but it became a running
joke. It was the color of raspberry, and JONL said it tasted
rather bitter. I ate a better tostada there than I have ever had
in a Mexican restaurant.

After this we went to the local Uncle Gaylord's Old Fashioned Ice
Cream Parlor. They make ice cream fresh daily, in a variety of
intriguing flavors. It's a chain, and they have a slogan: "If you
don't live near an Uncle Gaylord's --- MOVE!" Also, Uncle Gaylord
(a real person) wages a constant battle to force big-name ice cream
makers to print their ingredients on the package (like air and
plastic and other non-natural garbage). JONL and I had first
discovered Uncle Gaylord's the previous August, when we had flown
to a computer-science conference in Berkeley, California, the first
time either of us had been on the West Coast. When not in the
conference sessions, we had spent our time wandering the length of
Telegraph Avenue, which (like Harvard Square in Cambridge) was
lined with picturesque street vendors and interesting little shops.
On that street we discovered Uncle Gaylord's Berkeley store. The
ice cream there was very good. During that August visit JONL went
absolutely bananas (so to speak) over one particular flavor, ginger
honey.

Therefore, after eating at The Good Earth --- indeed, after every
lunch and dinner and before bed during our April visit --- a trip
to Uncle Gaylord's (the one in Palo Alto) was mandatory. We had
arrived on a Wednesday, and by Thursday evening we had been there
at least four times. Each time, JONL would get ginger honey ice
cream, and proclaim to all bystanders that "Ginger was the spice
that drove the Europeans mad! That's why they sought a route to
the East! They used it to preserve their otherwise off-taste
meat." After the third or fourth repetition RPG and I were getting
a little tired of this spiel, and began to paraphrase him: "Wow!
Ginger! The spice that makes rotten meat taste good!" "Say! Why
don't we find some dog that's been run over and sat in the sun for
a week and put some *ginger* on it for dinner?!" "Right! With a
lalaberry shake!" And so on. This failed to faze JONL; he took it
in good humor, as long as we kept returning to Uncle Gaylord's. He
loves ginger honey ice cream.

Now RPG and his then-wife KBT (Kathy Tracy) were putting us up
(putting up with us?) in their home for our visit, so to thank them
JONL and I took them out to a nice French restaurant of their
choosing. I unadventurously chose the filet mignon, and KBT had je
ne sais quoi du jour, but RPG and JONL had lapin (rabbit).
(Waitress: "Oui, we have fresh rabbit, fresh today." RPG: "Well,
JONL, I guess we won't need any *ginger*!")

We finished the meal late, about 11 P.M., which is 2 A.M Boston
time, so JONL and I were rather droopy. But it wasn't yet
midnight. Off to Uncle Gaylord's!

Now the French restaurant was in Redwood City, north of Palo Alto.
In leaving Redwood City, we somehow got onto route 101 going north
instead of south. JONL and I wouldn't have known the difference
had RPG not mentioned it. We still knew very little of the local
geography. I did figure out, however, that we were headed in the
direction of Berkeley, and half-jokingly suggested that we continue
north and go to Uncle Gaylord's in Berkeley.

RPG said "Fine!" and we drove on for a while and talked. I was
drowsy, and JONL actually dropped off to sleep for 5 minutes. When
he awoke, RPG said, "Gee, JONL, you must have slept all the way
over the bridge!", referring to the one spanning San Francisco Bay.
Just then we came to a sign that said "University Avenue". I
mumbled something about working our way over to Telegraph Avenue;
RPG said "Right!" and maneuvered some more. Eventually we pulled
up in front of an Uncle Gaylord's.

Now, I hadn't really been paying attention because I was so sleepy,
and I didn't really understand what was happening until RPG let me
in on it a few moments later, but I was just alert enough to notice
that we had somehow come to the Palo Alto Uncle Gaylord's after
all.

JONL noticed the resemblance to the Palo Alto store, but hadn't
caught on. (The place is lit with red and yellow lights at night,
and looks much different from the way it does in daylight.) He
said, "This isn't the Uncle Gaylord's I went to in Berkeley! It
looked like a barn! But this place looks *just like* the one back
in Palo Alto!"

RPG deadpanned, "Well, this is the one *I* always come to when I'm
in Berkeley. They've got two in San Francisco, too. Remember,
they're a chain."

JONL accepted this bit of wisdom. And he was not totally ignorant
--- he knew perfectly well that University Avenue was in Berkeley,
not far from Telegraph Avenue. What he didn't know was that there
is a completely different University Avenue in Palo Alto.

JONL went up to the counter and asked for ginger honey. The guy at
the counter asked whether JONL would like to taste it first,
evidently their standard procedure with that flavor, as not too
many people like it.

JONL said, "I'm sure I like it. Just give me a cone." The guy
behind the counter insisted that JONL try just a taste first.
"Some people think it tastes like soap." JONL insisted, "Look, I
*love* ginger. I eat Chinese food. I eat raw ginger roots. I
already went through this hassle with the guy back in Palo Alto. I
*know* I like that flavor!"

At the words "back in Palo Alto" the guy behind the counter got a
very strange look on his face, but said nothing. KBT caught his
eye and winked. Through my stupor I still hadn't quite grasped
what was going on, and thought RPG was rolling on the floor
laughing and clutching his stomach just because JONL had launched
into his spiel ("makes rotten meat a dish for princes") for the
forty-third time. At this point, RPG clued me in fully.

RPG, KBT, and I retreated to a table, trying to stifle our
chuckles. JONL remained at the counter, talking about ice cream
with the guy b.t.c., comparing Uncle Gaylord's to other ice cream
shops and generally having a good old time.

At length the g.b.t.c. said, "How's the ginger honey?" JONL said,
"Fine! I wonder what exactly is in it?" Now Uncle Gaylord
publishes all his recipes and even teaches classes on how to make
his ice cream at home. So the g.b.t.c. got out the recipe, and he
and JONL pored over it for a while. But the g.b.t.c. could contain
his curiosity no longer, and asked again, "You really like that
stuff, huh?" JONL said, "Yeah, I've been eating it constantly back
in Palo Alto for the past two days. In fact, I think this batch is
about as good as the cones I got back in Palo Alto!"

G.b.t.c. looked him straight in the eye and said, "You're *in* Palo
Alto!"

JONL turned slowly around, and saw the three of us collapse in a
fit of giggles. He clapped a hand to his forehead and exclaimed,
"I've been hacked!"

[My spies on the West Coast inform me that there is a close relative
of the raspberry found out there called an `olallieberry' --- ESR]

[Ironic footnote: it appears that the {meme} about ginger vs.
rotting meat may be an urban legend. It's not borne out by an
examination of medieval recipes or period purchase records for
spices, and appears full-blown in the works of Samuel Pegge, a
gourmand and notorious flake case who originated numerous food
myths. --- ESR]

:sagan: /say'gn/ [from Carl Sagan's TV series "Cosmos";
think "billions and billions"] n. A large quantity of anything.
"There's a sagan different ways to tweak EMACS." "The
U.S. Government spends sagans on bombs and welfare --- hard to say
which is more destructive."

:SAIL:: /sayl/, not /S-A-I-L/ n. 1. Stanford Artificial
Intelligence Lab. An important site in the early development of
LISP; with the MIT AI Lab, BBN, CMU, XEROX PARC, and the UNIX
community, one of the major wellsprings of technical innovation and
hacker-culture traditions (see the {{WAITS}} entry for details).
The SAIL machines were officially shut down in late May 1990, scant
weeks after the MIT AI Lab's ITS cluster was officially
decommissioned. 2. The Stanford Artificial Intelligence Language
used at SAIL (sense 1). It was an Algol-60 derivative with a
coroutining facility and some new data types intended for building
search trees and association lists.

:salescritter: /sayls'kri`tr/ n. Pejorative hackerism for a computer
salesperson. Hackers tell the following joke:

Q. What's the difference between a used-car dealer and a
computer salesman?
A. The used-car dealer knows he's lying. [Some versions add:
...and probably knows how to drive.]

This reflects the widespread hacker belief that salescritters are
self-selected for stupidity (after all, if they had brains and the
inclination to use them, they'd be in programming). The terms
`salesthing' and `salesdroid' are also common. Compare
{marketroid}, {suit}, {droid}.

:salsman: /salz'm*n/ v. To flood a mailing list or newsgroup with
huge amounts of useless, trivial or redundant information. From
the name of a hacker who has frequently done this on some widely
distributed mailing lists.

:salt mines: n. Dense quarters housing large numbers of programmers
working long hours on grungy projects, with some hope of seeing the
end of the tunnel in N years. Noted for their absence of sunshine.
Compare {playpen}, {sandbox}.

:salt substrate: [MIT] n. Collective noun used to refer to potato
chips, pretzels, saltines, or any other form of snack food
designed primarily as a carrier for sodium chloride. From the
technical term `chip substrate', used to refer to the silicon on the
top of which the active parts of integrated circuits are deposited.

:same-day service: n. Ironic term used to describe long response
time, particularly with respect to {{MS-DOS}} system calls (which
ought to require only a tiny fraction of a second to execute).
Such response time is a major incentive for programmers to write
programs that are not {well-behaved}. See also {PC-ism}.

:samurai: n. A hacker who hires out for legal cracking jobs,
snooping for factions in corporate political fights, lawyers
pursuing privacy-rights and First Amendment cases, and other
parties with legitimate reasons to need an electronic locksmith.
In 1991, mainstream media reported the existence of a loose-knit
culture of samurai that meets electronically on BBS systems, mostly
bright teenagers with personal micros; they have modeled
themselves explicitly on the historical samurai of Japan and on the
"net cowboys" of William Gibson's {cyberpunk} novels. Those
interviewed claim to adhere to a rigid ethic of loyalty to their
employers and to disdain the vandalism and theft practiced by
criminal crackers as beneath them and contrary to the hacker ethic;
some quote Miyamoto Musashi's `Book of Five Rings', a classic
of historical samurai doctrine, in support of these principles.
See also {Stupids}, {social engineering}, {cracker},
{hacker ethic, the}, and {dark-side hacker}.

:sandbender: [IBM] n. A person involved with silicon lithography and
the physical design of chips. Compare {ironmonger}, {polygon
pusher}.

:sandbox: n. 1. (also `sandbox, the') Common term for the
R&D department at many software and computer companies (where hackers
in commercial environments are likely to be found). Half-derisive,
but reflects the truth that research is a form of creative play.
Compare {playpen}. 2. Syn. {link farm}

:sanity check: n. 1. The act of checking a piece of code (or
anything else, e.g., a USENET posting) for completely stupid mistakes.
Implies that the check is to make sure the author was sane when it
was written; e.g., if a piece of scientific software relied on a
particular formula and was giving unexpected results, one might
first look at the nesting of parentheses or the coding of the
formula, as a `sanity check', before looking at the more complex
I/O or data structure manipulation routines, much less the
algorithm itself. Compare {reality check}. 2. A run-time test,
either validating input or ensuring that the program hasn't screwed
up internally (producing an inconsistent value or state).

:Saturday-night special: [from police slang for a cheap handgun] n.
A program or feature kluged together during off hours, under a
deadline, and in response to pressure from a {salescritter}.
Such hacks are dangerously unreliable, but all too often sneak into
a production release after insufficient review.

:say: vt. 1. To type to a terminal. "To list a directory
verbosely, you have to say `ls -l'." Tends to imply a
{newline}-terminated command (a `sentence'). 2. A computer
may also be said to `say' things to you, even if it doesn't have
a speech synthesizer, by displaying them on a terminal in response
to your commands. Hackers find it odd that this usage confuses
{mundane}s.

:scag: vt. To destroy the data on a disk, either by corrupting the
filesystem or by causing media damage. "That last power hit scagged
the system disk." Compare {scrog}, {roach}.

:scanno: n. An error in a document caused by a scanner glitch,
analgous to typo or {thinko}.

:schroedinbug: [MIT: from the Schroedinger's Cat thought-experiment in
quantum physics] n. A design or implementation bug in a program
which doesn't manifest until someone reading source or using the
program in an unusual way notices that it never should have worked,
at which point the program promptly stops working for everybody
until fixed. Though this sounds impossible, it happens; some
programs have harbored latent schroedinbugs for years. Compare
{heisenbug}, {Bohr bug}, {mandelbug}.

:science-fiction fandom:: n. Another voluntary subculture having a
very heavy overlap with hackerdom; most hackers read SF and/or
fantasy fiction avidly, and many go to `cons' (SF conventions) or
are involved in fandom-connected activities such as the Society for
Creative Anachronism. Some hacker jargon originated in SF fandom;
see {defenestration}, {great-wall}, {cyberpunk}, {h}, {ha ha
only serious}, {IMHO}, {mundane}, {neep-neep}, {Real
Soon Now}. Additionally, the jargon terms {cowboy},
{cyberspace}, {de-rezz}, {go flatline}, {ice}, {virus},
{wetware}, {wirehead}, and {worm} originated in SF
stories.

:scram switch: [from the nuclear power industry] n. An
emergency-power-off switch (see {Big Red Switch}), esp. one
positioned to be easily hit by evacuating personnel. In general,
this is *not* something you {frob} lightly; these often
initiate expensive events (such as Halon dumps) and are installed
in a {dinosaur pen} for use in case of electrical fire or in
case some luckless {field servoid} should put 120 volts across
himself while {Easter egging}. (See also {molly-guard}.)

:scratch: 1. [from `scratchpad'] adj. Describes a data
structure or recording medium attached to a machine for testing or
temporary-use purposes; one that can be {scribble}d on without
loss. Usually in the combining forms `scratch memory',
`scratch register', `scratch disk', `scratch tape',
`scratch volume'. See {scratch monkey}. 2. [primarily
IBM] vt. To delete (as in a file).

:scratch monkey: n. As in "Before testing or reconfiguring, always
mount a {scratch monkey}", a proverb used to advise caution
when dealing with irreplaceable data or devices. Used to refer to
any scratch volume hooked to a computer during any risky operation
as a replacement for some precious resource or data that might
otherwise get trashed.

This term preserves the memory of Mabel, the Swimming Wonder
Monkey, star of a biological research program at the University of
Toronto ca. 1986. Mabel was not (so the legend goes) your ordinary
monkey; the university had spent years teaching her how to swim,
breathing through a regulator, in order to study the effects of
different gas mixtures on her physiology. Mabel suffered an
untimely demise one day when DEC {PM}ed the PDP-11 controlling
her regulator (see also {provocative maintenance}).

It is recorded that, after calming down an understandably irate
customer sufficiently to ascertain the facts of the matter, a DEC
troubleshooter called up the {field circus} manager responsible
and asked him sweetly, "Can you swim?"

Not all the consequences to humans were so amusing; the sysop of
the machine in question was nearly thrown in jail at the behest of
certain clueless droids at the local `humane' society. The moral
is clear: When in doubt, always mount a scratch monkey.

:screw: [MIT] n. A {lose}, usually in software. Especially used for
user-visible misbehavior caused by a bug or misfeature. This use
has become quite widespread outside MIT.

:screwage: /skroo'*j/ n. Like {lossage} but connotes that the
failure is due to a designed-in misfeature rather than a simple
inadequacy or a mere bug.

:scribble: n. To modify a data structure in a random and
unintentionally destructive way. "Bletch! Somebody's
disk-compactor program went berserk and scribbled on the i-node
table." "It was working fine until one of the allocation routines
scribbled on low core." Synonymous with {trash}; compare {mung},
which conveys a bit more intention, and {mangle}, which is more
violent and final.

:scrog: /skrog/ [Bell Labs] vt. To damage, trash, or corrupt a
data structure. "The list header got scrogged." Also reported
as `skrog', and ascribed to the comic strip "The Wizard of
Id". Compare {scag}; possibly the two are related. Equivalent
to {scribble} or {mangle}.

:scrool: /skrool/ [from the pioneering Roundtable chat system in
Houston ca. 1984; prob. originated as a typo for `scroll'] n. The
log of old messages, available for later perusal or to help one get
back in synch with the conversation. It was originally called the
`scrool monster', because an early version of the roundtable
software had a bug where it would dump all 8K of scrool on a user's
terminal.

:scrozzle: /skroz'l/ vt. Used when a self-modifying code segment runs
incorrectly and corrupts the running program or vital data. "The
damn compiler scrozzled itself again!"

:scruffies: n. See {neats vs. scruffies}.

:SCSI: [Small Computer System Interface] n. A bus-independent
standard for system-level interfacing between a computer and
intelligent devices. Typically annotated in literature with `sexy'
(/sek'see/), `sissy' (/sis'ee/), and `scuzzy' (/skuh'zee/) as
pronunciation guides --- the last being the overwhelmingly
predominant form, much to the dismay of the designers and their
marketing people. One can usually assume that a person who
pronounces it /S-C-S-I/ is clueless.

:ScumOS: n. Unflattering hackerism for SunOS, the UNIX variant
supported on Sun Microsystems's UNIX workstations (see also
{sun-stools}), and compare {AIDX}, {terminak},
{Macintrash} {Nominal Semidestructor}, {Open DeathTrap},
{HP-SUX}. Despite what this term might suggest, Sun was
founded by hackers and still enjoys excellent relations with
hackerdom; usage is more often in exasperation than outright
loathing.

:search-and-destroy mode: n. Hackerism for the search-and-replace
facility in an editor, so called because an incautiously chosen
match pattern can cause {infinite} damage.

:second-system effect: n. (sometimes, more euphoniously,
`second-system syndrome') When one is designing the successor to
a relatively small, elegant, and successful system, there is a
tendency to become grandiose in one's success and design an
{elephantine} feature-laden monstrosity. The term was first
used by Fred Brooks in his classic `The Mythical Man-Month:
Essays on Software Engineering' (Addison-Wesley, 1975; ISBN
0-201-00650-2). It described the jump from a set of nice, simple
operating systems on the IBM 70xx series to OS/360 on the
360 series. A similar effect can also happen in an evolving
system; see {Brooks's Law}, {creeping elegance}, {creeping
featurism}. See also {{Multics}}, {OS/2}, {X}, {software
bloat}.

This version of the jargon lexicon has been described (with
altogether too much truth for comfort) as an example of
second-system effect run amok on jargon-1....

:secondary damage: n. When a fatal error occurs (esp. a
{segfault}) the immediate cause may be that a pointer has been
trashed due to a previous {fandango on core}. However, this
fandango may have been due to an *earlier* fandango, so no
amount of analysis will reveal (directly) how the damage occurred.
"The data structure was clobbered, but it was secondary damage."

By extension, the corruption resulting from N cascaded
fandangoes on core is `Nth-level damage'. There is at least
one case on record in which 17 hours of {grovel}ling with
`adb' actually dug up the underlying bug behind an instance of
seventh-level damage! The hacker who accomplished this
near-superhuman feat was presented with an award by his fellows.

:security through obscurity: n. A name applied by hackers to most
OS vendors' favorite way of coping with security holes --- namely,
ignoring them and not documenting them and trusting that nobody
will find out about them and that people who do find out about them
won't exploit them. This never works for long and occasionally
sets the world up for debacles like the {RTM} worm of 1988 (see
{Great Worm, the}), but once the brief moments of panic created
by such events subside most vendors are all too willing to turn
over and go back to sleep. After all, actually fixing the bugs
would siphon off the resources needed to implement the next
user-interface frill on marketing's wish list --- and besides, if
they started fixing security bugs customers might begin to
*expect* it and imagine that their warranties of
merchantability gave them some sort of *right* to a system
with fewer holes in it than a shotgunned Swiss cheese, and
*then* where would we be?

Historical note: There are conflicting stories about the origin of
this term. It has been claimed that it was first used in the
USENET newsgroup in comp.sys.apollo during a campaign to get
HP/Apollo to fix security problems in its UNIX-{clone}
Aegis/DomainOS (they didn't change a thing). {ITS} fans, on the
other hand, say it was coined years earlier in opposition to the
incredibly paranoid {Multics} people down the hall, for whom
security was everything. In the ITS culture it referred to (1) the
fact that that by the time a tourist figured out how to make
trouble he'd generally gotten over the urge to make it, because he
felt part of the community; and (2) (self-mockingly) the poor
coverage of the documentation and obscurity of many commands. One
instance of *deliberate* security through obscurity is
recorded; the command to allow patching the running ITS system
({altmode} altmode control-R) echoed as $$^D. If you actually
typed alt alt ^D, that set a flag which would prevent patching the
system even if you later got it right.

:SED: [TMRC, from `Light-Emitting Diode'] /S-E-D/ n.
Smoke-emitting diode. A {friode} that lost the war. See
{LER}.

:segfault: n.,vi. Syn. {segment}, {seggie}.

:seggie: /seg'ee/ [UNIX] n. Shorthand for {segmentation fault}
reported from Britain.

:segment: /seg'ment/ vi. To experience a {segmentation fault}.
Confusingly, this is often pronounced more like the noun `segment'
than like mainstream v. segment; this is because it is actually a
noun shorthand that has been verbed.

:segmentation fault: n. [UNIX] 1. An error in which a running program
attempts to access memory not allocated to it and {core dump}s
with a segmentation violation error. 2. To lose a train of
thought or a line of reasoning. Also uttered as an exclamation at
the point of befuddlement.

:segv: /seg'vee/ n.,vi. Yet another synonym for {segmentation
fault} (actually, in this case, `segmentation violation').

:self-reference: n. See {self-reference}.

:selvage: /sel'v*j/ [from sewing] n. See {chad} (sense 1).

:semi: /se'mee/ or /se'mi:/ 1. n. Abbreviation for
`semicolon', when speaking. "Commands to {grind} are
prefixed by semi-semi-star" means that the prefix is `;;*',
not 1/4 of a star. 2. A prefix used with words such as
`immediately' as a qualifier. "When is the system coming up?"
"Semi-immediately." (That is, maybe not for an hour.) "We did
consider that possibility semi-seriously." See also
{infinite}.

:semi-infinite: n. See {infinite}.

:senior bit: [IBM] n. Syn. {meta bit}.

:server: n. A kind of {daemon} that performs a service for the
requester and which often runs on a computer other than the one on
which the server runs. A particularly common term on the Internet,
which is rife with `name servers', `domain servers', `news
servers', `finger servers', and the like.

:SEX: /seks/ [Sun Users' Group & elsewhere] n. 1. Software
EXchange. A technique invented by the blue-green algae hundreds of
millions of years ago to speed up their evolution, which had been
terribly slow up until then. Today, SEX parties are popular among
hackers and others (of course, these are no longer limited to
exchanges of genetic software). In general, SEX parties are a
{Good Thing}, but unprotected SEX can propagate a {virus}.
See also {pubic directory}. 2. The rather Freudian mnemonic
often used for Sign EXtend, a machine instruction found in the
PDP-11 and many other architectures. The RCA 1802 chip used in the
early Elf and SuperElf personal computers had a `SEt X register'
SEX instruction, but this seems to have had little folkloric
impact.

DEC's engineers nearly got a PDP-11 assembler that used the
`SEX' mnemonic out the door at one time, but (for once)
marketing wasn't asleep and forced a change. That wasn't the last
time this happened, either. The author of `The Intel 8086
Primer', who was one of the original designers of the 8086, noted
that there was originally a `SEX' instruction on that
processor, too. He says that Intel management got cold feet and
decreed that it be changed, and thus the instruction was renamed
`CBW' and `CWD' (depending on what was being extended).
Amusingly, the Intel 8048 (the microcontroller used in IBM PC
keyboards) is also missing straight `SEX' but has logical-or
and logical-and instructions `ORL' and `ANL'.

The Motorola 6809, used in the U.K.'s `Dragon 32' personal
computer, actually had an official `SEX' instruction; the 6502
in the Apple II it competed with did not. British hackers thought
this made perfect mythic sense; after all, it was commonly
observed, you could (on some theoretical level) have sex with a
dragon, but you can't have sex with an apple.

:sex changer: n. Syn. {gender mender}.

:shambolic link: n. A UNIX symbolic link, particularly when it
confuses you, points to nothing at all, or results in you ending up
in some completely unexpected part of the filesystem....

:shareware: /sheir'weir/ n. {Freeware} (sense 1) for which the
author requests some payment, usually in the accompanying
documentation files or in an announcement made by the software
itself. Such payment may or may not buy additional support or
functionality. See also {careware}, {charityware},
{crippleware}, {guiltware}, {postcardware}, and
{-ware}; compare {payware}.

:shelfware: /shelfweir/ n. Software purchased on a whim (by an
individual user) or in accordance with policy (by a corporation or
government agency), but not actually required for any particular
use. Therefore, it often ends up on some shelf.

:shell: [orig. {{Multics}} techspeak, widely propagated via UNIX] n.
1. [techspeak] The command interpreter used to pass commands to an
operating system; so called because it is the part of the operating
system that interfaces with the outside world. 2. More generally,
any interface program that mediates access to a special resource
or {server} for convenience, efficiency, or security reasons; for
this meaning, the usage is usually `a shell around' whatever.
This sort of program is also called a `wrapper'.

:shell out: [UNIX] n. To spawn an interactive {subshell} from
within a program (e.g., a mailer or editor). "Bang foo runs foo in
a subshell, while bang alone shells out."

:shift left (or right) logical: [from any of various machines'
instruction sets] 1. vi. To move oneself to the left (right). To
move out of the way. 2. imper. "Get out of that (my) seat! You
can shift to that empty one to the left (right)." Often
used without the `logical', or as `left shift' instead of
`shift left'. Sometimes heard as LSH /lish/, from the {PDP-10}
instruction set. See {Programmer's Cheer}.

:shim: n. A small piece of data inserted in order to achieve a
desired memory alignment or other addressing property. For
example, the PDP-11 UNIX linker, in split I&D (instructions and
data) mode, inserts a two-byte shim at location 0 in data space so
that no data object will have an address of 0 (and be confused with
the C null pointer). See also {loose bytes}.

:shitogram: /shit'oh-gram/ n. A *really* nasty piece of email.
Compare {nastygram}, {flame}.

:short card: n. A half-length IBM PC expansion card or adapter that
will fit in one of the two short slots located towards the right
rear of a standard chassis (tucked behind the floppy disk drives).
See also {tall card}.

:shotgun debugging: n. The software equivalent of {Easter egging};
the making of relatively undirected changes to software in the hope
that a bug will be perturbed out of existence. This almost never
works, and usually introduces more bugs.

:showstopper: n. A hardware or (especially) software bug that makes
an implementation effectively unusable; one that absolutely has to
be fixed before development can go on. Opposite in connotation
from its original theatrical use, which refers to something
stunningly *good*.

:shriek: n. See {excl}. Occasional CMU usage, also in common use
among APL fans and mathematicians, especially category theorists.

:Shub-Internet: /shuhb in't*r-net/ [MUD: from H. P. Lovecraft's
evil fictional deity `Shub-Niggurath', the Black Goat with a
Thousand Young] n. The harsh personification of the Internet,
Beast of a Thousand Processes, Eater of Characters, Avatar of Line
Noise, and Imp of Call Waiting; the hideous multi-tendriled entity
formed of all the manifold connections of the net. A sect of
MUDders worships Shub-Internet, sacrificing objects and praying for
good connections. To no avail --- its purpose is malign and evil,
and is the cause of all network slowdown. Often heard as in
"Freela casts a tac nuke at Shub-Internet for slowing her down."
(A forged response often follows along the lines of:
"Shub-Internet gulps down the tac nuke and burps happily.") Also
cursed by users of {FTP} and {telnet} when the system slows
down. The dread name of Shub-Internet is seldom spoken aloud, as
it is said that repeating it three times will cause the being to
wake, deep within its lair beneath the Pentagon.

:sidecar: n. 1. Syn. {slap on the side}. Esp. used of add-ons
for the late and unlamented IBM PCjr. 2. The IBM PC compatibility
box that could be bolted onto the side of an Amiga. Designed and
produced by Commodore, it broke all of the company's own rules.
If it worked with any other peripherals, it was by {magic}.

:SIG: n. The Association for Computing Machinery traditionally
sponsors Special Interest Groups in various technical areas;
well-known ones include SIGARCH (the Special Interest Group for
Computer Architecture) and SIGGRAPH (the Special Interest Group for
Computer Graphics). Hackers, not surprisingly, like to overextend
this naming convention to less formal associations like SIGBEER (at
ACM conferences) and SIGFOOD (at University of Illinois).

:sig block: /sig blok/ [UNIX; often written `.sig' there] n.
Short for `signature', used specifically to refer to the
electronic signature block that most UNIX mail- and news-posting
software will {automagically} append to outgoing mail and news.
The composition of one's sig can be quite an art form, including an
ASCII logo or one's choice of witty sayings (see {sig quote},
{fool file, the}); but many consider large sigs a waste of
{bandwidth}, and it has been observed that the size of one's sig
block is usually inversely proportional to one's longevity and
level of prestige on the net.

:sig quote: /sig kwoht/ [USENET] n. A maxim, quote, proverb, joke,
or slogan embedded in one's {sig block} and intended to convey
something of one's philosophical stance, pet peeves, or sense of
humor. "Calm down, it's only ones and zeroes."

:sig virus: n. A parasitic {meme} embedded in a {sig block}.
There was a {meme plague} or fad for these on USENET in late
1991. Most were equivalents of "I am a .sig virus. Please reproduce
me in your .sig block.". Of course, the .sig virus's memetic hook
is the giggle value of going along with the gag; this, however,
was a self-limiting phenomenon as more and more people picked up
on the idea. There were creative variants on it; some people
stuck `sig virus antibody' texts in their sigs, and there was at
least one instance of a sig virus eater.

:signal-to-noise ratio: [from analog electronics] n. Used by hackers
in a generalization of its technical meaning. `Signal' refers to
useful information conveyed by some communications medium, and
`noise' to anything else on that medium. Hence a low ratio implies
that it is not worth paying attention to the medium in question.
Figures for such metaphorical ratios are never given. The term is
most often applied to {USENET} newsgroups during {flame war}s.
Compare {bandwidth}. See also {coefficient of X}, {lost in
the noise}.

:silicon: n. Hardware, esp. ICs or microprocessor-based computer
systems (compare {iron}). Contrasted with software. See also
{sandbender}.

:silicon foundry: n. A company that {fab}s chips to the designs
of others. As of the late 1980s, the combination of silicon
foundries and good computer-aided design software made it much
easier for hardware-designing startup companies to come into being.
The downside of using a silicon foundry is that the distance from
the actual chip-fabrication processes reduces designers' control of
detail. This is somewhat analogous to the use of {HLL}s versus
coding in assembler.

:silly walk: [from Monty Python's Flying Circus] vi. 1. A ridiculous
procedure required to accomplish a task. Like {grovel}, but more
{random} and humorous. "I had to silly-walk through half the
/usr directories to find the maps file." 2. Syn. {fandango on
core}.