The Jargon File by Eric S. Raymond (sites to read books for free .TXT) 📖

all-ASCII version, headwords for topic entries are

distinguished from those for ordinary entries by being followed by

"::" rather than ":"; similarly, references are surrounded by "{{" and

"}}" rather than "{" and "}".

Defining instances of terms and phrases appear in `slanted type'. A

defining instance is one which occurs near to or as part of an

explanation of it.

Prefixed ** is used as linguists do; to mark examples of incorrect

usage.

We follow the `logical' quoting convention described in the Writing

Style section above. In addition, we reserve double quotes for actual

excerpts of text or (sometimes invented) speech. Scare quotes (which

mark a word being used in a nonstandard way), and philosopher's quotes

(which turn an utterance into the string of letters or words that name

it) are both rendered with single quotes.

References such as malloc(3) and patch(1) are to Unix facilities (some

of which, such as patch(1), are actually freeware distributed over

Usenet). The Unix manuals use foo(n) to refer to item foo in section

(n) of the manual, where n=1 is utilities, n=2 is system calls, n=3 is

C library routines, n=6 is games, and n=8 (where present) is system

administration utilities. Sections 4, 5, and 7 of the manuals have

changed roles frequently and in any case are not referred to in any of

the entries.

Various abbreviations used frequently in the lexicon are summarized

here:

abbrev.

abbreviation

adj.

adjective

adv.

adverb

alt.

alternate

cav.

caveat

conj.

conjunction

esp.

especially

excl.

exclamation

imp.

imperative

interj.

interjection

n.

noun

obs.

obsolete

pl.

plural

poss.

possibly

pref.

prefix

prob.

probably

prov.

proverbial

quant.

quantifier

suff.

suffix

syn.

synonym (or synonymous with)

v.

verb (may be transitive or intransitive)

var.

variant

vi.

intransitive verb

vt.

transitive verb

Where alternate spellings or pronunciations are given, alt. separates

two possibilities with nearly equal distribution, while var. prefixes

one that is markedly less common than the primary.

Where a term can be attributed to a particular subculture or is known

to have originated there, we have tried to so indicate. Here is a list

of abbreviations used in etymologies:

Amateur Packet Radio

A technical culture of ham-radio sites using AX.25 and TCP/IP for wide-area networking and BBS systems.

Berkeley

University of California at Berkeley

BBN

Bolt, Beranek & Newman

Cambridge

the university in England (not the city in Massachusetts where MIT happens to be located!)

CMU

Carnegie-Mellon University

Commodore

Commodore Business Machines

DEC

The Digital Equipment Corporation (now Compaq).

Fairchild

The Fairchild Instruments Palo Alto development group

FidoNet

See the [165]FidoNet entry

IBM

International Business Machines

MIT

Massachusetts Institute of Technology; esp. the legendary MIT AI Lab culture of roughly 1971 to 1983 and its feeder groups, including the Tech Model Railroad Club

NRL

Naval Research Laboratories

NYU

New York University

OED

The Oxford English Dictionary

Purdue

Purdue University

SAIL

Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (at Stanford University)

SI

From Syst�me International, the name for the standard conventions of metric nomenclature used in the sciences

Stanford

Stanford University

Sun

Sun Microsystems

TMRC

Some MITisms go back as far as the Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC) at MIT c. 1960. Material marked TMRC is from "An Abridged Dictionary of the TMRC Language", originally compiled by Pete Samson in 1959

UCLA

University of California at Los Angeles

UK

the United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland)

Usenet

See the [166]Usenet entry

WPI

Worcester Polytechnic Institute, site of a very active community of PDP-10 hackers during the 1970s

WWW

The World-Wide-Web.

XEROX PARC

XEROX's Palo Alto Research Center, site of much pioneering research in user interface design and networking

Yale

Yale University

Some other etymology abbreviations such as [167]Unix and [168]PDP-10

refer to technical cultures surrounding specific operating systems,

processors, or other environments. The fact that a term is labelled

with any one of these abbreviations does not necessarily mean its use

is confined to that culture. In particular, many terms labelled `MIT'

and `Stanford' are in quite general use. We have tried to give some

indication of the distribution of speakers in the usage notes;

however, a number of factors mentioned in the introduction conspire to

make these indications less definite than might be desirable.

A few new definitions attached to entries are marked [proposed]. These

are usually generalizations suggested by editors or Usenet respondents

in the process of commenting on previous definitions of those entries.

These are not represented as established jargon.

Node:Format for New Entries, Next:[169]The Jargon Lexicon,

Previous:[170]Other Lexicon Conventions, Up:[171]Top

Format For New Entries

You can mail submissions for the Jargon File to

[172]jargon@snark.thyrsus.com.

We welcome new jargon, and corrections to or amplifications of

existing entries. You can improve your submission's chances of being

included by adding background information on user population and years

of currency. References to actual usage via URLs and/or DejaNews

pointers are particularly welcomed.

All contributions and suggestions about the Jargon File will be

considered donations to be placed in the public domain as part of this

File, and may be used in subsequent paper editions. Submissions may be

edited for accuracy, clarity and concision.

We are looking to expand the File's range of technical specialties

covered. There are doubtless rich veins of jargon yet untapped in the

scientific computing, graphics, and networking hacker communities;

also in numerical analysis, computer architectures and VLSI design,

language design, and many other related fields. Send us your jargon!

We are not interested in straight technical terms explained by

textbooks or technical dictionaries unless an entry illuminates

`underground' meanings or aspects not covered by official histories.

We are also not interested in `joke' entries -- there is a lot of

humor in the file but it must flow naturally out of the explanations

of what hackers do and how they think.

It is OK to submit items of jargon you have originated if they have

spread to the point of being used by people who are not personally

acquainted with you. We prefer items to be attested by independent

submission from two different sites.

An HTML version of the File is available at

http://www.tuxedo.org/jargon. Please send us URLs for materials

related to the entries, so we can enrich the File's link structure.

The Jargon File will be regularly maintained and made available for

browsing on the World Wide Web, and will include a version number.

Read it, pass it around, contribute -- this is your monument!

Node:The Jargon Lexicon, Next:[173]Appendix A, Previous:[174]Format

for New Entries, Up:[175]Top

The Jargon Lexicon

[176]= 0 =:

[177]= A =:

[178]= B =:

[179]= C =:

[180]= D =:

[181]= E =:

[182]= F =:

[183]= G =:

[184]= H =:

[185]= I =:

[186]= J =:

[187]= K =:

[188]= L =:

[189]= M =:

[190]= N =:

[191]= O =:

[192]= P =:

[193]= Q =:

[194]= R =:

[195]= S =:

[196]= T =:

[197]= U =:

[198]= V =:

[199]= W =:

[200]= X =:

[201]= Y =:

[202]= Z =:

Node:= 0 =, Next:[203]= A =, Up:[204]The Jargon Lexicon

= 0 =

[205]0:

[206]1TBS:

[207]120 reset:

[208]2:

[209]404:

[210]404 compliant:

[211]4.2:

[212]@-party:

Node:0, Next:[213]1TBS, Up:[214]= 0 =

0

Numeric zero, as opposed to the letter `O' (the 15th letter of the

English alphabet). In their unmodified forms they look a lot alike,

and various kluges invented to make them visually distinct have

compounded the confusion. If your zero is center-dotted and letter-O

is not, or if letter-O looks almost rectangular but zero looks more

like an American football stood on end (or the reverse), you're

probably looking at a modern character display (though the dotted zero

seems to have originated as an option on IBM 3270 controllers). If

your zero is slashed but letter-O is not, you're probably looking at

an old-style ASCII graphic set descended from the default typewheel on

the venerable ASR-33 Teletype (Scandinavians, for whom � is a letter,

curse this arrangement). (Interestingly, the slashed zero long

predates computers; Florian Cajori's monumental "A History of

Mathematical Notations" notes that it was used in the twelfth and

thirteenth centuries.) If letter-O has a slash across it and the zero

does not, your display is tuned for a very old convention used at IBM

and a few other early mainframe makers (Scandinavians curse this

arrangement even more, because it means two of their letters collide).

Some Burroughs/Unisys equipment displays a zero with a reversed slash.

Old CDC computers rendered letter O as an unbroken oval and 0 as an

oval broken at upper right and lower left. And yet another convention

common on early line printers left zero unornamented but added a tail

or hook to the letter-O so that it resembled an inverted Q or cursive

capital letter-O (this was endorsed by a draft ANSI standard for how

to draw ASCII characters, but the final standard changed the

distinguisher to a tick-mark in the upper-left corner). Are we

sufficiently confused yet?

Node:1TBS, Next:[215]120 reset, Previous:[216]0, Up:[217]= 0 =

1TBS // n.

The "One True Brace Style"; see [218]indent style.

Node:120 reset, Next:[219]2, Previous:[220]1TBS, Up:[221]= 0 =

120 reset /wuhn-twen'tee ree'set/ n.

[from 120 volts, U.S. wall voltage] To cycle power on a machine in

order to reset or unjam it. Compare [222]Big Red Switch, [223]power

cycle.

Node:2, Next:[224]404, Previous:[225]120 reset, Up:[226]= 0 =

2 infix.

In translation software written by hackers, infix 2 often represents

the syllable to with the connotation `translate to': as in dvi2ps (DVI

to PostScript), int2string (integer to string), and texi2roff (Texinfo

to [nt]roff). Several versions of a joke have floated around the

internet in which some idiot programmer fixes the Y2K bug by changing

all the Y's in something to K's, as in Januark, Februark, etc.

Node:404, Next:[227]404 compliant, Previous:[228]2, Up:[229]= 0 =

404 // n.

[from the HTTP error "file not found on server"] Extended to humans to

convey that the subject has no idea or no clue - sapience not found.

May be used reflexively; "Uh, I'm 404ing" means "I'm drawing a blank".

Node:404 compliant, Next:[230]4.2, Previous:[231]404, Up:[232]= 0 =

404 compliant adj.

The status of a website which has been completely removed, usually by

the administrators of the hosting site as a result of net abuse by the

website operators. The term is a tongue-in-cheek reference to the

standard "301 compliant" Murkowski Bill disclaimer used by spammers.

See also: [233]spam, [234]spamvertize.

Node:4.2, Next:[235]@-party, Previous:[236]404 compliant, Up:[237]= 0

=

4.2 /for' poynt too'/ n.

Without a prefix, this almost invariably refers to [238]BSD Unix

release 4.2. Note that it is an indication of cluelessness to say

"version 4.2", and "release 4.2" is rare; the number stands on its

own, or is used in the