Chapter V: Rare: book (1)

[ ]
Common: l/r square bracket; l/r bracket; <opening/closing
bracket>; bracket/unbracket. Rare: square/unsquare; [U turn/U
turn back].

\
Common: backslash; escape (from C/UNIX); reverse slash; slosh;
backslant; backwhack. Rare: bash; <reverse slant>; reversed
virgule; [backslat].

^
Common: hat; control; uparrow; caret; <circumflex>. Rare:
chevron; [shark (or shark-fin)]; to the (`to the power of');
fang; pointer (in Pascal).

_
Common: <underline>; underscore; underbar; under. Rare: score;
backarrow; skid; [flatworm].

`
Common: backquote; left quote; left single quote; open quote;
<grave accent>; grave. Rare: backprime; [backspark];
unapostrophe; birk; blugle; back tick; back glitch; push;
<opening single quotation mark>; quasiquote.

{ }
Common: o/c brace; l/r brace; l/r squiggly; l/r squiggly
bracket/brace; l/r curly bracket/brace; <opening/closing brace>.
Rare: brace/unbrace; curly/uncurly; leftit/rytit; l/r squirrelly;
[embrace/bracelet].

|
Common: bar; or; or-bar; v-bar; pipe; vertical bar. Rare:
<vertical line>; gozinta; thru; pipesinta (last three from UNIX);
[spike].

~
Common: <tilde>; squiggle; {twiddle}; not. Rare: approx; wiggle;
swung dash; enyay; [sqiggle (sic)].

The pronunciation of `#' as `pound' is common in the U.S.
but a bad idea; {{Commonwealth Hackish}} has its own, rather more
apposite use of `pound sign' (confusingly, on British keyboards
the pound graphic
happens to replace `#'; thus Britishers sometimes
call `#' on a U.S.-ASCII keyboard `pound', compounding the
American error). The U.S. usage derives from an old-fashioned
commercial practice of using a `#' suffix to tag pound weights
on bills of lading. The character is usually pronounced `hash'
outside the U.S. There are more culture wars over the correct
pronunciation of this character than any other, which has led to
the {ha ha only serious} suggestion that it be pronounced
`shibboleth' (see Judges 12.6 in a Christian Bible).

The `uparrow' name for circumflex and `leftarrow' name for
underline are historical relics from archaic ASCII (the 1963
version), which had these graphics in those character positions
rather than the modern punctuation characters.

The `swung dash' or `approximation' sign is not quite the same
as tilde in typeset material
but the ASCII tilde serves for both (compare {angle
brackets}).

Some other common usages cause odd overlaps. The `#',
`$', `>', and `&' characters, for example, are all
pronounced "hex" in different communities because various
assemblers use them as a prefix tag for hexadecimal constants (in
particular, `#' in many assembler-programming cultures,
`$' in the 6502 world, `>' at Texas Instruments, and
`&' on the BBC Micro, Sinclair, and some Z80 machines). See
also {splat}.

The inability of ASCII text to correctly represent any of the
world's other major languages makes the designers' choice of 7 bits
look more and more like a serious {misfeature} as the use of
international networks continues to increase (see {software
rot}). Hardware and software from the U.S. still tends to embody
the assumption that ASCII is the universal character set and that
characters have 7 bits; this is a a major irritant to people who
want to use a character set suited to their own languages.
Perversely, though, efforts to solve this problem by proliferating
`national' character sets produce an evolutionary pressure to use
a *smaller* subset common to all those in use.

:ASCII art: /n./ The fine art of drawing diagrams using the
ASCII character set (mainly `|', `-', `/', `\',
and `+'). Also known as `character graphics' or `ASCII
graphics'; see also {boxology}. Here is a serious
example:

o----)||(--+--|<----+ +---------o + D O
L )||( | | | C U
A I )||( +-->|-+ | +-\/\/-+--o - T
C N )||( | | | | P
E )||( +-->|-+--)---+--)|--+-o U
)||( | | | GND T
o----)||(--+--|<----+----------+

A power supply consisting of a full wave rectifier circuit
feeding a capacitor input filter circuit

And here are some very silly examples:

|\/\/\/| ____/| ___ |\_/| ___
| | \ o.O| ACK! / \_ |` '| _/ \
| | =(_)= THPHTH! / \/ \/ \
| (o)(o) U / \
C _) (__) \/\/\/\ _____ /\/\/\/
| ,___| (oo) \/ \/
| / \/-------\ U (__)
/____\ || | \ /---V `v'- oo )
/ \ ||---W|| * * |--| || |`. |_/\

//-o-\\
____---=======---____
====___\ /.. ..\ /___==== Klingons rule OK!
// ---\__O__/--- \\
\_\ /_/

There is an important subgenre of ASCII art that puns on the
standard character names in the fashion of a rebus.

+--------------------------------------------------------+
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| ^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^ |
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
| ^^^^^^^ B ^^^^^^^^^ |
| ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ |
+--------------------------------------------------------+
" A Bee in the Carrot Patch "

Within humorous ASCII art, there is for some reason an entire
flourishing subgenre of pictures of silly cows. Four of these are
reproduced in the silly examples above, here are three more:

(__) (__) (__)
(\/) ($$) (**)
/-------\/ /-------\/ /-------\/
/ | 666 || / |=====|| / | ||
* ||----|| * ||----|| * ||----||
~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~
Satanic cow This cow is a Yuppie Cow in love

Finally, here's a magnificent example of ASCII art depicting an Edwardian train station in Dunedin, New Zealand:

.-.
/___\
|___|
|]_[|
/ I \
JL/ | \JL
.-. i () | () i .-.
|_| .^. /_\ LJ=======LJ /_\ .^. |_|
._/___\._./___\_._._._._.L_J_/.-. .-.\_L_J._._._._._/___\._./___\._._._
., |-,-| ., L_J |_| [I] |_| L_J ., |-,-| ., .,
JL |-O-| JL L_J%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%L_J JL |-O-| JL JL
IIIIII_HH_'-'-'_HH_IIIIII|_|=======H=======|_|IIIIII_HH_'-'-'_HH_IIIIII_HH_
-------[]-------[]-------[_]----\.=I=./----[_]-------[]-------[]--------[]-
_/\_ ||\\_I_//|| _/\_ [_] []_/_L_J_\_[] [_] _/\_ ||\\_I_//|| _/\_ ||\
|__| ||=/_|_\=|| |__|_|_| _L_L_J_J_ |_|_|__| ||=/_|_\=|| |__| ||-
|__| |||__|__||| |__[___]__--__===__--__[___]__| |||__|__||| |__| |||
IIIIIII[_]IIIII[_]IIIIIL___J__II__|_|__II__L___JIIIII[_]IIIII[_]IIIIIIII[_]
\_I_/ [_]\_I_/[_] \_I_[_]\II/[]\_\I/_/[]\II/[_]\_I_/ [_]\_I_/[_] \_I_/ [_]
./ \.L_J/ \L_J./ L_JI I[]/ \[]I IL_J \.L_J/ \L_J./ \.L_J
| |L_J| |L_J| L_J| |[]| |[]| |L_J |L_J| |L_J| |L_J
|_____JL_JL___JL_JL____|-|| |[]| |[]| ||-|_____JL_JL___JL_JL_____JL_J

There is a newsgroup, alt.ascii.art, devoted to this
genre; however, see also {warlording}.

:ASCIIbetical order: /as'kee-be'-t*-kl or'dr/ /adj.,n./ Used
to indicate that data is sorted in ASCII collated order rather than
alphabetical order. This lexicon is sorted in something close to
ASCIIbetical order, but with case ignored and entries beginning
with non-alphabetic characters moved to the end.

:atomic: /adj./ [from Gk. `atomos', indivisible]
1. Indivisible; cannot be split up. For example, an instruction
may be said to do several things `atomically', i.e., all the
things are done immediately, and there is no chance of the
instruction being half-completed or of another being interspersed.
Used esp. to convey that an operation cannot be screwed up by
interrupts. "This routine locks the file and increments the
file's semaphore atomically." 2. [primarily techspeak] Guaranteed
to complete successfully or not at all, usu. refers to database
transactions. If an error prevents a partially-performed
transaction from proceeding to completion, it must be "backed out,"
as the database must not be left in an inconsistent state.

Computer usage, in either of the above senses, has none of the
connotations that `atomic' has in mainstream English (i.e. of
particles of matter, nuclear explosions etc.).

:attoparsec: /n./ About an inch. `atto-' is the standard SI
prefix for multiplication by 10^(-18). A parsec
(parallax-second) is 3.26 light-years; an attoparsec is thus
3.26 * 10^(-18) light years, or about 3.1 cm (thus, 1
attoparsec/{microfortnight} equals about 1 inch/sec). This unit
is reported to be in use (though probably not very seriously) among
hackers in the U.K. See {micro-}.

:autobogotiphobia: /aw'toh-boh-got`*-foh'bee-*/ /n./ See
{bogotify}.

:automagically: /aw-toh-maj'i-klee/ /adv./ Automatically, but
in a way that, for some reason (typically because it is too
complicated, or too ugly, or perhaps even too trivial), the speaker
doesn't feel like explaining to you. See {magic}. "The
C-INTERCAL compiler generates C, then automagically invokes
`cc(1)' to produce an executable."

This term is quite old, going back at least to the mid-70s and
probably much earlier. The word `automagic' occurred in
advertising
(for a shirt-ironing gadget) as far back as the late 1940s.

:avatar: /n./ Syn. 1. Among people working on virtual reality
and {cyberspace} interfaces, an "avatar" is an icon or
representation of a user in a shared virtual reality. The term is
sometimes used on {MUD}s. 2. [CMU, Tektronix] {root},
{superuser}. There are quite a few Unix machines on which the
name of the superuser account is `avatar' rather than `root'.
This quirk was originated by a CMU hacker who disliked the term
`superuser', and was propagated through an ex-CMU hacker at
Tektronix.

:awk: /awk/ 1. /n./ [Unix techspeak] An interpreted language
for massaging text data developed by Alfred Aho, Peter Weinberger,
and Brian Kernighan (the name derives from their initials). It is
characterized by C-like syntax, a declaration-free approach to
variable typing and declarations, associative arrays, and
field-oriented text processing. See also {Perl}. 2. n.
Editing term for an expression awkward to manipulate through normal
{regexp} facilities (for example, one containing a
{newline}). 3. /vt./ To process data using `awk(1)'.

= B = =====

:back door: /n./ A hole in the security of a system
deliberately left in place by designers or maintainers. The
motivation for such holes is not always sinister; some operating
systems, for example, come out of the box with privileged accounts
intended for use by field service technicians or the vendor's
maintenance programmers. Syn. {trap door}; may also be called a
`wormhole'. See also {iron box}, {cracker}, {worm},
{logic bomb}.

Historically, back doors have often lurked in systems longer than
anyone expected or planned, and a few have become widely known.
Ken Thompson's 1983 Turing Award lecture to the ACM admitted the
existence of a back door in early Unix versions that may have
qualified as the most fiendishly clever security hack of all time.
In this scheme, the C compiler contained code that would recognize
when the `login' command was being recompiled and insert some
code recognizing a password chosen by Thompson, giving him entry to
the system whether or not an account had been created for him.

Normally such a back door could be removed by removing it from the
source code for the compiler and recompiling the compiler. But to
recompile the compiler, you have to *use* the compiler -- so
Thompson also arranged that the compiler would *recognize when
it was compiling a version of itself*, and insert into the
recompiled compiler the code to insert into the recompiled
`login' the code to allow Thompson entry -- and, of course, the
code to recognize itself and do the whole thing again the next time
around! And having done this once, he was then able to recompile
the compiler from the original sources; the hack perpetuated itself
invisibly, leaving the back door in place and active but with no
trace in the sources.

The talk that suggested this truly moby hack was published as
"Reflections on Trusting Trust", "Communications of the ACM
27", 8 (August 1984), pp. 761--763 (text available at
http://www.acm.org/classics). Ken Thompson has since
confirmed that this hack was implemented and that the Trojan Horse
code did appear in the login binary of a Unix Support group
machine. Ken says the crocked compiler was never distributed.
Your editor has heard two separate reports that suggest that the
crocked login did make it out of Bell Labs, notably to BBN, and
that it enabled at least one late-night login across the network by
someone using the login name `kt'.

:backbone cabal: /n./ A group of large-site administrators who
pushed through the {Great Renaming} and reined in the chaos of
{Usenet} during most of the 1980s. The cabal {mailing list}
disbanded in late 1988 after a bitter internal catfight.

:backbone site: /n./ A key Usenet and email site; one that
processes a large amount of third-party traffic, especially if it
is the home site of any of the regional coordinators for the Usenet
maps. Notable backbone sites as of early 1993, when this sense of
the term was beginning to pass out of general use due to wide
availability of cheap Internet connections, included uunet and
the mail machines at Rutgers University, UC Berkeley, {DEC}'s
Western Research Laboratories, Ohio State University, and the
University of Texas. Compare {rib site}, {leaf site}.

[1996 update: This term is seldom heard any more. The UUCP network
world that gave it meaning has nearly disappeared; everyone is on
the Internet now and network traffic is distributed in very
different patterns. --ESR]

:backgammon:: See {bignum} (sense 3), {moby} (sense 4),
and {pseudoprime}.

:background: /n.,adj.,vt./ To do a task `in background' is to
do it whenever {foreground} matters are not claiming your
undivided attention, and `to background' something means to
relegate it to a lower priority. "For now, we'll just print a
list of nodes and links; I'm working on the graph-printing problem
in background." Note that this implies ongoing activity but at a
reduced level or in spare time, in contrast to mainstream `back
burner' (which connotes benign neglect until some future resumption
of activity). Some people prefer to use the term for processing
that they have queued up for their unconscious minds (a tack that
one can often fruitfully take upon encountering an obstacle in
creative work). Compare {amp off}, {slopsucker}.

Technically, a task running in background is detached from the
terminal where it was started (and often running at a lower
priority); oppose {foreground}. Nowadays this term is primarily
associated with {{Unix}}, but it appears to have been first used
in this sense on OS/360.

:backspace and overstrike: /interj./ Whoa! Back up. Used to
suggest that someone just said or did something wrong. Common
among APL programmers.

:backward combatability: /bak'w*rd k*m-bat'*-bil'*-tee/ /n./
[CMU, Tektronix: from `backward compatibility'] A property of
hardware or software revisions in which previous protocols,
formats, layouts, etc. are irrevocably discarded in favor of `new
and improved' protocols, formats, and layouts, leaving the previous
ones not merely deprecated but actively defeated. (Too often, the
old and new versions cannot definitively be distinguished, such
that lingering instances of the previous ones yield crashes or
other infelicitous effects, as opposed to a simple "version
mismatch" message.) A backwards compatible change, on the other
hand, allows old versions to coexist without crashes or error
messages, but too many major changes incorporating elaborate
backwards compatibility processing can lead to extreme {software
bloat}. See also {flag day}.

:BAD: /B-A-D/ /adj./ [IBM: acronym, `Broken As Designed']
Said of a program that is {bogus} because of bad design and
misfeatures rather than because of bugginess. See {working as
designed}.

:Bad Thing: /n./ [from the 1930 Sellar & Yeatman parody "1066
And All That"] Something that can't possibly result in
improvement of the subject. This term is always capitalized, as in
"Replacing all of the 9600-baud modems with bicycle couriers would
be a Bad Thing". Oppose {Good Thing}. British correspondents
confirm that {Bad Thing} and {Good Thing} (and prob.
therefore {Right Thing} and {Wrong Thing}) come from the book
referenced in the etymology, which discusses rulers who were Good
Kings but Bad Things. This has apparently created a mainstream
idiom on the British side of the pond.

:bag on the side: /n./ [prob. originally related to a
colostomy bag] An extension to an established hack that
is supposed to add some functionality to the original. Usually
derogatory, implying that the original was being overextended and
should have been thrown away, and the new product is ugly,
inelegant, or bloated. Also /v./ phrase, `to hang a bag on the
side
[of]'. "C++? That's just a bag on the side of C ...."
"They want me to hang a bag on the side of the accounting
system."

:bagbiter: /bag'bi:t-*r/ /n./ 1. Something, such as a program
or a computer, that fails to work, or works in a remarkably clumsy
manner. "This text editor won't let me make a file with a line
longer than 80 characters! What a bagbiter!" 2. A person who has
caused you some trouble, inadvertently or otherwise, typically by
failing to program the computer properly. Synonyms: {loser},
{cretin}, {chomper}. 3. `bite the bag' /vi./ To fail in some
manner. "The computer keeps crashing every five minutes."
"Yes, the disk controller is really biting the bag." The
original loading of these terms was almost undoubtedly obscene,
possibly referring to the scrotum, but in their current usage they
have become almost completely sanitized.

ITS's `lexiphage' program was the first and to date only known
example of a program *intended* to be a bagbiter.

:bagbiting: /adj./ Having the quality of a {bagbiter}.
"This bagbiting system won't let me compute the factorial of a
negative number." Compare {losing}, {cretinous},
{bletcherous}, `barfucious' (under {barfulous}) and
`chomping' (under {chomp}).

:balloonian variable: /n./ [Commodore users; perh. a deliberate
phonetic mangling of `boolean variable'?] Any variable that
doesn't actually hold or control state, but must nevertheless be
declared, checked, or set. A typical balloonian variable started
out as a flag attached to some environment feature that either
became obsolete or was planned but never implemented.
Compatibility concerns (or politics attached to same) may require
that such a flag be treated as though it were {live}.

:bamf: /bamf/ 1. [from X-Men comics; originally "bampf"]
/interj./ Notional sound made by a person or object teleporting in
or
out of the hearer's vicinity. Often used in {virtual reality}
(esp. {MUD}) electronic {fora} when a character wishes to
make a dramatic entrance or exit. 2. The sound of magical
transformation, used in virtual reality {fora} like MUDs. 3. In
MUD circles, "bamf" is also used to refer to the act by which a
MUD server sends a special notification to the MUD client to switch
its connection to another server ("I'll set up the old site to
just bamf people over to our new location."). 4. Used by MUDders
on occasion in a more general sense related to sense 3, to refer to
directing someone to another location or resource ("A user was
asking about some technobabble so I bamfed them to
http://www.ccil.org/jargon/jargon.html.")

:banana label: /n./ The labels often used on the sides of
{macrotape} reels, so called because they are shaped roughly
like blunt-ended bananas. This term, like macrotapes themselves,
is still current but visibly headed for obsolescence.

:banana problem: /n./ [from the story of the little girl who
said "I know how to spell `banana', but I don't know when to
stop"]. Not knowing where or when to bring a production to a
close (compare {fencepost error}). One may say `there is a
banana problem' of an algorithm with poorly defined or incorrect
termination conditions, or in discussing the evolution of a design
that may be succumbing to featuritis (see also {creeping
elegance}, {creeping featuritis}). See item 176 under
{HAKMEM}, which describes a banana problem in a {Dissociated
Press} implementation. Also, see {one-banana problem} for a
superficially similar but unrelated usage.

:bandwidth: /n./ 1. Used by hackers (in a generalization of its
technical meaning) as the volume of information per unit time that
a computer, person, or transmission medium can handle. "Those are
amazing graphics, but I missed some of the detail -- not enough
bandwidth, I guess." Compare {low-bandwidth}. 2. Attention
span. 3. On {Usenet}, a measure of network capacity that is
often wasted by people complaining about how items posted by others
are a waste of bandwidth.

:bang: 1. /n./ Common spoken name for `!' (ASCII 0100001),
especially when used in pronouncing a {bang path} in spoken
hackish. In {elder days} this was considered a CMUish usage,
with MIT and Stanford hackers preferring {excl} or {shriek};
but the spread of Unix has carried `bang' with it (esp. via the
term {bang path}) and it is now certainly the most common spoken
name for `!'. Note that it is used exclusively for
non-emphatic written `!'; one would not say "Congratulations
bang" (except possibly for humorous purposes), but if one wanted
to specify the exact characters `foo!' one would speak "Eff oh oh
bang". See {shriek}, {{ASCII}}. 2. /interj./ An exclamation
signifying roughly "I have achieved enlightenment!", or "The
dynamite has cleared out my brain!" Often used to acknowledge
that one has perpetrated a {thinko} immediately after one has
been called on it.

:bang on: /vt./ To stress-test a piece of hardware or software:
"I banged on the new version of the simulator all day yesterday
and it didn't crash once. I guess it is ready for release." The
term {pound on} is synonymous.

:bang path: /n./ An old-style UUCP electronic-mail address
specifying hops to get from some assumed-reachable location to the
addressee, so called because each {hop} is signified by a
{bang} sign. Thus, for example, the path
...!bigsite!foovax!barbox!me directs people to route their mail
to machine bigsite (presumably a well-known location accessible
to everybody) and from there through the machine foovax to the
account of user me on barbox.

In the bad old days of not so long ago, before autorouting mailers
became commonplace, people often published compound bang addresses
using the { } convention (see {glob}) to give paths from
*several* big machines, in the hopes that one's correspondent
might be able to get mail to one of them reliably (example:
...!{seismo, ut-sally, ihnp4}!rice!beta!gamma!me). Bang paths
of 8 to 10 hops were not uncommon in 1981. Late-night dial-up
UUCP links would cause week-long transmission times. Bang paths
were often selected by both transmission time and reliability, as
messages would often get lost. See {{Internet address}},
{network, the}, and {sitename}.

:banner: /n./ 1. The title page added to printouts by most
print spoolers (see {spool}). Typically includes user or
account ID information in very large character-graphics capitals.
Also called a `burst page', because it indicates where to burst
(tear apart) fanfold paper to separate one user's printout from the
next. 2. A similar printout generated (typically on multiple pages
of fan-fold paper) from user-specified text, e.g., by a program
such as Unix's `banner({1,6})'. 3. On interactive software,
a first screen containing a logo and/or author credits and/or a
copyright notice.

:bar: /bar/ /n./ 1. The second {metasyntactic variable},
after {foo} and before {baz}. "Suppose we have two
functions: FOO and BAR. FOO calls BAR...." 2. Often
appended to {foo} to produce {foobar}.

:bare metal: /n./ 1. New computer hardware, unadorned with such
snares and delusions as an {operating system}, an {HLL}, or
even assembler. Commonly used in the phrase `programming on the
bare metal', which refers to the arduous work of {bit bashing}
needed to create these basic tools for a new machine. Real
bare-metal programming involves things like building boot proms and
BIOS chips, implementing basic monitors used to test device
drivers, and writing the assemblers that will be used to write the
compiler back ends that will give the new machine a real
development environment. 2. `Programming on the bare metal' is
also used to describe a style of {hand-hacking} that relies on
bit-level peculiarities of a particular hardware design, esp.
tricks for speed and space optimization that rely on crocks such as
overlapping instructions (or, as in the famous case described in
{The Story of Mel, a Real Programmer} (in Appendix A),
interleaving of opcodes on a magnetic drum to minimize fetch delays
due to the device's rotational latency). This sort of thing has
become less common as the relative costs of programming time and
machine resources have changed, but is still found in heavily
constrained environments such as industrial embedded systems, and
in the code of hackers who just can't let go of that low-level
control. See {Real Programmer}.

In the world of personal computing, bare metal programming
(especially in sense 1 but sometimes also in sense 2) is often
considered a {Good Thing}, or at least a necessary evil
(because these machines have often been sufficiently slow and
poorly designed to make it necessary; see {ill-behaved}).
There, the term usually refers to bypassing the BIOS or OS
interface and writing the application to directly access device
registers and machine addresses. "To get 19.2 kilobaud on the
serial port, you need to get down to the bare metal." People who
can do this sort of thing well are held in high regard.

:barf: /barf/ /n.,v./ [from mainstream slang meaning `vomit']
1. /interj./ Term of disgust. This is the closest hackish
equivalent of the Valspeak "gag me with a spoon". (Like, euwww!)
See {bletch}. 2. /vi./ To say "Barf!" or emit some similar
expression of disgust. "I showed him my latest hack and he
barfed" means only that he complained about it, not that he
literally vomited. 3. /vi./ To fail to work because of
unacceptable input, perhaps with a suitable error message, perhaps
not. Examples: "The division operation barfs if you try to divide
by 0." (That is, the division operation checks for an attempt to
divide by zero, and if one is encountered it causes the operation
to fail in some unspecified, but generally obvious, manner.) "The
text editor barfs if you try to read in a new file before writing
out the old one." See {choke}, {gag}. In Commonwealth
Hackish, `barf' is generally replaced by `puke' or `vom'.
{barf} is sometimes also used as a {metasyntactic variable},
like {foo} or {bar}.

:barfmail: /n./ Multiple {bounce message}s accumulating to
the level of serious annoyance, or worse. The sort of thing that
happens when an inter-network mail gateway goes down or wonky.

:barfulation: /bar`fyoo-lay'sh*n/ /interj./ Variation of
{barf} used around the Stanford area. An exclamation,
expressing disgust. On seeing some particularly bad code one might
exclaim, "Barfulation! Who wrote this, Quux?"

:barfulous: /bar'fyoo-l*s/ /adj./ (alt. `barfucious',
/bar-fyoo-sh*s/) Said of something that would make anyone
barf, if only for esthetic reasons.

:barney: /n./ In Commonwealth hackish, `barney' is to
{fred} (sense #1) as {bar} is to {foo}. That is, people
who commonly use `fred' as their first metasyntactic variable
will often use `barney' second. The reference is, of course, to
Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble in the Flintstones cartoons.

:baroque: /adj./ Feature-encrusted; complex; gaudy; verging on
excessive. Said of hardware or (esp.) software designs, this has
many of the connotations of {elephantine} or {monstrosity}
but is less extreme and not pejorative in itself. "Metafont even
has features to introduce random variations to its letterform
output. Now *that* is baroque!" See also {rococo}.

:BASIC: /bay'-sic/ /n./ [acronym: Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic
Instruction Code] A programming language, originally designed for
Dartmouth's experimental timesharing system in the early 1960s,
which has since become the leading cause of brain damage in
proto-hackers. Edsger W. Dijkstra observed in "Selected
Writings on Computing: A Personal Perspective" that "It is
practically impossible to teach good programming style to students
that have had prior exposure to BASIC: as potential programmers
they are mentally mutilated beyond hope of regeneration." This is
another case (like {Pascal}) of the cascading lossage that
happens when a language deliberately designed as an educational toy
gets taken too seriously. A novice can write short BASIC programs
(on the order of 10-20 lines) very easily; writing anything longer
(a) is very painful, and (b) encourages bad habits that will make
it harder to use more powerful languages well. This wouldn't be so
bad if historical accidents hadn't made BASIC so common on low-end
micros. As it is, it ruins thousands of potential wizards a
year.

[1995: Some languages called `BASIC' aren't quite this nasty any
more, having acquired Pascal- and C-like procedures and control
structures and shed their line numbers. --ESR]

:batch: /adj./ 1. Non-interactive. Hackers use this somewhat
more loosely than the traditional technical definitions justify; in
particular, switches on a normally interactive program that prepare
it to receive non-interactive command input are often referred to
as `batch mode' switches. A `batch file' is a series of
instructions written to be handed to an interactive program running
in batch mode. 2. Performance of dreary tasks all at one sitting.
"I finally sat down in batch mode and wrote out checks for all
those bills; I guess they'll turn the electricity back on next
week..." 3. `batching up': Accumulation of a number of small
tasks that can be lumped together for greater efficiency. "I'm
batching up those letters to send sometime" "I'm batching up
bottles to take to the recycling center."

:bathtub curve: /n./ Common term for the curve (resembling an
end-to-end section of one of those claw-footed antique bathtubs)
that describes the expected failure rate of electronics with time:
initially high, dropping to near 0 for most of the system's
lifetime, then rising again as it `tires out'. See also
{burn-in period}, {infant mortality}.

:baud: /bawd/ /n./ [simplified from its technical meaning]
/n./ Bits per second. Hence kilobaud or Kbaud, thousands of bits
per
second. The technical meaning is `level transitions per
second'; this coincides with bps only for two-level modulation with
no framing or stop bits. Most hackers are aware of these nuances
but blithely ignore them.

Historical note: `baud' was originally a unit of telegraph
signalling speed, set at one pulse per second. It was proposed at
the International Telegraph Conference of 1927, and named after
J.M.E. Baudot (1845--1903), the French engineer who constructed
the first successful teleprinter.

:baud barf: /bawd barf/ /n./ The garbage one gets on the
monitor when using a modem connection with some protocol setting
(esp. line speed) incorrect, or when someone picks up a voice
extension on the same line, or when really bad line noise disrupts
the connection. Baud barf is not completely {random}, by the
way; hackers with a lot of serial-line experience can usually tell
whether the device at the other end is expecting a higher or lower
speed than the terminal is set to. *Really* experienced ones
can identify particular speeds.

:baz: /baz/ /n./ 1. The third {metasyntactic variable}
"Suppose we have three functions: FOO, BAR, and BAZ. FOO calls
BAR, which calls BAZ...." (See also {fum}) 2. /interj./ A
term of mild annoyance. In this usage the term is often drawn out
for 2 or 3 seconds, producing an effect not unlike the bleating of
a sheep; /baaaaaaz/. 3. Occasionally appended to {foo} to
produce `foobaz'.

Earlier versions of this lexicon derived `baz' as a Stanford
corruption of {bar}. However, Pete Samson (compiler of the
{TMRC} lexicon) reports it was already current when he joined TMRC
in 1958. He says "It came from "Pogo". Albert the Alligator,
when vexed or outraged, would shout `Bazz Fazz!' or `Rowrbazzle!'
The club layout was said to model the (mythical) New England
counties of Rowrfolk and Bassex (Rowrbazzle mingled with
(Norfolk/Suffolk/Middlesex/Essex)."

:bboard: /bee'bord/ /n./ [contraction of `bulletin board']
1. Any electronic bulletin board; esp. used of {BBS} systems
running on personal micros, less frequently of a Usenet
{newsgroup} (in fact, use of this term for a newsgroup generally
marks one either as a {newbie} fresh in from the BBS world or as
a real old-timer predating Usenet). 2. At CMU and other colleges
with similar facilities, refers to campus-wide electronic bulletin
boards. 3. The term `physical bboard' is sometimes used to refer
to an old-fashioned, non-electronic cork-and-thumbtack memo board.
At CMU, it refers to a particular one outside the CS Lounge.

In either of senses 1 or 2, the term is usually prefixed by the
name of the intended board (`the Moonlight Casino bboard' or
`market bboard'); however, if the context is clear, the better-read
bboards may be referred to by name alone, as in (at CMU) "Don't
post for-sale ads on general".

:BBS: /B-B-S/ /n./ [abbreviation, `Bulletin Board System'] An
electronic bulletin board system; that is, a message database where
people can log in and leave broadcast messages for others grouped
(typically) into {topic group}s. Thousands of local BBS systems
are in operation throughout the U.S., typically run by amateurs for
fun out of their homes on MS-DOS boxes with a single modem line
each. Fans of Usenet and Internet or the big commercial
timesharing bboards such as CompuServe and GEnie tend to consider
local BBSes the low-rent district of the hacker culture, but they
serve a valuable function by knitting together lots of hackers and
users in the personal-micro world who would otherwise be unable to
exchange code at all. See also {bboard}.

:beam: /vt./ [from Star Trek Classic's "Beam me up, Scotty!"]
To transfer {softcopy} of a file electronically; most often
in combining forms such as `beam me a copy' or `beam that over
to his site'. Compare {blast}, {snarf}, {BLT}.

:beanie key: /n./ [Mac users] See {command key}.

:beep: /n.,v./ Syn. {feep}. This term is techspeak under
MS-DOS and OS/2, and seems to be generally preferred among micro
hobbyists.

:beige toaster: /n./ A Macintosh. See {toaster}; compare
{Macintrash}, {maggotbox}.

:bells and whistles: /n./ [by analogy with the toyboxes on theater
organs] Features added to a program or system to make it more
{flavorful} from a hacker's point of view, without necessarily
adding to its utility for its primary function. Distinguished from
{chrome}, which is intended to attract users. "Now that we've
got the basic program working, let's go back and add some bells and
whistles." No one seems to know what distinguishes a bell from a
whistle.

:bells, whistles, and gongs: /n./ A standard elaborated form of
{bells and whistles}; typically said with a pronounced and
ironic accent on the `gongs'.

:benchmark: [techspeak] /n./ An inaccurate measure of computer
performance. "In the computer industry, there are three kinds of
lies: lies, damn lies, and benchmarks." Well-known ones include
Whetstone, Dhrystone, Rhealstone (see {h}), the Gabriel LISP
benchmarks (see {gabriel}), the SPECmark suite, and LINPACK.
See also {machoflops}, {MIPS}, {smoke and mirrors}.

:Berkeley Quality Software: /adj./ (often abbreviated `BQS')
Term used in a pejorative sense to refer to software that was
apparently created by rather spaced-out hackers late at night to
solve some unique problem. It usually has nonexistent, incomplete,
or incorrect documentation, has been tested on at least two
examples, and core dumps when anyone else attempts to use it. This
term was frequently applied to early versions of the `dbx(1)'
debugger. See also {Berzerkeley}.

Note to British and Commonwealth readers: that's /berk'lee/, not
/bark'lee/ as in British Received Pronunciation.

:berklix: /berk'liks/ /n.,adj./ [contraction of `Berkeley
Unix'] See {BSD}. Not used at Berkeley itself. May be more
common among {suit}s attempting to sound like cognoscenti than
among hackers, who usually just say `BSD'.

:Berzerkeley: /b*r-zer'klee/ /n./ [from `berserk', via the
name of a now-deceased record label] Humorous distortion of
`Berkeley' used esp. to refer to the practices or products of the
{BSD} Unix hackers. See {software bloat},
{Missed'em-five}, {Berkeley Quality Software}.

Mainstream use of this term in reference to the cultural and
political peculiarities of UC Berkeley as a whole has been reported
from as far back as the 1960s.

:beta: /bay't*/, /be't*/ or (Commonwealth) /bee't*/ /n./
1. Mostly working, but still under test; usu. used with `in': `in
beta'. In the {Real World}, systems (hardware or software)
software often go through two stages of release testing: Alpha
(in-house) and Beta (out-house?). Beta releases are generally made
to a group of lucky (or unlucky) trusted customers.
2. Anything that is new and experimental. "His girlfriend is in
beta" means that he is still testing for compatibility and
reserving judgment. 3. Flaky; dubious; suspect (since beta
software is notoriously buggy).

Historical note: More formally, to beta-test is to test a
pre-release (potentially unreliable) version of a piece of software
by making it available to selected (or self-selected) customers and
users. This term derives from early 1960s terminology for product
cycle checkpoints, first used at IBM but later standard throughout
the industry. `Alpha Test' was the unit, module, or component test
phase; `Beta Test' was initial system test. These themselves came
from earlier A- and B-tests for hardware. The A-test was a
feasibility and manufacturability evaluation done before any
commitment to design and development. The B-test was a
demonstration that the engineering model functioned as specified.
The C-test (corresponding to today's beta) was the B-test performed
on early samples of the production design.

:BFI: /B-F-I/ /n./ See {brute force and ignorance}. Also
encountered in the variants `BFMI', `brute force and
*massive* ignorance' and `BFBI' `brute force and bloody
ignorance'.

:bible: /n./ 1. One of a small number of fundamental source
books such as {Knuth} and {K&R}. 2. The most detailed and
authoritative reference for a particular language, operating
system, or other complex software system.

:BiCapitalization: /n./ The act said to have been performed on
trademarks (such as {PostScript}, NeXT, {NeWS}, VisiCalc,
FrameMaker, TK!solver, EasyWriter) that have been raised above the
ruck of common coinage by nonstandard capitalization. Too many
{marketroid} types think this sort of thing is really cute, even
the 2,317th time they do it. Compare {studlycaps}.

:B1FF: /bif/ [Usenet] (alt. `BIFF') /n./ The most famous
{pseudo}, and the prototypical {newbie}. Articles from B1FF
feature all uppercase letters sprinkled liberally with bangs,
typos, `cute' misspellings (EVRY BUDY LUVS GOOD OLD BIFF CUZ
HE"S A K00L DOOD AN HE RITES REEL AWESUM THINGZ IN CAPITULL LETTRS
LIKE THIS!!!), use (and often misuse) of fragments of {talk mode}
abbreviations, a long {sig block} (sometimes even a {doubled
sig}), and unbounded naivete. B1FF posts articles using his
elder brother's VIC-20. B1FF's location is a mystery, as his
articles appear to come from a variety of sites. However,
{BITNET} seems to be the most frequent origin. The theory that
B1FF is a denizen of BITNET is supported by B1FF's (unfortunately
invalid) electronic mail address: [email protected].

[1993: Now It Can Be Told! My spies inform me that B1FF was
originally created by Joe Talmadge <[email protected]>, also the
author of the infamous and much-plagiarized "Flamer's Bible".
The BIFF filter he wrote was later passed to Richard Sexton, who
posted BIFFisms much more widely. Versions have since been posted
for the amusement of the net at large. --ESR]

:biff: /bif/ /vt./ To notify someone of incoming mail. From
the BSD utility `biff(1)', which was in turn named after a
friendly golden Labrador who used to chase frisbees in the halls at
UCB while 4.2BSD was in development. There was a legend that it
had a habit of barking whenever the mailman came, but the author of
`biff' says this is not true. No relation to {B1FF}.

:Big Gray Wall: /n./ What faces a {VMS} user searching for
documentation. A full VMS kit comes on a pallet, the documentation
taking up around 15 feet of shelf space before the addition of
layered products such as compilers, databases, multivendor
networking, and programming tools. Recent (since VMS version 5)
DEC documentation comes with gray binders; under VMS version 4 the
binders were orange (`big orange wall'), and under version 3 they
were blue. See {VMS}. Often contracted to `Gray Wall'.

:big iron: /n./ Large, expensive, ultra-fast computers. Used
generally of {number-crunching} supercomputers such as Crays,
but can include more conventional big commercial IBMish mainframes.
Term of approval; compare {heavy metal}, oppose {dinosaur}.

:Big Red Switch: /n./ [IBM] The power switch on a computer,
esp. the `Emergency Pull' switch on an IBM {mainframe} or the
power switch on an IBM PC where it really is large and red. "This
!@%$% {bitty box} is hung again; time to hit the Big Red
Switch." Sources at IBM report that, in tune with the company's
passion for {TLA}s, this is often abbreviated as `BRS' (this
has also become established on FidoNet and in the PC {clone}
world). It is alleged that the emergency pull switch on an IBM
360/91 actually fired a non-conducting bolt into the main power
feed; the BRSes on more recent mainframes physically drop a block
into place so that they can't be pushed back in. People get fired
for pulling them, especially inappropriately (see also
{molly-guard}). Compare {power cycle}, {three-finger
salute}, {120 reset}; see also {scram switch}.

:Big Room, the: /n./ The extremely large room with the blue
ceiling and intensely bright light (during the day) or black
ceiling with lots of tiny night-lights (during the night) found
outside all computer installations. "He can't come to the phone
right now, he's somewhere out in the Big Room."

:big win: /n./ Serendipity. "Yes, those two physicists
discovered high-temperature superconductivity in a batch of ceramic
that had been prepared incorrectly according to their experimental
schedule. Small mistake; big win!" See {win big}.

:big-endian: /adj./ [From Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" via
the famous paper "On Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace" by Danny
Cohen, USC/ISI IEN 137, dated April 1, 1980] 1. Describes a
computer architecture in which, within a given multi-byte numeric
representation, the most significant byte has the lowest address
(the word is stored `big-end-first'). Most processors,
including the IBM 370 family, the {PDP-10}, the Motorola
microprocessor families, and most of the various RISC designs
current in late 1995, are big-endian. Big-endian byte order is
also sometimes called `network order'. See {little-endian},
{middle-endian}, {NUXI problem}, {swab}. 2. An
{{Internet address}} the wrong way round. Most of the world
follows the Internet standard and writes email addresses starting
with the name of the computer and ending up with the name of the
country. In the U.K. the Joint Networking Team had decided to do
it the other way round before the Internet domain standard was
established. Most gateway sites have {ad-hockery} in their
mailers to handle this, but can still be confused. In particular,
the address [email protected] could be interpreted in
JANET's big-endian way as one in the U.K. (domain uk) or in the
standard little-endian way as one in the domain as (American
Samoa) on the opposite side of the world.

:bignum: /big'nuhm/ /n./ [orig. from MIT MacLISP]
1. [techspeak] A multiple-precision computer representation for
very large integers. 2. More generally, any very large number.
"Have you ever looked at the United States Budget? There's
bignums for you!" 3. [Stanford] In backgammon, large numbers on
the dice especially a roll of double fives or double sixes (compare
{moby}, sense 4). See also {El Camino Bignum}.

Sense 1 may require some explanation. Most computer languages
provide a kind of data called `integer', but such computer
integers are usually very limited in size; usually they must be
smaller than than 2^(31) (2,147,483,648) or (on a
{bitty box}) 2^(15) (32,768). If you want to work
with numbers larger than that, you have to use floating-point
numbers, which are usually accurate to only six or seven decimal
places. Computer languages that provide bignums can perform exact
calculations on very large numbers, such as 1000! (the factorial
of 1000, which is 1000 times 999 times 998 times ... times 2
times 1). For example, this value for 1000! was computed by the
MacLISP system using bignums:

40238726007709377354370243392300398571937486421071
46325437999104299385123986290205920442084869694048
00479988610197196058631666872994808558901323829669
94459099742450408707375991882362772718873251977950
59509952761208749754624970436014182780946464962910
56393887437886487337119181045825783647849977012476
63288983595573543251318532395846307555740911426241
74743493475534286465766116677973966688202912073791
43853719588249808126867838374559731746136085379534
52422158659320192809087829730843139284440328123155
86110369768013573042161687476096758713483120254785
89320767169132448426236131412508780208000261683151
02734182797770478463586817016436502415369139828126
48102130927612448963599287051149649754199093422215
66832572080821333186116811553615836546984046708975
60290095053761647584772842188967964624494516076535
34081989013854424879849599533191017233555566021394
50399736280750137837615307127761926849034352625200
01588853514733161170210396817592151090778801939317
81141945452572238655414610628921879602238389714760
88506276862967146674697562911234082439208160153780
88989396451826324367161676217916890977991190375403
12746222899880051954444142820121873617459926429565
81746628302955570299024324153181617210465832036786
90611726015878352075151628422554026517048330422614
39742869330616908979684825901254583271682264580665
26769958652682272807075781391858178889652208164348
34482599326604336766017699961283186078838615027946
59551311565520360939881806121385586003014356945272
24206344631797460594682573103790084024432438465657
24501440282188525247093519062092902313649327349756
55139587205596542287497740114133469627154228458623
77387538230483865688976461927383814900140767310446
64025989949022222176590433990188601856652648506179
97023561938970178600408118897299183110211712298459
01641921068884387121855646124960798722908519296819
37238864261483965738229112312502418664935314397013
74285319266498753372189406942814341185201580141233
44828015051399694290153483077644569099073152433278
28826986460278986432113908350621709500259738986355
42771967428222487575867657523442202075736305694988
25087968928162753848863396909959826280956121450994
87170124451646126037902930912088908694202851064018
21543994571568059418727489980942547421735824010636
77404595741785160829230135358081840096996372524230
56085590370062427124341690900415369010593398383577
79394109700277534720000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000.

:bigot: /n./ A person who is religiously attached to a
particular computer, language, operating system, editor, or other
tool (see {religious issues}). Usually found with a specifier;
thus, `cray bigot', `ITS bigot', `APL bigot', `VMS bigot',
`Berkeley bigot'. Real bigots can be distinguished from mere
partisans or zealots by the fact that they refuse to learn
alternatives even when the march of time and/or technology is
threatening to obsolete the favored tool. It is truly said "You
can tell a bigot, but you can't tell him much." Compare
{weenie}.

:bit: /n./ [from the mainstream meaning and `Binary digIT']
1. [techspeak] The unit of information; the amount of information
obtained by asking a yes-or-no question for which the two outcomes
are equally probable. 2. [techspeak] A computational quantity that
can take on one of two values, such as true and false or 0 and 1.
3. A mental flag: a reminder that something should be done
eventually. "I have a bit set for you." (I haven't seen you for
a while, and I'm supposed to tell or ask you something.) 4. More
generally, a (possibly incorrect) mental state of belief. "I have
a bit set that says that you were the last guy to hack on EMACS."
(Meaning "I think you were the last guy to hack on EMACS, and what
I am about to say is predicated on this, so please stop me if this
isn't true.")

"I just need one bit from you" is a polite way of indicating that
you intend only a short interruption for a question that can
presumably be answered yes or no.

A bit is said to be `set' if its value is true or 1, and
`reset' or `clear' if its value is false or 0. One speaks of
setting and clearing bits. To {toggle} or `invert' a bit is
to change it, either from 0 to 1 or from 1 to 0. See also
{flag}, {trit}, {mode bit}.

The term `bit' first appeared in print in the computer-science
sense in 1949, and seems to have been coined by early computer
scientist John Tukey. Tukey records that it evolved over a lunch
table as a handier alternative to `bigit' or `binit'.

:bit bang: /n./ Transmission of data on a serial line, when
accomplished by rapidly tweaking a single output bit, in software,
at the appropriate times. The technique is a simple loop with
eight OUT and SHIFT instruction pairs for each byte. Input is more
interesting. And full duplex (doing input and output at the same
time) is one way to separate the real hackers from the
{wannabee}s.

Bit bang was used on certain early models of Prime computers,
presumably when UARTs were too expensive, and on archaic Z80 micros
with a Zilog PIO but no SIO. In an interesting instance of the
{cycle of reincarnation}, this technique returned to use in the
early 1990s on some RISC architectures because it consumes such
an infinitesimal part of the processor that it actually makes sense
not to have a UART. Compare {cycle of reincarnation}.

:bit bashing: /n./ (alt. `bit diddling' or {bit
twiddling}) Term used to describe any of several kinds of low-level
programming characterized by manipulation of {bit}, {flag},
{nybble}, and other smaller-than-character-sized pieces of data;
these include low-level device control, encryption algorithms,
checksum and error-correcting codes, hash functions, some flavors
of graphics programming (see {bitblt}), and assembler/compiler
code generation. May connote either tedium or a real technical
challenge (more usually the former). "The command decoding for
the new tape driver looks pretty solid but the bit-bashing for the
control registers still has bugs." See also {bit bang},
{mode bit}.

:bit bucket: /n./ 1. The universal data sink (originally, the
mythical receptacle used to catch bits when they fall off the end
of a register during a shift instruction). Discarded, lost, or
destroyed data is said to have `gone to the bit bucket'. On
{{Unix}}, often used for {/dev/null}. Sometimes amplified as
`the Great Bit Bucket in the Sky'. 2. The place where all lost
mail and news messages eventually go. The selection is performed
according to {Finagle's Law}; important mail is much more likely
to end up in the bit bucket than junk mail, which has an almost
100% probability of getting delivered. Routing to the bit bucket
is automatically performed by mail-transfer agents, news systems,
and the lower layers of the network. 3. The ideal location for all
unwanted mail responses: "Flames about this article to the bit
bucket." Such a request is guaranteed to overflow one's mailbox
with flames. 4. Excuse for all mail that has not been sent. "I
mailed you those figures last week; they must have landed in the
bit bucket." Compare {black hole}.

This term is used purely in jest. It is based on the fanciful
notion that bits are objects that are not destroyed but only
misplaced. This appears to have been a mutation of an earlier term
`bit box', about which the same legend was current; old-time
hackers also report that trainees used to be told that when the CPU
stored bits into memory it was actually pulling them `out of the
bit box'. See also {chad box}.

Another variant of this legend has it that, as a consequence of the
`parity preservation law', the number of 1 bits that go to the bit
bucket must equal the number of 0 bits. Any imbalance results in
bits filling up the bit bucket. A qualified computer technician
can empty a full bit bucket as part of scheduled maintenance.

:bit decay: /n./ See {bit rot}. People with a physics
background tend to prefer this variant for the analogy with
particle decay. See also {computron}, {quantum
bogodynamics}.

:bit rot: /n./ Also {bit decay}. Hypothetical disease the
existence of which has been deduced from the observation that
unused programs or features will often stop working after
sufficient time has passed, even if `nothing has changed'. The
theory explains that bits decay as if they were radioactive. As
time passes, the contents of a file or the code in a program will
become increasingly garbled.

There actually are physical processes that produce such effects
(alpha particles generated by trace radionuclides in ceramic chip
packages, for example, can change the contents of a computer memory
unpredictably, and various kinds of subtle media failures can
corrupt files in mass storage), but they are quite rare (and
computers are built with error-detecting circuitry to compensate
for them). The notion long favored among hackers that cosmic
rays are among the causes of such events turns out to be a myth;
see the {cosmic rays} entry for details.

The term {software rot} is almost synonymous. Software rot is
the effect, bit rot the notional cause.

:bit twiddling: /n./ 1. (pejorative) An exercise in tuning (see
{tune}) in which incredible amounts of time and effort go to
produce little noticeable improvement, often with the result that
the code becomes incomprehensible. 2. Aimless small modification
to a program, esp. for some pointless goal. 3. Approx. syn. for
{bit bashing}; esp. used for the act of frobbing the device
control register of a peripheral in an attempt to get it back to a
known state.

:bit-paired keyboard: /n./ obs. (alt. `bit-shift keyboard')
A non-standard keyboard layout that seems to have originated with
the Teletype ASR-33 and remained common for several years on early
computer equipment. The ASR-33 was a mechanical device (see
{EOU}), so the only way to generate the character codes from
keystrokes was by some physical linkage. The design of the ASR-33
assigned each character key a basic pattern that could be modified
by flipping bits if the SHIFT or the CTRL key was pressed. In
order to avoid making the thing more of a Rube Goldberg kluge than
it already was, the design had to group characters that shared the
same basic bit pattern on one key.

Looking at the ASCII chart, we find:

high low bits
bits 0000 0001 0010 0011 0100 0101 0110 0111 1000 1001
010 ! " # $ % & ' ( )
011 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

This is why the characters !"#$%&'() appear where they do on a
Teletype (thankfully, they didn't use shift-0 for space). This was
*not* the weirdest variant of the {QWERTY} layout widely
seen, by the way; that prize should probably go to one of several
(differing) arrangements on IBM's even clunkier 026 and 029 card
punches.

When electronic terminals became popular, in the early 1970s, there
was no agreement in the industry over how the keyboards should be
laid out. Some vendors opted to emulate the Teletype keyboard,
while others used the flexibility of electronic circuitry to make
their product look like an office typewriter. These alternatives
became known as `bit-paired' and `typewriter-paired' keyboards. To
a hacker, the bit-paired keyboard seemed far more logical -- and
because most hackers in those days had never learned to touch-type,
there was little pressure from the pioneering users to adapt
keyboards to the typewriter standard.

The doom of the bit-paired keyboard was the large-scale
introduction of the computer terminal into the normal office
environment, where out-and-out technophobes were expected to use
the equipment. The `typewriter-paired' standard became universal,
`bit-paired' hardware was quickly junked or relegated to dusty
corners, and both terms passed into disuse.

:bitblt: /bit'blit/ /n./ [from {BLT}, q.v.] 1. Any of a
family of closely related algorithms for moving and copying
rectangles of bits between main and display memory on a bit-mapped
device, or between two areas of either main or display memory (the
requirement to do the {Right Thing} in the case of overlapping
source and destination rectangles is what makes BitBlt tricky).
2. Synonym for {blit} or {BLT}. Both uses are borderline
techspeak.

:BITNET: /bit'net/ /n./ [acronym: Because It's Time NETwork]
Everybody's least favorite piece of the network (see {network,
the}). The BITNET hosts are a collection of IBM dinosaurs and
VAXen (the latter with lobotomized comm hardware) that communicate
using 80-character {{EBCDIC}} card images (see {eighty-column
mind}); thus, they tend to mangle the headers and text of
third-party traffic from the rest of the ASCII/{RFC}-822 world
with annoying regularity. BITNET was also notorious as the
apparent home of {B1FF}.

:bits: /pl.n./ 1. Information. Examples: "I need some bits
about file formats." ("I need to know about file formats.")
Compare {core dump}, sense 4. 2. Machine-readable
representation of a document, specifically as contrasted with
paper: "I have only a photocopy of the Jargon File; does anyone
know where I can get the bits?". See {softcopy}, {source of
all good bits} See also {bit}.

:bitty box: /bit'ee boks/ /n./ 1. A computer sufficiently
small, primitive, or incapable as to cause a hacker acute
claustrophobia at the thought of developing software on or for it.
Especially used of small, obsolescent, single-tasking-only personal
machines such as the Atari 800, Osborne, Sinclair, VIC-20, TRS-80,
or IBM PC. 2. [Pejorative] More generally, the opposite of
`real computer' (see {Get a real computer!}). See also
{mess-dos}, {toaster}, and {toy}.

:bixie: /bik'see/ /n./ Variant {emoticon}s used on BIX
(the Byte Information eXchange). The {smiley} bixie is <@_@>,
apparently intending to represent two cartoon eyes and a mouth. A
few others have been reported.