Chapter V: Rare: book (12)

Historically, MUDs (and their more recent progeny with names of MU-
form) derive from a hack by Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw on the
University of Essex's DEC-10 in the early 1980s; descendants of
that game still exist today and are sometimes generically called
BartleMUDs. There is a widespread myth (repeated,
unfortunately, by earlier versions of this lexicon) that the name
MUD was trademarked to the commercial MUD run by Bartle on British
Telecom (the motto: "You haven't *lived* 'til you've
*died* on MUD!"); however, this is false -- Richard Bartle
explicitly placed `MUD' in the public domain in 1985. BT was upset
at this, as they had already printed trademark claims on some maps
and posters, which were released and created the myth.

Students on the European academic networks quickly improved on the
MUD concept, spawning several new MUDs (VAXMUD, AberMUD, LPMUD).
Many of these had associated bulletin-board systems for social
interaction. Because these had an image as `research' they
often survived administrative hostility to BBSs in general. This,
together with the fact that Usenet feeds were often spotty and
difficult to get in the U.K., made the MUDs major foci of hackish
social interaction there.

AberMUD and other variants crossed the Atlantic around 1988 and
quickly gained popularity in the U.S.; they became nuclei for large
hacker communities with only loose ties to traditional hackerdom
(some observers see parallels with the growth of Usenet in the
early 1980s). The second wave of MUDs (TinyMUD and variants)
tended to emphasize social interaction, puzzles, and cooperative
world-building as opposed to combat and competition. By 1991, over
50% of MUD sites were of a third major variety, LPMUD, which
synthesizes the combat/puzzle aspects of AberMUD and older systems
with the extensibility of TinyMud. In 1996 the cutting edge of the
technology is Pavel Curtis's MOO, even more extensible using a
built-in object-oriented language. The trend toward greater
programmability and flexibility will doubtless continue.

The state of the art in MUD design is still moving very rapidly,
with new simulation designs appearing (seemingly) every month.
Around 1991 there was an unsuccessful movement to deprecate the
term {MUD} itself, as newer designs exhibit an exploding variety
of names corresponding to the different simulation styles being
explored. It survived. See also {bonk/oif}, {FOD},
{link-dead}, {mudhead}, {talk mode}.

:muddie: /n./ Syn. {mudhead}. More common in Great Britain,
possibly because system administrators there like to mutter
"bloody muddies" when annoyed at the species.

:mudhead: /n./ Commonly used to refer to a {MUD} player who
eats, sleeps, and breathes MUD. Mudheads have been known to fail
their degrees, drop out, etc., with the consolation, however, that
they made wizard level. When encountered in person, on a MUD, or
in a chat system, all a mudhead will talk about is three topics:
the tactic, character, or wizard that is supposedly always unfairly
stopping him/her from becoming a wizard or beating a favorite MUD;
why the specific game he/she has experience with is so much better
than any other; and the MUD he or she is writing or going to write
because his/her design ideas are so much better than in any
existing MUD. See also {wannabee}.

To the anthropologically literate, this term may recall the
Zuni/Hopi legend of the mudheads or `koyemshi', mythical
half-formed children of an unnatural union. Figures representing
them act as clowns in Zuni sacred ceremonies. Others may recall
the `High School Madness' sequence from the Firesign Theater album
"Don't Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers", in which there
is a character named "Mudhead".

:multician: /muhl-ti'shn/ /n./ [coined at Honeywell,
ca. 1970] Competent user of {{Multics}}. Perhaps oddly, no one
has ever promoted the analogous `Unician'.

:Multics:: /muhl'tiks/ /n./ [from "MULTiplexed Information
and Computing Service"] An early (late 1960s) timesharing
operating system co-designed by a consortium including MIT, GE, and
Bell Laboratories. Multics was very innovative for its time ---
among other things, it introduced the idea of treating all devices
uniformly as special files. All the members but GE eventually
pulled out after determining that {second-system effect} had
bloated Multics to the point of practical unusability (the
`lean' predecessor in question was {CTSS}). Honeywell
commercialized Multics after buying out GE's computer group, but it
was never very successful (among other things, on some versions one
was commonly required to enter a password to log out). One of the
developers left in the lurch by the project's breakup was Ken
Thompson, a circumstance which led directly to the birth of
{{Unix}}. For this and other reasons, aspects of the Multics
design remain a topic of occasional debate among hackers. See also
{brain-damaged} and {GCOS}.

:multitask: /n./ Often used of humans in the same meaning it
has for computers, to describe a person doing several things at
once (but see {thrash}). The term `multiplex', from
communications technology (meaning to handle more than one channel
at the same time), is used similarly.

:mumblage: /muhm'bl*j/ /n./ The topic of one's mumbling (see
{mumble}). "All that mumblage" is used like "all that
stuff" when it is not quite clear how the subject of discussion
works, or like "all that crap" when `mumble' is being used as
an implicit replacement for pejoratives.

:mumble: /interj./ 1. Said when the correct response is 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 long discussion. "Don't you think that we could
improve LISP performance by using a hybrid reference-count
transaction garbage collector, if the cache is big enough and there
are some extra cache bits for the microcode to use?" "Well,
mumble ... I'll have to think about it." 2. [MIT] Expression
of not-quite-articulated agreement, often used as an informal vote
of consensus in a meeting: "So, shall we dike out the COBOL
emulation?" "Mumble!" 3. Sometimes used as an expression of
disagreement (distinguished from sense 2 by tone of voice and other
cues). "I think we should buy a {VAX}." "Mumble!" Common
variant: `mumble frotz' (see {frotz}; interestingly, one does
not say `mumble frobnitz' even though `frotz' is short for
`frobnitz'). 4. Yet another {metasyntactic variable}, like
{foo}. 5. When used as a question ("Mumble?") means "I
didn't understand you". 6. Sometimes used in `public' contexts
on-line as a placefiller for things one is barred from giving
details about. For example, a poster with pre-released hardware in
his machine might say "Yup, my machine now has an extra 16M of
memory, thanks to the card I'm testing for Mumbleco." 7. A
conversational wild card used to designate something one doesn't
want to bother spelling out, but which can be {glark}ed from
context. Compare {blurgle}. 8. [XEROX PARC] A colloquialism
used to suggest that further discussion would be fruitless.

:munch: /vt./ [often confused with {mung}, q.v.] To
transform information in a serial fashion, often requiring large
amounts of computation. To trace down a data structure. Related
to {crunch} and nearly synonymous with {grovel}, but connotes
less pain.

:munching: /n./ Exploration of security holes of someone else's
computer for thrills, notoriety, or to annoy the system manager.
Compare {cracker}. See also {hacked off}.

:munching squares: /n./ A {display hack} dating back to the
PDP-1 (ca. 1962, reportedly discovered by Jackson Wright), which
employs a trivial computation (repeatedly plotting the graph Y = X
XOR T for successive values of T -- see {HAKMEM} items
146--148) to produce an impressive display of moving and growing
squares that devour the screen. The initial value of T is treated
as a parameter, which, when well-chosen, can produce amazing
effects. Some of these, later (re)discovered on the LISP machine,
have been christened `munching triangles' (try AND for XOR and
toggling points instead of plotting them), `munching w's', and
`munching mazes'. More generally, suppose a graphics program
produces an impressive and ever-changing display of some basic
form, foo, on a display terminal, and does it using a relatively
simple program; then the program (or the resulting display) is
likely to be referred to as `munching foos'. [This is a good
example of the use of the word {foo} as a {metasyntactic
variable}.]

:munchkin: /muhnch'kin/ /n./ [from the squeaky-voiced little
people in L. Frank Baum's "The Wizard of Oz"] A
teenage-or-younger micro enthusiast hacking BASIC or something else
equally constricted. A term of mild derision -- munchkins are
annoying but some grow up to be hackers after passing through a
{larval stage}. The term {urchin} is also used. See also
{wannabee}, {bitty box}.

:mundane: /n./ [from SF fandom] 1. A person who is not in
science fiction fandom. 2. A person who is not in the computer
industry. In this sense, most often an adjectival modifier as in
"in my mundane life...." See also {Real World}.

:mung: /muhng/ /vt./ [in 1960 at MIT, `Mash Until No Good';
sometime after that the derivation from the {{recursive acronym}}
`Mung Until No Good' became standard; but see {munge}] 1. To
make changes to a file, esp. large-scale and irrevocable changes.
See {BLT}. 2. To destroy, usually accidentally, occasionally
maliciously. The system only mungs things maliciously; this is a
consequence of {Finagle's Law}. See {scribble}, {mangle},
{trash}, {nuke}. Reports from {Usenet} suggest that the
pronunciation /muhnj/ is now usual in speech, but the spelling
`mung' is still common in program comments (compare the
widespread confusion over the proper spelling of {kluge}).
3. The kind of beans the sprouts of which are used in Chinese food.
(That's their real name! Mung beans! Really!)

Like many early hacker terms, this one seems to have originated at
{TMRC}; it was already in use there in 1958. Peter Samson
(compiler of the original TMRC lexicon) thinks it may originally
have been onomatopoeic for the sound of a relay spring (contact)
being twanged. However, it is known that during the World Wars,
`mung' was U.S. army slang for the ersatz creamed chipped beef
better known as `SOS', and it seems quite likely that the word in
fact goes back to Scots-dialect {munge}.

:munge: /muhnj/ /vt./ 1. [derogatory] To imperfectly
transform information. 2. A comprehensive rewrite of a routine,
data structure or the whole program. 3. To modify data in some way
the speaker doesn't need to go into right now or cannot describe
succinctly (compare {mumble}).

This term is often confused with {mung}, which probably was
derived from it. However, it also appears the word `munge' was in
common use in Scotland in the 1940s, and in Yorkshire in the 1950s,
as a verb, meaning to munch up into a masticated mess, and
as a noun, meaning the result of munging something up (the
parallel with the {kluge}/{kludge} pair is amusing).

:Murphy's Law: /prov./ The correct, *original* Murphy's
Law reads: "If there are two or more ways to do something, and one
of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do
it." This is a principle of defensive design, cited here because
it is usually given in mutant forms less descriptive of the
challenges of design for {luser}s. For example, you don't make a
two-pin plug symmetrical and then label it `THIS WAY UP'; if it
matters which way it is plugged in, then you make the design
asymmetrical (see also the anecdote under {magic smoke}).

Edward A. Murphy, Jr. was one of the engineers on the rocket-sled
experiments that were done by the U.S. Air Force in 1949 to test
human acceleration tolerances (USAF project MX981). One experiment
involved a set of 16 accelerometers mounted to different parts of
the subject's body. There were two ways each sensor could be glued
to its mount, and somebody methodically installed all 16 the wrong
way around. Murphy then made the original form of his
pronouncement, which the test subject (Major John Paul Stapp)
quoted at a news conference a few days later.

Within months `Murphy's Law' had spread to various technical
cultures connected to aerospace engineering. Before too many years
had gone by variants had passed into the popular imagination,
changing as they went. Most of these are variants on "Anything
that can go wrong, will"; this is correctly referred to as
{Finagle's Law}. The memetic drift apparent in these mutants
clearly demonstrates Murphy's Law acting on itself!

:music:: /n./ A common extracurricular interest of hackers
(compare {{science-fiction fandom}}, {{oriental food}}; see also
{filk}). Hackish folklore has long claimed that musical and
programming abilities are closely related, and there has been at
least one large-scale statistical study that supports this.
Hackers, as a rule, like music and often develop musical
appreciation in unusual and interesting directions. Folk music is
very big in hacker circles; so is electronic music, and the sort of
elaborate instrumental jazz/rock that used to be called
`progressive' and isn't recorded much any more. The hacker's
musical range tends to be wide; many can listen with equal
appreciation to (say) Talking Heads, Yes, Gentle Giant, Pat
Metheny, Scott Joplin, Tangerine Dream, Dream Theater, King Sunny
Ade, The Pretenders, Screaming Trees, or the Brandenburg Concerti.
It is also apparently true that hackerdom includes a much higher
concentration of talented amateur musicians than one would expect
from a similar-sized control group of {mundane} types.

:mutter: /vt./ To quietly enter a command not meant for the
ears, eyes, or fingers of ordinary mortals. Often used in `mutter
an {incantation}'. See also {wizard}.

= N = =====

:N: /N/ /quant./ 1. A large and indeterminate number of
objects: "There were N bugs in that crock!" Also used in
its original sense of a variable name: "This crock has N
bugs, as N goes to infinity." (The true number of bugs is
always at least N + 1; see {Lubarsky's Law of Cybernetic
Entomology}.) 2. A variable whose value is inherited from the
current context. For example, when a meal is being ordered at a
restaurant, N may be understood to mean however many people
there are at the table. From the remark "We'd like to order
N wonton soups and a family dinner for N - 1" you
can deduce that one person at the table wants to eat only soup,
even though you don't know how many people there are (see
{great-wall}). 3. `Nth': /adj./ The ordinal counterpart
of N, senses 1 and 2. "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 {tenured graduate student}). See also
{{random numbers}}, {two-to-the-N}.

:nadger: /nad'jr/ /v./ [UK] Of software or hardware (not
people), to twiddle some object in a hidden manner, generally so
that it conforms better to some format. For instance, string
printing routines on 8-bit processors often take the string text
from the instruction stream, thus a print call looks like `jsr
print:"Hello world"'. The print routine has to `nadger' the
saved instruction pointer so that the processor doesn't try to
execute the text as instructions when the subroutine returns.

Apparently this word originated on a now-legendary 1950s radio
comedy program called "The Goon Show". The Goon Show usage
of "nadger" was definitely in the sense of "jinxed"
"clobbered" "fouled up". The American mutation {adger}
seems to have preserved more of the original flavor.

:nagware: /nag'weir/ /n./ [Usenet] The variety of {shareware}
that displays a large screen at the beginning or end reminding you
to register, typically requiring some sort of keystroke to continue
so that you can't use the software in batch mode. Compare
{crippleware}.

:nailed to the wall: /adj./ [like a trophy] Said of a bug
finally eliminated after protracted, and even heroic, effort.

:nailing jelly: /vi./ See {like nailing jelly to a tree}.

:naive: /adj./ Untutored in the perversities of some particular
program or system; one who still tries to do things in an intuitive
way, rather than the right way (in really good designs these
coincide, but most designs aren't `really good' in the
appropriate sense). This trait is completely unrelated to general
maturity or competence, or even competence at any other specific
program. It is a sad commentary on the primitive state of
computing that the natural opposite of this term is often claimed
to be `experienced user' but is really more like `cynical
user'.

:naive user: /n./ A {luser}. Tends to imply someone who is
ignorant mainly owing to inexperience. When this is applied to
someone who *has* experience, there is a definite implication
of stupidity.

:NAK: /nak/ /interj./ [from the ASCII mnemonic for 0010101]
1. On-line joke answer to {ACK}?: "I'm not here." 2. On-line
answer to a request for chat: "I'm not available." 3. Used to
politely interrupt someone to tell them you don't understand their
point or that they have suddenly stopped making sense. See
{ACK}, sense 3. "And then, after we recode the project in
COBOL...." "Nak, Nak, Nak! I thought I heard you say
COBOL!"

:nano: /nan'oh/ /n./ [CMU: from `nanosecond'] A brief
period of time. "Be with you in a nano" means you really will be
free shortly, i.e., implies what mainstream people mean by "in a
jiffy" (whereas the hackish use of `jiffy' is quite different
-- see {jiffy}).

:nano-: /pref./ [SI: the next quantifier below {micro-};
meaning * 10^(-9)] Smaller than {micro-}, and used in
the same rather loose and connotative way. Thus, one has
{{nanotechnology}} (coined by hacker K. Eric Drexler) by analogy
with `microtechnology'; and a few machine architectures have a
`nanocode' level below `microcode'. Tom Duff at Bell Labs has
also pointed out that "Pi seconds is a nanocentury".
See also {{quantifiers}}, {pico-}, {nanoacre}, {nanobot},
{nanocomputer}, {nanofortnight}.

:nanoacre: /nan'oh-ay`kr/ /n./ A unit (about 2 mm square) of
real estate on a VLSI chip. The term gets its giggle value from
the fact that VLSI nanoacres have costs in the same range as real
acres once one figures in design and fabrication-setup costs.

:nanobot: /nan'oh-bot/ /n./ A robot of microscopic
proportions, presumably built by means of {{nanotechnology}}. As
yet, only used informally (and speculatively!). Also called a
`nanoagent'.

:nanocomputer: /nan'oh-k*m-pyoo'tr/ /n./ A computer with
molecular-sized switching elements. Designs for mechanical
nanocomputers which use single-molecule sliding rods for their
logic have been proposed. The controller for a {nanobot} would
be a nanocomputer.

:nanofortnight: /n./ [Adelaide University] 1 fortnight
* 10^(-9), or about 1.2 msec. This unit was used
largely by students doing undergraduate practicals. See
{microfortnight}, {attoparsec}, and {micro-}.

:nanotechnology:: /nan'-oh-tek-no`l*-jee/ /n./ A hypothetical
fabrication technology in which objects are designed and built with
the individual specification and placement of each separate atom.
The first unequivocal nanofabrication experiments took place in
1990, for example with the deposition of individual xenon atoms on
a nickel substrate to spell the logo of a certain very large
computer company. Nanotechnology has been a hot topic in the
hacker subculture ever since the term was coined by K. Eric Drexler
in his book "Engines of Creation" (Anchor/Doubleday, ISBN
0-385-19973-2), where he predicted that nanotechnology could give
rise to replicating assemblers, permitting an exponential growth of
productivity and personal wealth. See also {blue goo}, {gray
goo}, {nanobot}.

:nasal demons: /n./ Recognized shorthand on the Usenet group
comp.std.c for any unexpected behavior of a C compiler on
encountering an undefined construct. During a discussion on that
group in early 1992, a regular remarked "When the compiler
encounters [a given undefined construct] it is legal for it to make
demons fly out of your nose" (the implication is that the compiler
may choose any arbitrarily bizarre way to interpret the code
without violating the ANSI C standard). Someone else followed up
with a reference to "nasal demons", which quickly became
established.

:nastygram: /nas'tee-gram/ /n./ 1. A protocol packet or item
of email (the latter is also called a {letterbomb}) that takes
advantage of misfeatures or security holes on the target system to
do untoward things. 2. Disapproving mail, esp. from a
{net.god}, pursuant to a violation of {netiquette} or a
complaint about failure to correct some mail- or news-transmission
problem. Compare {shitogram}, {mailbomb}. 3. A status
report from an unhappy, and probably picky, customer. "What'd
Corporate say in today's nastygram?" 4. [deprecated] An error
reply by mail from a {daemon}; in particular, a {bounce
message}.

:Nathan Hale: /n./ An asterisk (see also {splat},
{{ASCII}}). Oh, you want an etymology? Notionally, from "I
regret that I have only one asterisk for my country!", a misquote
of the famous remark uttered by Nathan Hale just before he was
hanged. Hale was a (failed) spy for the rebels in the American War
of Independence.

:nature: /n./ See {has the X nature}.

:neat hack: /n./ 1. A clever technique. 2. A brilliant
practical joke, where neatness is correlated with cleverness,
harmlessness, and surprise value. Example: the Caltech Rose Bowl
card display switch (see "{The Meaning of `Hack'}",
Appendix A). See also {hack}.

:neats vs. scruffies: /n./ The label used to refer to one of
the continuing {holy wars} in AI research. This conflict
tangles together two separate issues. One is the relationship
between human reasoning and AI; `neats' tend to try to build
systems that `reason' in some way identifiably similar to the
way humans report themselves as doing, while `scruffies' profess
not to care whether an algorithm resembles human reasoning in the
least as long as it works. More importantly, neats tend to believe
that logic is king, while scruffies favor looser, more ad-hoc
methods driven by empirical knowledge. To a neat, scruffy methods
appear promiscuous, successful only by accident, and not productive
of insights about how intelligence actually works; to a scruffy,
neat methods appear to be hung up on formalism and irrelevant to
the hard-to-capture `common sense' of living intelligences.

:neep-neep: /neep neep/ /n./ [onomatopoeic, widely spread
through SF fandom but reported to have originated at Caltech in the
1970s] One who is fascinated by computers. Less specific than
{hacker}, as it need not imply more skill than is required to
boot games on a PC. The derived noun `neeping' applies
specifically to the long conversations about computers that tend to
develop in the corners at most SF-convention parties (the term
`neepery' is also in wide use). Fandom has a related proverb to
the effect that "Hacking is a conversational black hole!".

:neophilia: /nee`oh-fil'-ee-*/ /n./ The trait of being
excited and pleased by novelty. Common among most hackers, SF
fans, and members of several other connected leading-edge
subcultures, including the pro-technology `Whole Earth' wing of
the ecology movement, space activists, many members of Mensa, and
the Discordian/neo-pagan underground. All these groups overlap
heavily and (where evidence is available) seem to share
characteristic hacker tropisms for science fiction, {{music}}, and
{{oriental food}}. The opposite tendency is `neophobia'.

:nerd: /n./ 1. [mainstream slang] Pejorative applied to anyone
with an above-average IQ and few gifts at small talk and ordinary
social rituals. 2. [jargon] Term of praise applied (in conscious
ironic reference to sense 1) to someone who knows what's really
important and interesting and doesn't care to be distracted by
trivial chatter and silly status games. Compare the two senses of
{computer geek}.

The word itself appears to derive from the lines "And then, just to
show them, I'll sail to Ka-Troo / And Bring Back an It-Kutch, a
Preep
and a Proo, / A Nerkle, a Nerd, and a Seersucker, too!" in the
Dr. Seuss book "If I Ran the Zoo" (1950). (The spellings
`nurd' and `gnurd' also used to be current at MIT.) How it
developed its mainstream meaning is unclear, but sense 1 seems to
have entered mass culture in the early 1970s (there are reports
that in the mid-1960s it meant roughly "annoying misfit"
without the connotation of intelligence).

An IEEE Spectrum article (4/95, page 16) once derived `nerd' in its
variant form `knurd' from the word `drunk' backwards, but this
bears all the earmarks of a bogus folk etymology.

Hackers developed sense 2 in self-defense perhaps ten years later,
and some actually wear "Nerd Pride" buttons, only half as a
joke. At MIT one can find not only buttons but (what else?) pocket
protectors bearing the slogan and the MIT seal.

:net.-: /net dot/ /pref./ [Usenet] Prefix used to describe
people and events related to Usenet. From the time before the
{Great Renaming}, when most non-local newsgroups had names
beginning `net.'. Includes {net.god}s, `net.goddesses'
(various charismatic net.women with circles of on-line admirers),
`net.lurkers' (see {lurker}), `net.person', `net.parties'
(a synonym for {boink}, sense 2), and many similar constructs.
See also {net.police}.

:net.god: /net god/ /n./ Accolade referring to anyone who
satisfies some combination of the following conditions: has been
visible on Usenet for more than 5 years, ran one of the original
backbone sites, moderated an important newsgroup, wrote news
software, or knows Gene, Mark, Rick, Mel, Henry, Chuq, and Greg
personally. See {demigod}. Net.goddesses such as Rissa or the
Slime Sisters have (so far) been distinguished more by personality
than by authority.

:net.personality: /net per`sn-al'-*-tee/ /n./ Someone who has
made a name for him or herself on {Usenet}, through either
longevity or attention-getting posts, but doesn't meet the other
requirements of {net.god}hood.

:net.police: /net-p*-lees'/ /n./ (var. `net.cops') Those
Usenet readers who feel it is their responsibility to pounce on and
{flame} any posting which they regard as offensive or in
violation of their understanding of {netiquette}. Generally
used sarcastically or pejoratively. Also spelled `net police'.
See also {net.-}, {code police}.

:NetBOLLIX: /n./ [from bollix: to bungle] {IBM}'s NetBIOS, an
extremely {brain-damaged} network protocol that, like {Blue
Glue}, is used at commercial shops that don't know any better.

:netburp: /n./ [IRC] When {netlag} gets really bad, and
delays between servers exceed a certain threshhold, the {IRC}
network effectively becomes partitioned for a period of time, and
large numbers of people seem to be signing off at the same time and
then signing back on again when things get better. An instance of
this is called a `netburp' (or, sometimes, {netsplit}).

:netdead: /n./ [IRC] The state of someone who signs off
{IRC}, perhaps during a {netburp}, and doesn't sign back on
until later. In the interim, he is "dead to the net".

:nethack: /net'hak/ /n./ [Unix] A dungeon game similar to
{rogue} but more elaborate, distributed in C source over
{Usenet} and very popular at Unix sites and on PC-class machines
(nethack is probably the most widely distributed of the freeware
dungeon games). The earliest versions, written by Jay Fenlason and
later considerably enhanced by Andries Brouwer, were simply called
`hack'. The name changed when maintenance was taken over by a
group of hackers originally organized by Mike Stephenson; the
current contact address (as of early 1996) is
[email protected].

:netiquette: /net'ee-ket/ or /net'i-ket/ /n./ [portmanteau
from "network etiquette"] The conventions of politeness
recognized on {Usenet}, such as avoidance of cross-posting to
inappropriate groups and refraining from commercial pluggery
outside the biz groups.

:netlag: /n./ [IRC, MUD] A condition that occurs when the
delays in the {IRC} network or on a {MUD} become severe
enough that servers briefly lose and then reestablish contact,
causing messages to be delivered in bursts, often with delays of up
to a minute. (Note that this term has nothing to do with
mainstream "jet lag", a condition which hackers tend not to be
much bothered by.)

:netnews: /net'n[y]ooz/ /n./ 1. The software that makes
{Usenet} run. 2. The content of Usenet. "I read netnews
right after my mail most mornings."

:netrock: /net'rok/ /n./ [IBM] A {flame}; used esp. on
VNET, IBM's internal corporate network.

:netsplit: /n./ Syn. {netburp}.

:netter: /n./ 1. Loosely, anyone with a {network address}.
2. More specifically, a {Usenet} regular. Most often found in
the plural. "If you post *that* in a technical group, you're
going to be flamed by angry netters for the rest of time!"

:network address: /n./ (also `net address') As used by
hackers, means an address on `the' network (see {network,
the}; this used to include {bang path} addresses but now almost
always implies an {{Internet address}}).

Display of a network address is essential if one wants to be to be
taken seriously by hackers; in particular, persons or organizations
that claim to understand, work with, sell to, or recruit from among
hackers but *don't* display net addresses are quietly presumed
to be clueless poseurs and mentally flushed (see {flush}, sense
4). Hackers often put their net addresses on their business cards
and wear them prominently in contexts where they expect to meet
other hackers face-to-face (see also {{science-fiction fandom}}).
This is mostly functional, but is also a signal that one identifies
with hackerdom (like lodge pins among Masons or tie-dyed T-shirts
among Grateful Dead fans). Net addresses are often used in email
text as a more concise substitute for personal names; indeed,
hackers may come to know each other quite well by network names
without ever learning each others' `legal' monikers. See also
{sitename}, {domainist}.

[1996 update: the lodge-pin function of the network address has
been gradually eroding in the last two years as Internet and World
Wide Web usage have become common outside hackerdom. -- ESR]

:network meltdown: /n./ A state of complete network overload;
the network equivalent of {thrash}ing. This may be induced by a
{Chernobyl packet}. See also {broadcast storm}, {kamikaze
packet}.

Network meltdown is often a result of network designs that are
optimized for a steady state of moderate load and don't cope well
with the very jagged, bursty usage patterns of the real world. One
amusing instance of this is triggered by the the popular and very
bloody shoot-'em-up game Doom on the PC. When used in
multiplayer mode over a network, the game uses broadcast packets to
inform other machines when bullets are fired. This causes problems
with weapons like the chain gun which fire rapidly -- it can blast
the network into a meltdown state just as easily as it shreds
opposing monsters.

:network, the: /n./ 1. The union of all the major
noncommercial, academic, and hacker-oriented networks, such as
Internet, the pre-1990 ARPANET, NSFnet, {BITNET}, and the
virtual UUCP and {Usenet} `networks', plus the corporate
in-house networks and commercial time-sharing services (such as
CompuServe, GEnie and AOL) that gateway to them. A site is
generally considered `on the network' if it can be reached
through some combination of Internet-style (@-sign) and UUCP
(bang-path) addresses. See {Internet}, {bang path},
{{Internet address}}, {network address}. Following the
mass-culture discovery of the Internet in 1994 and subsequent
proliferation of cheap TCP/IP connections, "the network" is
increasingly synonymous with the Internet itself (as it was before
the second wave of wide-area computer networking began around
1980).
2. A fictional conspiracy of libertarian hacker-subversives and
anti-authoritarian monkeywrenchers described in Robert Anton
Wilson's novel "Schr"odinger's Cat", to which many hackers
have subsequently decided they belong (this is an example of {ha
ha only serious}).

In sense 1, `network' is often abbreviated to `net'. "Are
you on the net?" is a frequent question when hackers first meet
face to face, and "See you on the net!" is a frequent goodbye.

:New Jersey: /adj./ [primarily Stanford/Silicon Valley]
Brain-damaged or of poor design. This refers to the allegedly
wretched quality of such software as C, C++, and Unix (which
originated at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey). "This
compiler bites the bag, but what can you expect from a compiler
designed in New Jersey?" Compare {Berkeley Quality Software}.
See also {Unix conspiracy}.

:New Testament: /n./ [C programmers] The second edition of
K&R's "The C Programming Language" (Prentice-Hall, 1988; ISBN
0-13-110362-8), describing ANSI Standard C. See {K&R}; this
version is also called `K&R2'.

:newbie: /n[y]oo'bee/ /n./ [orig. from British public-school
and military slang variant of `new boy'] A Usenet neophyte. This
term surfaced in the {newsgroup} talk.bizarre but is now in
wide use. Criteria for being considered a newbie vary wildly; a
person can be called a newbie in one newsgroup while remaining a
respected regular in another. The label `newbie' is sometimes
applied as a serious insult to a person who has been around Usenet
for a long time but who carefully hides all evidence of having a
clue. See {B1FF}.

:newgroup wars: /n[y]oo'groop worz/ /n./ [Usenet] The salvos of
dueling `newgroup' and `rmgroup' messages sometimes
exchanged by persons on opposite sides of a dispute over whether a
{newsgroup} should be created net-wide, or (even more
frequently) whether an obsolete one should be removed. These
usually settle out within a week or two as it becomes clear whether
the group has a natural constituency (usually, it doesn't). At
times, especially in the completely anarchic alt hierarchy, the
names of newsgroups themselves become a form of comment or humor;
e.g., the spinoff of alt.swedish.chef.bork.bork.bork from
alt.tv.muppets in early 1990, or any number of specialized
abuse groups named after particularly notorious {flamer}s, e.g.,
alt.weemba.

:newline: /n[y]oo'li:n/ /n./ 1. [techspeak, primarily Unix]
The ASCII LF character (0001010), used under {{Unix}} as a text
line terminator. A Bell-Labs-ism rather than a Berkeleyism;
interestingly (and unusually for Unix jargon), it is said to have
originally been an IBM usage. (Though the term `newline'
appears in ASCII standards, it never caught on in the general
computing world before Unix). 2. More generally, any magic
character, character sequence, or operation (like Pascal's writeln
procedure) required to terminate a text record or separate lines.
See {crlf}, {terpri}.

:NeWS: /nee'wis/, /n[y]oo'is/ or /n[y]ooz/ /n./ [acronym;
the `Network Window System'] The road not taken in window systems,
an elegant {{PostScript}}-based environment that would almost
certainly have won the standards war with {X} if it hadn't been
{proprietary} to Sun Microsystems. There is a lesson here that
too many software vendors haven't yet heeded. Many hackers insist
on the two-syllable pronunciations above as a way of distinguishing
NeWS from {news} (the {netnews} software).

:news: /n./ See {netnews}.

:newsfroup: // /n./ [Usenet] Silly synonym for {newsgroup},
originally a typo but now in regular use on Usenet's talk.bizarre
and other lunatic-fringe groups. Compare {hing}, {grilf},
and {filk}.

:newsgroup: /n./ [Usenet] One of {Usenet}'s huge collection of
topic groups or {fora}. Usenet groups can be `unmoderated'
(anyone can post) or `moderated' (submissions are automatically
directed to a moderator, who edits or filters and then posts the
results). Some newsgroups have parallel {mailing list}s for
Internet people with no netnews access, with postings to the group
automatically propagated to the list and vice versa. Some
moderated groups (especially those which are actually gatewayed
Internet mailing lists) are distributed as `digests', with groups
of postings periodically collected into a single large posting with
an index.

Among the best-known are comp.lang.c (the C-language forum),
comp.arch (on computer architectures), comp.unix.wizards
(for Unix wizards), rec.arts.sf.written and siblings (for
science-fiction fans), and talk.politics.misc (miscellaneous
political discussions and {flamage}).

:nick: /n./ [IRC] Short for nickname. On {IRC}, every user must
pick a nick, which is sometimes the same as the user's real name or
login name, but is often more fanciful. Compare {handle}.

:nickle: /ni'kl/ /n./ [from `nickel', common name for the
U.S. 5-cent coin] A {nybble} + 1; 5 bits. Reported among
developers for Mattel's GI 1600 (the Intellivision games
processor), a chip with 16-bit-wide RAM but 10-bit-wide ROM. See
also {deckle}, and {nybble} for names of other bit units.

:night mode: /n./ See {phase} (of people).

:Nightmare File System: /n./ Pejorative hackerism for Sun's
Network File System (NFS). In any nontrivial network of Suns
where there is a lot of NFS cross-mounting, when one Sun goes down,
the others often freeze up. Some machine tries to access the down
one, and (getting no response) repeats indefinitely. This causes
it to appear dead to some messages (what is actually happening is
that it is locked up in what should have been a brief excursion to
a higher {spl} level). Then another machine tries to reach
either the down machine or the pseudo-down machine, and itself
becomes pseudo-down. The first machine to discover the down one is
now trying both to access the down one and to respond to the
pseudo-down one, so it is even harder to reach. This situation
snowballs very quickly, and soon the entire network of machines is
frozen -- worst of all, the user can't even abort the file access
that started the problem! Many of NFS's problems are excused by
partisans as being an inevitable result of its statelessness, which
is held to be a great feature (critics, of course, call it a great
{misfeature}). (ITS partisans are apt to cite this as proof of
Unix's alleged bogosity; ITS had a working NFS-like shared file
system with none of these problems in the early 1970s.) See also
{broadcast storm}.

:NIL: /nil/ No. Used in reply to a question, particularly
one asked using the `-P' convention. Most hackers assume this
derives simply from LISP terminology for `false' (see also
{T}), but NIL as a negative reply was well-established among
radio hams decades before the advent of LISP. The historical
connection between early hackerdom and the ham radio world was
strong enough that this may have been an influence.

:Ninety-Ninety Rule: /n./ "The first 90% of the code accounts
for the first 90% of the development time. The remaining 10% of
the code accounts for the other 90% of the development time."
Attributed to Tom Cargill of Bell Labs, and popularized by Jon
Bentley's September 1985 "Bumper-Sticker Computer Science"
column in "Communications of the ACM". It was there called
the "Rule of Credibility", a name which seems not to have stuck.

:NMI: /N-M-I/ /n./ Non-Maskable Interrupt. An IRQ 7 on the
PDP-11 or 680[01234]0; the NMI line on an 80[1234]86. In contrast
with a {priority interrupt} (which might be ignored, although
that is unlikely), an NMI is *never* ignored. Except, that
is, on {clone} boxes, where NMI is often ignored on the
motherboard because flaky hardware can generate many spurious
ones.

:no-op: /noh'op/ /n.,v./ alt. NOP /nop/ [no operation]
1. A machine instruction that does nothing (sometimes used in
assembler-level programming as filler for data or patch areas, or
to overwrite code to be removed in binaries). See also {JFCL}.
2. A person who contributes nothing to a project, or has nothing
going on upstairs, or both. As in "He's a no-op." 3. Any
operation or sequence of operations with no effect, such as
circling the block without finding a parking space, or putting
money into a vending machine and having it fall immediately into
the coin-return box, or asking someone for help and being told to
go away. "Oh, well, that was a no-op." Hot-and-sour soup (see
{great-wall}) that is insufficiently either is `no-op soup';
so is wonton soup if everybody else is having hot-and-sour.

:noddy: /nod'ee/ /adj./ [UK: from the children's books]
1. Small and un-useful, but demonstrating a point. Noddy programs
are often written by people learning a new language or system. The
archetypal noddy program is {hello, world}. Noddy code may be
used to demonstrate a feature or bug of a compiler. May be used of
real hardware or software to imply that it isn't worth using.
"This editor's a bit noddy." 2. A program that is more or less
instant to produce. In this use, the term does not necessarily
connote uselessness, but describes a {hack} sufficiently trivial
that it can be written and debugged while carrying on (and during
the space of) a normal conversation. "I'll just throw together a
noddy {awk} script to dump all the first fields." In North
America this might be called a {mickey mouse program}. See
{toy program}.

:node: /n./ 1. [Internet, UUCP] A host machine on the network.
2. [MS-DOS BBSes] A dial-in line on a BBS. Thus an MS-DOS {sysop}
might say that his BBS has 4 nodes even though it has a single
machine and no Internet link, confusing an Internet hacker no end.

:NOMEX underwear: /noh'meks uhn'-der-weir/ /n./ [Usenet] Syn.
{asbestos longjohns}, used mostly in auto-related mailing lists
and newsgroups. NOMEX underwear is an actual product available on
the racing equipment market, used as a fire resistance measure and
required in some racing series.

:Nominal Semidestructor: /n./ Soundalike slang for `National
Semiconductor', found among other places in the Networking/2
networking sources. During the late 1970s to mid-1980s this
company marketed a series of microprocessors including the NS16000
and NS32000 and several variants. At one point early in the great
microprocessor race, the specs on these chips made them look like
serious competition for the rising Intel 80x86 and Motorola 680x0
series. Unfortunately, the actual parts were notoriously flaky and
never implemented the full instruction set promised in their
literature, apparently because the company couldn't get any of the
mask steppings to work as designed. They eventually sank without
trace, joining the Zilog Z8000 and a few even more obscure
also-rans in the graveyard of forgotten microprocessors. Compare
{HP-SUX}, {AIDX}, {buglix}, {Macintrash}, {Telerat},
{Open DeathTrap}, {ScumOS}, {sun-stools}.

:non-optimal solution: /n./ (also `sub-optimal solution') An
astoundingly stupid way to do something. This term is generally
used in deadpan sarcasm, as its impact is greatest when the person
speaking looks completely serious. Compare {stunning}. See
also {Bad Thing}.

:nonlinear: /adj./ [scientific computation] 1. Behaving in an
erratic and unpredictable fashion; unstable. When used to describe
the behavior of a machine or program, it suggests that said machine
or program is being forced to run far outside of design
specifications. This behavior may be induced by unreasonable
inputs, or may be triggered when a more mundane bug sends the
computation far off from its expected course. 2. When describing
the behavior of a person, suggests a tantrum or a {flame}.
"When you talk to Bob, don't mention the drug problem or he'll go
nonlinear for hours." In this context, `go nonlinear' connotes
`blow up out of proportion' (proportion connotes linearity).

:nontrivial: /adj./ Requiring real thought or significant
computing power. Often used as an understated way of saying that a
problem is quite difficult or impractical, or even entirely
unsolvable ("Proving P=NP is nontrivial"). The preferred
emphatic form is `decidedly nontrivial'. See {trivial},
{uninteresting}, {interesting}.

:not ready for prime time: /adj./ Usable, but only just so; not
very robust; for internal use only. Said of a program or device.
Often connotes that the thing will be made more solid {Real Soon
Now}. This term comes from the ensemble name of the original cast
of "Saturday Night Live", the "Not Ready for Prime Time
Players". It has extra flavor for hackers because of the special
(though now semi-obsolescent) meaning of {prime time}. Compare
{beta}.

:notwork: /not'werk/ /n./ A network, when it is acting
{flaky} or is {down}. Compare {nyetwork}. Said at IBM to
have originally referred to a particular period of flakiness on
IBM's VNET corporate network ca. 1988; but there are independent
reports of the term from elsewhere.

:NP-: /N-P/ /pref./ Extremely. Used to modify adjectives
describing a level or quality of difficulty; the connotation is
often `more so than it should be' This is generalized from the
computer-science terms `NP-hard' and `NP-complete';
NP-complete problems all seem to be very hard, but so far no one
has found a good a priori reason that they should be. NP is
the set of Nondeterministic-Polynomial algorithms, those that can
be completed by a nondeterministic Turing machine in an amount of
time that is a polynomial function of the size of the input; a
solution for one NP-complete problem would solve all the others.
"Coding a BitBlt implementation to perform correctly in every case
is NP-annoying."

:nroff:: /N'rof/ /n./ [Unix, from "new roff" (see
{{troff}})] A companion program to the Unix typesetter {{troff}},
accepting identical input but preparing output for terminals and
line printers.

:NSA line eater: /n./ The National Security Agency trawling
program sometimes assumed to be reading the net for the
U.S. Government's spooks. Most hackers describe it as a mythical
beast, but some believe it actually exists, more aren't sure, and
many believe in acting as though it exists just in case. Some
netters put loaded phrases like `KGB', `Uzi', `nuclear
materials', `Palestine', `cocaine', and `assassination' in
their {sig block}s in a (probably futile) attempt to confuse and
overload the creature. The {GNU} version of {EMACS} actually
has a command that randomly inserts a bunch of insidious
anarcho-verbiage into your edited text.

There is a mainstream variant of this myth involving a `Trunk Line
Monitor', which supposedly used speech recognition to extract words
from telephone trunks. This one was making the rounds in the
late 1970s, spread by people who had no idea of then-current
technology or the storage, signal-processing, or speech recognition
needs of such a project. On the basis of mass-storage costs alone
it would have been cheaper to hire 50 high-school students and just
let them listen in. Speech-recognition technology can't do this
job even now (1996), and almost certainly won't in this millennium,
either. The peak of silliness came with a letter to an alternative
paper in New Haven, Connecticut, laying out the factoids of this
Big Brotherly affair. The letter writer then revealed his actual
agenda by offering -- at an amazing low price, just this once, we
take VISA and MasterCard -- a scrambler guaranteed to daunt the
Trunk Trawler and presumably allowing the would-be Baader-Meinhof
gangs of the world to get on with their business.

:NSP: /N-S-P/ /n./ Common abbreviation for `Network Service
Provider', one of the big national or regional companies that
maintains a portion of the Internet backbone and resells
connectivity to {ISP}s. In 1996, major NSPs include ANS, MCI,
UUNET, and Sprint. An Internet wholesaler.

:nude: /adj./ Said of machines delivered without an operating
system (compare {bare metal}). "We ordered 50 systems, but
they all arrived nude, so we had to spend a an extra weekend with
the installation tapes." This usage is a recent innovation
reflecting the fact that most PC clones are now delivered with DOS
or Microsoft Windows pre-installed at the factory. Other kinds of
hardware are still normally delivered without OS, so this term is
particular to PC support groups.

:nuke: /n[y]ook/ /vt./ 1. To intentionally delete the entire
contents of a given directory or storage volume. "On Unix,
`rm -r /usr' will nuke everything in the usr filesystem."
Never used for accidental deletion. Oppose {blow away}.
2. Syn. for {dike}, applied to smaller things such as files,
features, or code sections. Often used to express a final verdict.
"What do you want me to do with that 80-meg {wallpaper} file?"
"Nuke it." 3. Used of processes as well as files; nuke is a
frequent verbal alias for `kill -9' on Unix. 4. On IBM PCs,
a bug that results in {fandango on core} can trash the operating
system, including the FAT (the in-core copy of the disk block
chaining information). This can utterly scramble attached disks,
which are then said to have been `nuked'. This term is also used
of analogous lossages on Macintoshes and other micros without
memory protection.

:number-crunching: /n./ Computations of a numerical nature,
esp. those that make extensive use of floating-point numbers.
The only thing {Fortrash} is good for. This term is in
widespread informal use outside hackerdom and even in mainstream
slang, but has additional hackish connotations: namely, that the
computations are mindless and involve massive use of {brute
force}. This is not always {evil}, esp. if it involves ray
tracing or fractals or some other use that makes {pretty
pictures}, esp. if such pictures can be used as {wallpaper}.
See also {crunch}.

:numbers: /n./ [scientific computation] Output of a computation
that may not be significant results but at least indicate that the
program is running. May be used to placate management, grant
sponsors, etc. `Making numbers' means running a program because
output -- any output, not necessarily meaningful output -- is
needed as a demonstration of progress. See {pretty pictures},
{math-out}, {social science number}.

:NUXI problem: /nuk'see pro'bl*m/ /n./ Refers to the problem
of transferring data between machines with differing byte-order.
The string `UNIX' might look like `NUXI' on a machine with a
different `byte sex' (e.g., when transferring data from a
{little-endian} to a {big-endian}, or vice-versa). See also
{middle-endian}, {swab}, and {bytesexual}.

:nybble: /nib'l/ (alt. `nibble') /n./ [from
/v./ `nibble' by analogy with `bite' => `byte'] Four
bits; one {hex} digit; a half-byte. Though `byte' is now
techspeak, this useful relative is still jargon. Compare
{{byte}}; see also {bit}, Apparently the `nybble' spelling is
uncommon in Commonwealth Hackish, as British orthography suggests
the pronunciation /ni:'bl/.

Following `bit', `byte' and `nybble' there have been quite a few
analogical attempts to construct unambiguous terms for bit blocks
of other sizes. All of these are strictly jargon, not techspeak,
and not very common jargon at that (most hackers would recognize
them in context but not use them spontaneously). We collect them
here for reference together with the ambiguous techspeak terms
`word', `half-word' and `quadwords'; some (indicated) have
substantial information separate entries.
2 bits:
{crumb}, {quad}, {quarter}, tayste
4 bits:
nybble
5 bits:
{nickle}
10 bits:
{deckle}
16 bits:
playte, {chawmp} (on a 32-bit machine), word (on a 16-bit
machine), half-word (on a 32-bit machine).
18 bits:
{chawmp} (on a 36-bit machine), half-word (on a 36-bit machine)
32 bits:
dynner, {gawble} (on a 32-bit machine), word (on a 32-bit
machine), longword (on a 16-bit machine).
36:
word (on a 36-bit machine)
48 bits:
{gawble} (under circumstances that remain obscure)

The fundamental motivation for most of these jargon terms (aside
from the normal hackerly enjoyment of punning wordplay) is the
extreme ambiguity of the term `word' and its derivatives.

:nyetwork: /nyet'werk/ /n./ [from Russian `nyet' = no] A
network, when it is acting {flaky} or is {down}. Compare
{notwork}.

= O = =====

:Ob-: /ob/ /pref./ Obligatory. A piece of {netiquette}
acknowledging that the author has been straying from the
newsgroup's charter topic. For example, if a posting in alt.sex is
a response to a part of someone else's posting that has nothing
particularly to do with sex, the author may append `ObSex' (or
`Obsex') and toss off a question or vignette about some unusual
erotic act. It is considered a sign of great {winnitude} when
one's Obs are more interesting than other people's whole postings.

:Obfuscated C Contest: /n./ (in full, the `International
Obfuscated C Code Contest', or IOCCC) An annual contest run since
1984 over Usenet by Landon Curt Noll and friends. The overall
winner is whoever produces the most unreadable, creative, and
bizarre (but working) C program; various other prizes are awarded
at the judges' whim. C's terse syntax and macro-preprocessor
facilities give contestants a lot of maneuvering room. The winning
programs often manage to be simultaneously (a) funny, (b)
breathtaking works of art, and (c) horrible examples of how
*not* to code in C.

This relatively short and sweet entry might help convey the flavor
of obfuscated C:

/*
* HELLO WORLD program
* by Jack Applin and Robert Heckendorn, 1985
*/
main(v,c)char**c;{for(v[c++]="Hello, world!\n)";
(!!c)[*c]&&(v--||--c&&execlp(*c,*c,c[!!c]+!!c,!c));
**c=!c)write(!!*c,*c,!!**c);}

Here's another good one:

/*
* Program to compute an approximation of pi
* by Brian Westley, 1988
*/

#define _ -F<00||--F-OO--;
int F=00,OO=00;
main(){F_OO();printf("%1.3f\n",4.*-F/OO/OO);}F_OO()
{
_-_-_-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_
_-_-_-_
}
Note that this program works by computing its own area. For more
digits, write a bigger program. See also {hello, world}.

The IOCC has an official home page at
http://reality.sgi.com/csp/ioccc.

:obi-wan error: /oh'bee-won` er'*r/ /n./ [RPI, from
`off-by-one' and the Obi-Wan Kenobi character in "Star
Wars"] A loop of some sort in which the index is off by 1. Common
when the index should have started from 0 but instead started from
1. A kind of {off-by-one error}. See also {zeroth}.

:Objectionable-C: /n./ Hackish take on "Objective-C", the
name of an object-oriented dialect of C in competition with the
better-known C++ (it is used to write native applications on the
NeXT machine). Objectionable-C uses a Smalltalk-like syntax, but
lacks the flexibility of Smalltalk method calls, and (like many
such efforts) comes frustratingly close to attaining the {Right
Thing} without actually doing so.

:obscure: /adj./ Used in an exaggeration of its normal meaning,
to imply total incomprehensibility. "The reason for that last
crash is obscure." "The `find(1)' command's syntax is
obscure!" The phrase `moderately obscure' implies that
something could be figured out but probably isn't worth the
trouble. The construction `obscure in the extreme' is the
preferred emphatic form.

:octal forty: /ok'tl for'tee/ /n./ Hackish way of saying
"I'm drawing a blank." Octal 40 is the {{ASCII}} space
character, 0100000; by an odd coincidence, {hex} 40 (01000000)
is the {{EBCDIC}} space character. See {wall}.

:off the trolley: /adj./ Describes the behavior of a program
that malfunctions and goes catatonic, but doesn't actually
{crash} or abort. See {glitch}, {bug}, {deep space}.

:off-by-one error: /n./ Exceedingly common error induced in
many ways, such as by starting at 0 when you should have started at
1 or vice-versa, or by writing `< N' instead of `<= N' or
vice-versa. Also applied to giving something to the person next to
the one who should have gotten it. Often confounded with
{fencepost error}, which is properly a particular subtype of it.

:offline: /adv./ Not now or not here. "Let's take this
discussion offline." Specifically used on {Usenet} to suggest
that a discussion be moved off a public newsgroup to email.