Chapter V: Rare: book (4)

:computer geek: /n./ 1. One who eats (computer) bugs for a
living. One who fulfills all the dreariest negative stereotypes
about hackers: an asocial, malodorous, pasty-faced monomaniac with
all the personality of a cheese grater. Cannot be used by
outsiders without implied insult to all hackers; compare
black-on-black vs. white-on-black usage of `nigger'. A computer
geek may be either a fundamentally clueless individual or a
proto-hacker in {larval stage}. Also called `turbo nerd',
`turbo geek'. See also {propeller head}, {clustergeeking},
{geek out}, {wannabee}, {terminal junkie}, {spod},
{weenie}. 2. Some self-described computer geeks use this term
in a positive sense and protest sense 1 (this seems to have
been a post-1990 development). For one such argument, see
http://samsara.circus.com/~omni/geek.html.

:computron: /kom'pyoo-tron`/ /n./ 1. A notional unit of
computing power combining instruction speed and storage capacity,
dimensioned roughly in instructions-per-second times
megabytes-of-main-store times megabytes-of-mass-storage. "That
machine can't run GNU Emacs, it doesn't have enough computrons!"
This usage is usually found in metaphors that treat computing power
as a fungible commodity good, like a crop yield or diesel
horsepower. See {bitty box}, {Get a real computer!},
{toy}, {crank}. 2. A mythical subatomic particle that bears
the unit quantity of computation or information, in much the same
way that an electron bears one unit of electric charge (see also
{bogon}). An elaborate pseudo-scientific theory of computrons
has been developed based on the physical fact that the molecules in
a solid object move more rapidly as it is heated. It is argued
that an object melts because the molecules have lost their
information about where they are supposed to be (that is, they have
emitted computrons). This explains why computers get so hot and
require air conditioning; they use up computrons. Conversely, it
should be possible to cool down an object by placing it in the path
of a computron beam. It is believed that this may also explain why
machines that work at the factory fail in the computer room: the
computrons there have been all used up by the other hardware.
(This theory probably owes something to the "Warlock" stories
by Larry Niven, the best known being "What Good is a Glass
Dagger?", in which magic is fueled by an exhaustible natural
resource called `mana'.)

:con: [from SF fandom] /n./ A science-fiction convention. Not
used of other sorts of conventions, such as professional meetings.
This term, unlike many others of SF-fan slang, is widely recognized
even by hackers who aren't {fan}s. "We'd been corresponding on
the net for months, then we met face-to-face at a con."

:condition out: /vt./ To prevent a section of code from being
compiled by surrounding it with a conditional-compilation directive
whose condition is always false. The {canonical} examples of
these directives are `#if 0' (or `#ifdef notdef', though
some find the latter {bletcherous}) and `#endif' in C.
Compare {comment out}.

:condom: /n./ 1. The protective plastic bag that accompanies
3.5-inch microfloppy diskettes. Rarely, also used of (paper) disk
envelopes. Unlike the write protect tab, the condom (when left on)
not only impedes the practice of {SEX} but has also been shown
to have a high failure rate as drive mechanisms attempt to access
the disk -- and can even fatally frustrate insertion. 2. The
protective cladding on a {light pipe}. 3. `keyboard condom':
A flexible, transparent plastic cover for a keyboard, designed to
provide some protection against dust and {programming fluid}
without impeding typing. 4. `elephant condom': the plastic
shipping bags used inside cardboard boxes to protect hardware in
transit. 5. /n. obs./ A dummy directory `/usr/tmp/sh', created
to foil the Great Worm by exploiting a portability bug in one
of its parts. So named in the title of a comp.risks article by
Gene Spafford during the Worm crisis, and again in the text of
"The Internet Worm Program: An Analysis", Purdue Technical
Report CSD-TR-823. See {Great Worm, the}.

:confuser: /n./ Common soundalike slang for `computer'.
Usually encountered in compounds such as `confuser room',
`personal confuser', `confuser guru'. Usage: silly.

:connector conspiracy: /n./ [probably came into prominence with
the appearance of the KL-10 (one model of the {PDP-10}), none of
whose connectors matched anything else] The tendency of
manufacturers (or, by extension, programmers or purveyors of
anything) to come up with new products that don't fit together with
the old stuff, thereby making you buy either all new stuff or
expensive interface devices. The KL-10 Massbus connector was
actually *patented* by {DEC}, which reputedly refused to
license the design and thus effectively locked third parties out of
competition for the lucrative Massbus peripherals market. This
policy is a source of never-ending frustration for the diehards who
maintain older PDP-10 or VAX systems. Their CPUs work fine, but
they are stuck with dying, obsolescent disk and tape drives with
low capacity and high power requirements.

(A closely related phenomenon, with a slightly different intent, is
the habit manufacturers have of inventing new screw heads so that
only Designated Persons, possessing the magic screwdrivers, can
remove covers and make repairs or install options. A good 1990s
example is the use of Torx screws for cable-TV set-top boxes.
Older Apple Macintoshes took this one step further, requiring not
only a hex wrench but a specialized case-cracking tool to open the
box.)

In these latter days of open-systems computing this term has fallen
somewhat into disuse, to be replaced by the observation that
"Standards are great! There are so many of them to choose
from!" Compare {backward combatability}.

:cons: /konz/ or /kons/ [from LISP] 1. /vt./ To add a new
element to a specified list, esp. at the top. "OK, cons picking
a replacement for the console TTY onto the agenda." 2. `cons
up': /vt./ To synthesize from smaller pieces: "to cons up an
example".

In LISP itself, `cons' is the most fundamental operation for
building structures. It takes any two objects and returns a
`dot-pair' or two-branched tree with one object hanging from each
branch. Because the result of a cons is an object, it can be used
to build binary trees of any shape and complexity. Hackers think
of it as a sort of universal constructor, and that is where the
jargon meanings spring from.

:considered harmful: /adj./ Edsger W. Dijkstra's note in the
March 1968 "Communications of the ACM", "Goto Statement
Considered Harmful", fired the first salvo in the structured
programming wars (text at http://www.acm.org/classics).
Amusingly, the ACM considered the resulting acrimony sufficiently
harmful that it will (by policy) no longer print an article taking
so assertive a position against a coding practice. In the ensuing
decades, a large number of both serious papers and parodies have
borne titles of the form "X considered Y". The
structured-programming wars eventually blew over with the
realization that both sides were wrong, but use of such titles has
remained as a persistent minor in-joke (the `considered silly'
found at various places in this lexicon is related).

:console:: /n./ 1. The operator's station of a {mainframe}.
In times past, this was a privileged location that conveyed godlike
powers to anyone with fingers on its keys. Under Unix and other
modern timesharing OSes, such privileges are guarded by passwords
instead, and the console is just the {tty} the system was booted
from. Some of the mystique remains, however, and it is traditional
for sysadmins to post urgent messages to all users from the console
(on Unix, /dev/console). 2. On microcomputer Unix boxes, the main
screen and keyboard (as opposed to character-only terminals talking
to a serial port). Typically only the console can do real graphics
or run {X}. See also {CTY}.

:console jockey: /n./ See {terminal junkie}.

:content-free: /adj./ [by analogy with techspeak
`context-free'] Used of a message that adds nothing to the
recipient's knowledge. Though this adjective is sometimes applied
to {flamage}, it more usually connotes derision for
communication styles that exalt form over substance or are centered
on concerns irrelevant to the subject ostensibly at hand. Perhaps
most used with reference to speeches by company presidents and
other professional manipulators. "Content-free? Uh... that's
anything printed on glossy paper." (See also {four-color
glossies}.) "He gave a talk on the implications of electronic
networks for postmodernism and the fin-de-siecle aesthetic. It was
content-free."

:control-C: /vi./ 1. "Stop whatever you are doing." From the
interrupt character used on many operating systems to abort a
running program. Considered silly. 2. /interj./ Among BSD Unix
hackers, the canonical humorous response to "Give me a break!"

:control-O: /vi./ "Stop talking." From the character used on
some operating systems to abort output but allow the program to
keep on running. Generally means that you are not interested in
hearing anything more from that person, at least on that topic; a
standard response to someone who is flaming. Considered silly.
Compare {control-S}.

:control-Q: /vi./ "Resume." From the ASCII DC1 or {XON}
character (the pronunciation /X-on/ is therefore also used), used
to undo a previous {control-S}.

:control-S: /vi./ "Stop talking for a second." From the
ASCII DC3 or XOFF character (the pronunciation /X-of/ is
therefore also used). Control-S differs from {control-O} in
that the person is asked to stop talking (perhaps because you are
on the phone) but will be allowed to continue when you're ready to
listen to him -- as opposed to control-O, which has more of the
meaning of "Shut up." Considered silly.

:Conway's Law: /prov./ The rule that the organization of the
software and the organization of the software team will be
congruent; originally stated as "If you have four groups working
on a compiler, you'll get a 4-pass compiler".

The law was named after Melvin Conway, an early proto-hacker who
wrote an assembler for the Burroughs 220 called SAVE. (The name
`SAVE' didn't stand for anything; it was just that you lost fewer
card decks and listings because they all had SAVE written on them.)

There is also Tom Cheatham's amendment of Conway's Law:
"If a group of N persons implements a COBOL compiler, there will be
N-1 passes. Someone in the group has to be the manager."

:cookbook: /n./ [from amateur electronics and radio] A book of small
code segments that the reader can use to do various {magic}
things in programs. One current example is the
"{{PostScript}} Language Tutorial and Cookbook" by Adobe
Systems, Inc (Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-201-10179-3), also known as
the {Blue Book} which has recipes for things like wrapping text
around arbitrary curves and making 3D fonts. Cookbooks, slavishly
followed, can lead one into {voodoo programming}, but are useful
for hackers trying to {monkey up} small programs in unknown
languages. This function is analogous to the role of phrasebooks
in human languages.

:cooked mode: /n./ [Unix, by opposition from {raw mode}] The
normal character-input mode, with interrupts enabled and with
erase, kill and other special-character interpretations performed
directly by the tty driver. Oppose {raw mode}, {rare mode}.
This term is techspeak under Unix but jargon elsewhere; other
operating systems often have similar mode distinctions, and the
raw/rare/cooked way of describing them has spread widely along with
the C language and other Unix exports. Most generally, `cooked
mode' may refer to any mode of a system that does extensive
preprocessing before presenting data to a program.

:cookie: /n./ A handle, transaction ID, or other token of
agreement between cooperating programs. "I give him a packet, he
gives me back a cookie." The claim check you get from a
dry-cleaning shop is a perfect mundane example of a cookie; the
only thing it's useful for is to relate a later transaction to this
one (so you get the same clothes back). Compare {magic cookie};
see also {fortune cookie}.

:cookie bear: /n. obs./ Original term, pre-Sesame-Street, for
what is now universally called a {cookie monster}. A
correspondent observes "In those days, hackers were actually
getting their yucks from...sit down now...Andy Williams.
Yes, *that* Andy Williams. Seems he had a rather hip (by the
standards of the day) TV variety show. One of the best parts of the
show was the recurring `cookie bear' sketch. In these sketches, a
guy in a bear suit tried all sorts of tricks to get a cookie out of
Williams. The sketches would always end with Williams shrieking
(and I don't mean figuratively), `No cookies! Not now, not
ever...NEVER!!!' And the bear would fall down. Great stuff."

:cookie file: /n./ A collection of {fortune cookie}s in a
format that facilitates retrieval by a fortune program. There are
several different cookie files in public distribution, and site
admins often assemble their own from various sources including this
lexicon.

:cookie jar: /n./ An area of memory set aside for storing
{cookie}s. Most commonly heard in the Atari ST community; many
useful ST programs record their presence by storing a distinctive
{magic number} in the jar. Programs can inquire after the
presence or otherwise of other programs by searching the contents
of the jar.

:cookie monster: /n./ [from the children's TV program
"Sesame Street"] Any of a family of early (1970s) hacks
reported on {{TOPS-10}}, {{ITS}}, {{Multics}}, and elsewhere
that would lock up either the victim's terminal (on a time-sharing
machine) or the {{console}} (on a batch {mainframe}),
repeatedly demanding "I WANT A COOKIE". The required responses
ranged in complexity from "COOKIE" through "HAVE A COOKIE" and
upward. Folklorist Jan Brunvand (see {FOAF}) has described
these programs as urban legends (implying they probably never
existed) but they existed, all right, in several different
versions. See also {wabbit}. Interestingly, the term `cookie
monster' appears to be a {retcon}; the original term was
{cookie bear}.

:copious free time: /n./ [Apple; orig. fr. the intro to Tom
Lehrer's song "It Makes A Fellow Proud To Be A Soldier"]
1. [used ironically to indicate the speaker's lack of the quantity
in question] A mythical schedule slot for accomplishing tasks held
to be unlikely or impossible. Sometimes used to indicate that the
speaker is interested in accomplishing the task, but believes that
the opportunity will not arise. "I'll implement the automatic
layout stuff in my copious free time." 2. [Archly] Time reserved
for bogus or otherwise idiotic tasks, such as implementation of
{chrome}, or the stroking of {suit}s. "I'll get back to him
on that feature in my copious free time."

:copper: /n./ Conventional electron-carrying network cable with
a core conductor of copper -- or aluminum! Opposed to {light
pipe} or, say, a short-range microwave link.

:copy protection: /n./ A class of methods for preventing
incompetent pirates from stealing software and legitimate customers
from using it. Considered silly.

:copybroke: /kop'ee-brohk/ /adj./ 1. [play on `copyright']
Used to describe an instance of a copy-protected program that has
been `broken'; that is, a copy with the copy-protection scheme
disabled. Syn. {copywronged}. 2. Copy-protected software
which is unusable because of some bit-rot or bug that has confused
the anti-piracy check. See also {copy protection}.

:copyleft: /kop'ee-left/ /n./ [play on `copyright'] 1. The
copyright notice (`General Public License') carried by {GNU}
{EMACS} and other Free Software Foundation software, granting reuse
and reproduction rights to all comers (but see also {General
Public Virus}). 2. By extension, any copyright notice intended to
achieve similar aims.

:copywronged: /kop'ee-rongd/ /adj./ [play on `copyright']
Syn. for {copybroke}.

:core: /n./ Main storage or RAM. Dates from the days of
ferrite-core memory; now archaic as techspeak most places outside
IBM, but also still used in the Unix community and by old-time
hackers or those who would sound like them. Some derived idioms
are quite current; `in core', for example, means `in memory'
(as opposed to `on disk'), and both {core dump} and the `core
image' or `core file' produced by one are terms in favor. Some
varieties of Commonwealth hackish prefer {store}.

:core cancer: /n./ A process that exhibits a slow but
inexorable resource {leak} -- like a cancer, it kills by
crowding out productive `tissue'.

:core dump: /n./ [common {Iron Age} jargon, preserved by
Unix] 1. [techspeak] A copy of the contents of {core}, produced
when a process is aborted by certain kinds of internal error.
2. By extension, used for humans passing out, vomiting, or
registering extreme shock. "He dumped core. All over the floor.
What a mess." "He heard about X and dumped core."
3. Occasionally used for a human rambling on pointlessly at great
length; esp. in apology: "Sorry, I dumped core on you". 4. A
recapitulation of knowledge (compare {bits}, sense 1). Hence,
spewing all one knows about a topic (syn. {brain dump}), esp.
in a lecture or answer to an exam question. "Short, concise
answers are better than core dumps" (from the instructions to an
exam at Columbia). See {core}.

:core leak: /n./ Syn. {memory leak}.

:Core Wars: /n./ A game between `assembler' programs in a
simulated machine, where the objective is to kill your opponent's
program by overwriting it. Popularized by A. K. Dewdney's column
in "Scientific American" magazine, this was actually devised
by Victor Vyssotsky, Robert Morris Sr., and Dennis Ritchie in the
early 1960s (their original game was called `Darwin' and ran on a
PDP-1 at Bell Labs). See {core}.

:corge: /korj/ /n./ [originally, the name of a cat] Yet
another {metasyntactic variable}, invented by Mike Gallaher and
propagated by the {GOSMACS} documentation. See {grault}.

:cosmic rays: /n./ Notionally, the cause of {bit rot}.
However, this is a semi-independent usage that may be invoked as a
humorous way to {handwave} away any minor {randomness} that
doesn't seem worth the bother of investigating. "Hey, Eric -- I
just got a burst of garbage on my {tube}, where did that come
from?" "Cosmic rays, I guess." Compare {sunspots},
{phase of the moon}. The British seem to prefer the usage
`cosmic showers'; `alpha particles' is also heard, because
stray alpha particles passing through a memory chip can cause
single-bit errors (this becomes increasingly more likely as memory
sizes and densities increase).

Factual note: Alpha particles cause bit rot, cosmic rays do not
(except occasionally in spaceborne computers). Intel could not
explain random bit drops in their early chips, and one hypothesis
was cosmic rays. So they created the World's Largest Lead Safe,
using 25 tons of the stuff, and used two identical boards for
testing. One was placed in the safe, one outside. The hypothesis
was that if cosmic rays were causing the bit drops, they should see
a statistically significant difference between the error rates on
the two boards. They did not observe such a difference. Further
investigation demonstrated conclusively that the bit drops were due
to alpha particle emissions from thorium (and to a much lesser
degree uranium) in the encapsulation material. Since it is
impossible to eliminate these radioactives (they are uniformly
distributed through the earth's crust, with the statistically
insignificant exception of uranium lodes) it became obvious that
one has to design memories to withstand these hits.

:cough and die: /v./ Syn. {barf}. Connotes that the program
is throwing its hands up by design rather than because of a bug or
oversight. "The parser saw a control-A in its input where it was
looking for a printable, so it coughed and died." Compare
{die}, {die horribly}, {scream and die}.

:cowboy: /n./ [Sun, from William Gibson's {cyberpunk} SF]
Synonym for {hacker}. It is reported that at Sun this word is
often said with reverence.

:CP/M:: /C-P-M/ /n./ [Control Program/Monitor; later
{retcon}ned to Control Program for Microcomputers] An early
microcomputer {OS} written by hacker Gary Kildall for 8080- and
Z80-based machines, very popular in the late 1970s but virtually
wiped out by MS-DOS after the release of the IBM PC in 1981.
Legend has it that Kildall's company blew its chance to write the
OS for the IBM PC because Kildall decided to spend a day IBM's reps
wanted to meet with him enjoying the perfect flying weather in his
private plane. Many of CP/M's features and conventions strongly
resemble those of early {DEC} operating systems such as
{{TOPS-10}}, OS/8, RSTS, and RSX-11. See {{MS-DOS}},
{operating system}.

:CPU Wars: /C-P-U worz/ /n./ A 1979 large-format comic by
Chas Andres chronicling the attempts of the brainwashed androids of
IPM (Impossible to Program Machines) to conquer and destroy the
peaceful denizens of HEC (Human Engineered Computers). This rather
transparent allegory featured many references to {ADVENT} and
the immortal line "Eat flaming death, minicomputer mongrels!"
(uttered, of course, by an IPM stormtrooper). It is alleged that
the author subsequently received a letter of appreciation on IBM
company stationery from the head of IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research
Laboratories (then, as now, one of the few islands of true
hackerdom in the IBM archipelago). The lower loop of the B in the
IBM logo, it is said, had been carefully whited out. See {eat
flaming death}.

:crack root: /v./ To defeat the security system of a Unix
machine and gain {root} privileges thereby; see {cracking}.

:cracker: /n./ One who breaks security on a system. Coined
ca. 1985 by hackers in defense against journalistic misuse of
{hacker} (q.v., sense 8). An earlier attempt to establish
`worm' in this sense around 1981--82 on Usenet was largely a
failure.

Use of both these neologisms reflects a strong revulsion against
the theft and vandalism perpetrated by cracking rings. While it is
expected that any real hacker will have done some playful cracking
and knows many of the basic techniques, anyone past {larval
stage} is expected to have outgrown the desire to do so except for
immediate, benign, practical reasons (for example, if it's
necessary to get around some security in order to get some work
done).

Thus, there is far less overlap between hackerdom and crackerdom
than the {mundane} reader misled by sensationalistic journalism
might expect. Crackers tend to gather in small, tight-knit, very
secretive groups that have little overlap with the huge, open
poly-culture this lexicon describes; though crackers often like to
describe *themselves* as hackers, most true hackers consider
them a separate and lower form of life.

Ethical considerations aside, hackers figure that anyone who can't
imagine a more interesting way to play with their computers than
breaking into someone else's has to be pretty {losing}. Some
other reasons crackers are looked down on are discussed in the
entries on {cracking} and {phreaking}. See also
{samurai}, {dark-side hacker}, and {hacker ethic}. For a
portrait of the typical teenage cracker, see {warez
d00dz}.

:cracking: /n./ The act of breaking into a computer system;
what a {cracker} does. Contrary to widespread myth, this does
not usually involve some mysterious leap of hackerly brilliance,
but rather persistence and the dogged repetition of a handful of
fairly well-known tricks that exploit common weaknesses in the
security of target systems. Accordingly, most crackers are only
mediocre hackers.

:crank: /vt./ [from automotive slang] Verb used to describe the
performance of a machine, especially sustained performance. "This
box cranks (or, cranks at) about 6 megaflops, with a burst mode of
twice that on vectorized operations."

:CrApTeX: /krap'tekh/ /n./ [University of York, England] Term
of abuse used to describe TeX and LaTeX when they don't work (when
used by TeXhackers), or all the time (by everyone else). The
non-TeX-enthusiasts generally dislike it because it is more verbose
than other formatters (e.g. {{troff}}) and because (particularly
if the standard Computer Modern fonts are used) it generates vast
output files. See {religious issues}, {{TeX}}.

:crash: 1. /n./ A sudden, usually drastic failure. Most often
said of the {system} (q.v., sense 1), esp. of magnetic disk
drives (the term originally described what happens when the air
gap of a hard disk collapses). "Three {luser}s lost their
files in last night's disk crash." A disk crash that involves the
read/write heads dropping onto the surface of the disks and
scraping off the oxide may also be referred to as a `head crash',
whereas the term `system crash' usually, though not always,
implies that the operating system or other software was at fault.
2. /v./ To fail suddenly. "Has the system just crashed?"
"Something crashed the OS!" See {down}. Also used
transitively to indicate the cause of the crash (usually a person
or a program, or both). "Those idiots playing {SPACEWAR}
crashed the system." 3. /vi./ Sometimes said of people hitting the
sack after a long {hacking run}; see {gronk out}.

:crash and burn: /vi.,n./ A spectacular crash, in the mode of
the conclusion of the car-chase scene in the movie "Bullitt"
and many subsequent imitators (compare {die horribly}). Sun-3
monitors losing the flyback transformer and lightning strikes on
VAX-11/780 backplanes are notable crash and burn generators. The
construction `crash-and-burn machine' is reported for a computer
used exclusively for alpha or {beta} testing, or reproducing
bugs (i.e., not for development). The implication is that it
wouldn't be such a disaster if that machine crashed, since only the
testers would be inconvenienced.

:crawling horror: /n./ Ancient crufty hardware or software that
is kept obstinately alive by forces beyond the control of the
hackers at a site. Like {dusty deck} or {gonkulator}, but
connotes that the thing described is not just an irritation but an
active menace to health and sanity. "Mostly we code new stuff in
C, but they pay us to maintain one big FORTRAN II application from
nineteen-sixty-X that's a real crawling horror...." Compare
{WOMBAT}.

:cray: /kray/ /n./ 1. (properly, capitalized) One of the line
of supercomputers designed by Cray Research. 2. Any supercomputer
at all. 3. The {canonical} {number-crunching} machine.

The term is actually the lowercased last name of Seymour Cray, a
noted computer architect and co-founder of the company. Numerous
vivid legends surround him, some true and some admittedly invented
by Cray Research brass to shape their corporate culture and image.

:cray instability: /n./ 1. A shortcoming of a program or
algorithm that manifests itself only when a large problem is being
run on a powerful machine (see {cray}). Generally more subtle
than bugs that can be detected in smaller problems running on a
workstation or mini. 2. More specifically, a shortcoming of
algorithms which are well behaved when run on gentle floating point
hardware (such as IEEE-standard or DEC) but which break down badly
when exposed to a Cray's unique `rounding' rules.

:crayola: /kray-oh'l*/ /n./ A super-mini or -micro computer
that provides some reasonable percentage of supercomputer
performance for an unreasonably low price. Might also be a
{killer micro}.

:crayola books: /n./ The {rainbow series} of National
Computer Security Center (NCSC) computer security standards (see
{Orange Book}). Usage: humorous and/or disparaging.

:crayon: /n./ 1. Someone who works on Cray supercomputers.
More specifically, it implies a programmer, probably of the CDC
ilk, probably male, and almost certainly wearing a tie
(irrespective of gender). Systems types who have a Unix background
tend not to be described as crayons. 2. A {computron} (sense 2)
that participates only in {number-crunching}. 3. A unit of
computational power equal to that of a single Cray-1. There is a
standard joke about this usage that derives from an old Crayola
crayon promotional gimmick: When you buy 64 crayons you get a free
sharpener.

:creationism: /n./ The (false) belief that large, innovative
software designs can be completely specified in advance and then
painlessly magicked out of the void by the normal efforts of a team
of normally talented programmers. In fact, experience has shown
repeatedly that good designs arise only from evolutionary,
exploratory interaction between one (or at most a small handful of)
exceptionally able designer(s) and an active user population ---
and that the first try at a big new idea is always wrong.
Unfortunately, because these truths don't fit the planning models
beloved of {management}, they are generally ignored.

:creep: /v./ To advance, grow, or multiply inexorably. In
hackish usage this verb has overtones of menace and silliness,
evoking the creeping horrors of low-budget monster movies.

:creeping elegance: /n./ Describes a tendency for parts of a
design to become {elegant} past the point of diminishing return,
something which often happens at the expense of the less
interesting parts of the design, the schedule, and other things
deemed important in the {Real World}. See also {creeping
featurism}, {second-system effect}, {tense}.

:creeping featurism: /kree'ping fee'chr-izm/ /n./
1. Describes a systematic tendency to load more {chrome} and
{feature}s onto systems at the expense of whatever elegance they
may have possessed when originally designed. See also {feeping
creaturism}. "You know, the main problem with {BSD} Unix has
always been creeping featurism." 2. More generally, the tendency
for anything complicated to become even more complicated because
people keep saying "Gee, it would be even better if it had this
feature too". (See {feature}.) The result is usually a
patchwork because it grew one ad-hoc step at a time, rather than
being planned. Planning is a lot of work, but it's easy to add
just one extra little feature to help someone ... and then
another ... and another.... When creeping featurism gets
out of hand, it's like a cancer. Usually this term is used to
describe computer programs, but it could also be said of the
federal government, the IRS 1040 form, and new cars. A similar
phenomenon sometimes afflicts conscious redesigns; see
{second-system effect}. See also {creeping elegance}.

:creeping featuritis: /kree'ping fee'-chr-i:`t*s/ /n./
Variant of {creeping featurism}, with its own spoonerization:
`feeping creaturitis'. Some people like to reserve this form for
the disease as it actually manifests in software or hardware, as
opposed to the lurking general tendency in designers' minds.
(After all, -ism means `condition' or `pursuit of', whereas
-itis usually means `inflammation of'.)

:cretin: /kret'in/ or /kree'tn/ /n./ Congenital {loser};
an obnoxious person; someone who can't do anything right. It has
been observed that many American hackers tend to favor the British
pronunciation /kret'in/ over standard American /kree'tn/; it is
thought this may be due to the insidious phonetic influence of
Monty Python's Flying Circus.

:cretinous: /kret'n-*s/ or /kreet'n-*s/ /adj./ Wrong;
stupid; non-functional; very poorly designed. Also used
pejoratively of people. See {dread high-bit disease} for an
example. Approximate synonyms: {bletcherous}, {bagbiting}
{losing}, {brain-damaged}.

:crippleware: /n./ 1. Software that has some important
functionality deliberately removed, so as to entice potential users
to pay for a working version. 2. [Cambridge] Variety of
{guiltware} that exhorts you to donate to some charity (compare
{careware}, {nagware}). 3. Hardware deliberately crippled,
which can be upgraded to a more expensive model by a trivial change
(e.g., cutting a jumper).

An excellent example of crippleware (sense 3) is Intel's 486SX
chip, which is a standard 486DX chip with the co-processor dyked
out (in some early versions it was present but disabled). To
upgrade, you buy a complete 486DX chip with *working*
co-processor (its identity thinly veiled by a different pinout) and
plug it into the board's expansion socket. It then disables the
SX, which becomes a fancy power sink. Don't you love Intel?

:critical mass: /n./ In physics, the minimum amount of
fissionable material required to sustain a chain reaction. Of a
software product, describes a condition of the software such that
fixing one bug introduces one plus {epsilon} bugs. (This malady
has many causes: {creeping featurism}, ports to too many
disparate environments, poor initial design, etc.) When software
achieves critical mass, it can never be fixed; it can only be
discarded and rewritten.

:crlf: /ker'l*f/, sometimes /kru'l*f/ or /C-R-L-F/ /n./
(often capitalized as `CRLF') A carriage return (CR, ASCII 0001101)
followed by a line feed (LF, ASCII 0001010). More loosely,
whatever it takes to get you from the end of one line of text to
the beginning of the next line. See {newline}, {terpri}.
Under {{Unix}} influence this usage has become less common (Unix
uses a bare line feed as its `CRLF').

:crock: /n./ [from the American scatologism `crock of shit']
1. An awkward feature or programming technique that ought to be
made cleaner. For example, using small integers to represent error
codes without the program interpreting them to the user (as in, for
example, Unix `make(1)', which returns code 139 for a process
that dies due to {segfault}). 2. A technique that works
acceptably, but which is quite prone to failure if disturbed in the
least. For example, a too-clever programmer might write an
assembler which mapped instruction mnemonics to numeric opcodes
algorithmically, a trick which depends far too intimately on the
particular bit patterns of the opcodes. (For another example of
programming with a dependence on actual opcode values, see {The
Story of Mel, a Real Programmer} in Appendix A.) Many crocks
have a tightly woven, almost completely unmodifiable structure.
See {kluge}, {brittle}. The adjectives `crockish' and
`crocky', and the nouns `crockishness' and `crockitude', are
also used.

:cross-post: [Usenet] /vi./ To post a single article
simultaneously to several newsgroups. Distinguished from posting
the article repeatedly, once to each newsgroup, which causes people
to see it multiple times (which is very bad form). Gratuitous
cross-posting without a Followup-To line directing responses to a
single followup group is frowned upon, as it tends to cause
{followup} articles to go to inappropriate newsgroups when
people respond to only one part of the original posting.

:crudware: /kruhd'weir/ /n./ Pejorative term for the hundreds
of megabytes of low-quality {freeware} circulated by user's
groups and BBS systems in the micro-hobbyist world. "Yet
*another* set of disk catalog utilities for {{MS-DOS}}?
What crudware!"

:cruft: /kruhft/ [back-formation from {crufty}] 1. /n./ An
unpleasant substance. The dust that gathers under your bed is
cruft; the TMRC Dictionary correctly noted that attacking it with a
broom only produces more. 2. /n./ The results of shoddy
construction. 3. /vt./ [from `hand cruft', pun on `hand craft']
To write assembler code for something normally (and better) done by
a compiler (see {hand-hacking}). 4. /n./ Excess; superfluous
junk; used esp. of redundant or superseded code. 5. [University
of Wisconsin] /n./ Cruft is to hackers as gaggle is to geese; that
is, at UW one properly says "a cruft of hackers".

:cruft together: /vt./ (also `cruft up') To throw together
something ugly but temporarily workable. Like /vt./ {kluge up},
but more pejorative. "There isn't any program now to reverse all
the lines of a file, but I can probably cruft one together in about
10 minutes." See {hack together}, {hack up}, {kluge up},
{crufty}.

:cruftsmanship: /kruhfts'm*n-ship / /n./ [from {cruft}]
The antithesis of craftsmanship.

:crufty: /kruhf'tee/ /adj./ [origin unknown; poss. from
`crusty' or `cruddy'] 1. Poorly built, possibly over-complex.
The {canonical} example is "This is standard old crufty
{DEC} software". In fact, one fanciful theory of the origin of
`crufty' holds that was originally a mutation of `crusty'
applied to DEC software so old that the `s' characters were tall
and skinny, looking more like `f' characters. 2. Unpleasant,
especially to the touch, often with encrusted junk. Like spilled
coffee smeared with peanut butter and catsup. 3. Generally
unpleasant. 4. (sometimes spelled `cruftie') /n./ A small crufty
object (see {frob}); often one that doesn't fit well into the
scheme of things. "A LISP property list is a good place to store
crufties (or, collectively, {random} cruft)."

This term is one of the oldest in the jargon and no one is sure of
its etymology, but it is suggestive that there is a Cruft Hall at
Harvard University which is part of the old physics building; it's
said to have been the physics department's radar lab during WWII.
To this day (early 1993) the windows appear to be full of random
techno-junk. MIT or Lincoln Labs people may well have coined the
term as a knock on the competition.

:crumb: /n./ Two binary digits; a {quad}. Larger than a
{bit}, smaller than a {nybble}. Considered silly.
Syn. {tayste}. General discussion of such terms is under
{nybble}.

:crunch: 1. /vi./ To process, usually in a time-consuming or
complicated way. Connotes an essentially trivial operation that is
nonetheless painful to perform. The pain may be due to the
triviality's being embedded in a loop from 1 to 1,000,000,000.
"FORTRAN programs do mostly {number-crunching}." 2. /vt./ To
reduce the size of a file by a complicated scheme that produces bit
configurations completely unrelated to the original data, such as
by a Huffman code. (The file ends up looking something like a
paper document would if somebody crunched the paper into a wad.)
Since such compression usually takes more computations than simpler
methods such as run-length encoding, the term is doubly
appropriate. (This meaning is usually used in the construction
`file crunch(ing)' to distinguish it from {number-crunching}.)
See {compress}. 3. /n./ The character `#'. Used at XEROX
and CMU, among other places. See {{ASCII}}. 4. /vt./ To squeeze
program source into a minimum-size representation that will still
compile or execute. The term came into being specifically for a
famous program on the BBC micro that crunched BASIC source in order
to make it run more quickly (it was a wholly interpretive BASIC, so
the number of characters mattered). {Obfuscated C Contest}
entries are often crunched; see the first example under that entry.

:cruncha cruncha cruncha: /kruhn'ch* kruhn'ch* kruhn'ch*/ /interj./
An encouragement sometimes muttered to a machine
bogged down in a serious {grovel}. Also describes a notional
sound made by groveling hardware. See {wugga wugga}, {grind}
(sense 3).

:cryppie: /krip'ee/ /n./ A cryptographer. One who hacks or
implements cryptographic software or hardware.

:CTSS: /C-T-S-S/ /n./ Compatible Time-Sharing System. An
early (1963) experiment in the design of interactive time-sharing
operating systems, ancestral to {{Multics}}, {{Unix}}, and
{{ITS}}. The name {{ITS}} (Incompatible Time-sharing System)
was a hack on CTSS, meant both as a joke and to express some basic
differences in philosophy about the way I/O services should be
presented to user programs.

:CTY: /sit'ee/ or /C-T-Y/ /n./ [MIT] The terminal
physically associated with a computer's system {{console}}. The
term is a contraction of `Console {tty}', that is, `Console
TeleTYpe'. This {{ITS}}- and {{TOPS-10}}-associated term has
become less common, as most Unix hackers simply refer to the CTY as
`the console'.

:cube: /n./ 1. [short for `cubicle'] A module in the
open-plan offices used at many programming shops. "I've got the
manuals in my cube." 2. A NeXT machine (which resembles a
matte-black cube).

:cubing: /vi./ [parallel with `tubing'] 1. Hacking on an IPSC
(Intel Personal SuperComputer) hypercube. "Louella's gone cubing
*again*!!" 2. Hacking Rubik's Cube or related puzzles,
either physically or mathematically. 3. An indescribable form of
self-torture (see sense 1 or 2).

:cursor dipped in X: /n./ There are a couple of metaphors in
English of the form `pen dipped in X' (perhaps the most common
values of X are `acid', `bile', and `vitriol'). These map
over neatly to this hackish usage (the cursor being what moves,
leaving letters behind, when one is composing on-line). "Talk
about a {nastygram}! He must've had his cursor dipped in acid
when he wrote that one!"

:cuspy: /kuhs'pee/ /adj./ [WPI: from the {DEC}
abbreviation CUSP, for `Commonly Used System Program', i.e., a
utility program used by many people] 1. (of a program)
Well-written. 2. Functionally excellent. A program that performs
well and interfaces well to users is cuspy. See {rude}.
3. [NYU] Said of an attractive woman, especially one regarded as
available. Implies a certain curvaceousness.

:cut a tape: /vi./ To write a software or document distribution
on magnetic tape for shipment. Has nothing to do with physically
cutting the medium! Early versions of this lexicon claimed that
one never analogously speaks of `cutting a disk', but this has
since been reported as live usage. Related slang usages are
mainstream business's `cut a check', the recording industry's
`cut a record', and the military's `cut an order'.

All of these usages reflect physical processes in obsolete
recording and duplication technologies. The first stage in
manufacturing an old-style vinyl record involved cutting grooves in
a stamping die with a precision lathe. More mundanely, the
dominant technology for mass duplication of paper documents in
pre-photocopying days involved "cutting a stencil", punching away
portions of the wax overlay on a silk screen. More directly,
paper tape with holes punched in it was an important early storage
medium.

:cybercrud: /si:'ber-kruhd/ /n./ 1. [coined by Ted Nelson]
Obfuscatory tech-talk. Verbiage with a high {MEGO} factor. The
computer equivalent of bureaucratese. 2. Incomprehensible stuff
embedded in email. First there were the "Received" headers that
show how mail flows through systems, then MIME (Multi-purpose
Internet Mail Extensions) headers and part boundaries, and now huge
blocks of hex for PEM (Privacy Enhanced Mail) or PGP (Pretty Good
Privacy) digital signatures and certificates of authenticity. This
stuff all services a purpose and good user interfaces should hide
it, but all too often users are forced to wade through it.

:cyberpunk: /si:'ber-puhnk/ /n.,adj./ [orig. by SF writer
Bruce Bethke and/or editor Gardner Dozois] A subgenre of SF
launched in 1982 by William Gibson's epoch-making novel
"Neuromancer" (though its roots go back through Vernor Vinge's
"True Names" (see the {Bibliography} in Appendix C) to
John Brunner's 1975 novel "The Shockwave Rider"). Gibson's
near-total ignorance of computers and the present-day hacker
culture enabled him to speculate about the role of computers and
hackers in the future in ways hackers have since found both
irritatingly na"ive and tremendously stimulating. Gibson's work
was widely imitated, in particular by the short-lived but
innovative "Max Headroom" TV series. See {cyberspace},
{ice}, {jack in}, {go flatline}.

Since 1990 or so, popular culture has included a movement or
fashion trend that calls itself `cyberpunk', associated especially
with the rave/techno subculture. Hackers have mixed feelings about
this. On the one hand, self-described cyberpunks too often seem to
be shallow trendoids in black leather who have substituted
enthusiastic blathering about technology for actually learning and
*doing* it. Attitude is no substitute for competence. On the
other hand, at least cyberpunks are excited about the right things
and properly respectful of hacking talent in those who have it.
The general consensus is to tolerate them politely in hopes that
they'll attract people who grow into being true hackers.

:cyberspace: /si:'br-spays`/ /n./ 1. Notional
`information-space' loaded with visual cues and navigable with
brain-computer interfaces called `cyberspace decks'; a
characteristic prop of {cyberpunk} SF. Serious efforts to
construct {virtual reality} interfaces modeled explicitly on
Gibsonian cyberspace are under way, using more conventional devices
such as glove sensors and binocular TV headsets. Few hackers are
prepared to deny outright the possibility of a cyberspace someday
evolving out of the network (see {network, the}). 2. The
Internet or {Matrix} (sense #2) as a whole, considered as a
crude cyberspace (sense 1). Although this usage became widely
popular in the mainstream press during 1994 when the Internet
exploded into public awareness, it is strongly deprecated among
hackers because the Internet does not meet the high, SF-inspired
standards they have for true cyberspace technology. Thus, this use
of the term usually tags a {wannabee} or outsider.
3. Occasionally, the metaphoric location of the mind of a person in
{hack mode}. Some hackers report experiencing strong eidetic
imagery when in hack mode; interestingly, independent reports from
multiple sources suggest that there are common features to the
experience. In particular, the dominant colors of this subjective
`cyberspace' are often gray and silver, and the imagery often
involves constellations of marching dots, elaborate shifting
patterns of lines and angles, or moire patterns.

:cycle: 1. /n./ The basic unit of computation. What every
hacker wants more of (noted hacker Bill Gosper describes himself as
a "cycle junkie"). One can describe an instruction as taking so
many `clock cycles'. Often the computer can access its memory
once on every clock cycle, and so one speaks also of `memory
cycles'. These are technical meanings of {cycle}. The jargon
meaning comes from the observation that there are only so many
cycles per second, and when you are sharing a computer the cycles
get divided up among the users. The more cycles the computer
spends working on your program rather than someone else's, the
faster your program will run. That's why every hacker wants more
cycles: so he can spend less time waiting for the computer to
respond. 2. By extension, a notional unit of *human* thought
power, emphasizing that lots of things compete for the typical
hacker's think time. "I refused to get involved with the Rubik's
Cube back when it was big. Knew I'd burn too many cycles on it if
I let myself." 3. /vt./ Syn. {bounce} (sense 4), {120 reset};
from the phrase `cycle power'. "Cycle the machine again, that
serial port's still hung."

:cycle crunch: /n./ A situation wherein the number of people
trying to use a computer simultaneously has reached the point where
no one can get enough cycles because they are spread too thin and
the system has probably begun to {thrash}. This scenario is an
inevitable result of Parkinson's Law applied to timesharing.
Usually the only solution is to buy more computer. Happily, this
has rapidly become easier since the mid-1980s, so much so that the
very term `cycle crunch' now has a faintly archaic flavor; most
hackers now use workstations or personal computers as opposed to
traditional timesharing systems.

:cycle drought: /n./ A scarcity of cycles. It may be due to a
{cycle crunch}, but it could also occur because part of the
computer is temporarily not working, leaving fewer cycles to go
around. "The {high moby} is {down}, so we're running with
only half the usual amount of memory. There will be a cycle
drought until it's fixed."

:cycle of reincarnation: /n./ [coined in a paper by T. H. Myer
and I.E. Sutherland "On the Design of Display Processors", Comm.
ACM, Vol. 11, no. 6, June 1968)] Term used to refer to a well-known
effect whereby function in a computing system family is migrated
out to special-purpose peripheral hardware for speed, then the
peripheral evolves toward more computing power as it does its job,
then somebody notices that it is inefficient to support two
asymmetrical processors in the architecture and folds the function
back into the main CPU, at which point the cycle begins again.

Several iterations of this cycle have been observed in
graphics-processor design, and at least one or two in
communications and floating-point processors. Also known as `the
Wheel of Life', `the Wheel of Samsara', and other variations of
the basic Hindu/Buddhist theological idea. See also {blitter},
{bit bang}.

:cycle server: /n./ A powerful machine that exists primarily
for running large compute-, disk-, or memory-intensive jobs.
Implies that interactive tasks such as editing are done on other
machines on the network, such as workstations.

:cypherpunk: /n./ [from {cyberpunk}] Someone interested in the
uses of encryption via electronic ciphers for enhancing personal
privacy and guarding against tyranny by centralized, authoritarian
power structures, especially government. There is an active
cypherpunks mailing list at [email protected]
coordinating work on public-key encryption freeware, privacy, and
digital cash. See also {tentacle}.

= D = =====

:D. C. Power Lab: /n./ The former site of {{SAIL}}. Hackers
thought this was very funny because the obvious connection to
electrical engineering was nonexistent -- the lab was named for a
Donald C. Power. Compare {Marginal Hacks}.

:daemon: /day'mn/ or /dee'mn/ /n./ [from the mythological
meaning, later rationalized as the acronym `Disk And Execution
MONitor'] A program that is not invoked explicitly, but lies
dormant waiting for some condition(s) to occur. The idea is that
the perpetrator of the condition need not be aware that a daemon is
lurking (though often a program will commit an action only because
it knows that it will implicitly invoke a daemon). For example,
under {{ITS}} writing a file on the {LPT} spooler's directory
would invoke the spooling daemon, which would then print the file.
The advantage is that programs wanting (in this example) files
printed need neither compete for access to nor understand any
idiosyncrasies of the {LPT}. They simply enter their implicit
requests and let the daemon decide what to do with them. Daemons
are usually spawned automatically by the system, and may either
live forever or be regenerated at intervals.

Daemon and {demon} are often used interchangeably, but seem to
have distinct connotations. The term `daemon' was introduced to
computing by {CTSS} people (who pronounced it /dee'mon/) and
used it to refer to what ITS called a {dragon}. Although the
meaning and the pronunciation have drifted, we think this glossary
reflects current (1996) usage.

:daemon book: /n./ "The Design and Implementation of the
4.3BSD UNIX Operating System", by Samuel J. Leffler, Marshall Kirk
McKusick, Michael J. Karels, and John S. Quarterman (Addison-Wesley
Publishers, 1989, ISBN 0-201-06196-1) -- the standard reference
book on the internals of {BSD} Unix. So called because the
cover has a picture depicting a little devil (a visual play on
{daemon}) in sneakers, holding a pitchfork (referring to one of
the characteristic features of Unix, the `fork(2)' system
call). Also known as the {Devil Book}.

:dahmum: /dah'mum/ /n./ [Usenet] The material of which
protracted {flame war}s, especially those about operating
systems, is composed. Homeomorphic to {spam}. The term
`dahmum' is derived from the name of a militant {OS/2}
advocate, and originated when an extensively crossposted
OS/2-versus-{Linux} debate was fed through {Dissociated
Press}.

:dangling pointer: /n./ A reference that doesn't actually lead
anywhere (in C and some other languages, a pointer that doesn't
actually point at anything valid). Usually this happens because it
formerly pointed to something that has moved or disappeared. Used
as jargon in a generalization of its techspeak meaning; for
example, a local phone number for a person who has since moved to
the other coast is a dangling pointer. Compare {dead link}.

:dark-side hacker: /n./ A criminal or malicious hacker; a
{cracker}. From George Lucas's Darth Vader, "seduced by the
dark side of the Force". The implication that hackers form a sort
of elite of technological Jedi Knights is intended. Oppose
{samurai}.

:Datamation: /day`t*-may'sh*n/ /n./ A magazine that many
hackers assume all {suit}s read. Used to question an unbelieved
quote, as in "Did you read that in `Datamation?'" (But see
below; this slur may be dated by the time you read this.) It used
to publish something hackishly funny every once in a while, like
the original paper on {COME FROM} in 1973, and Ed Post's
"Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal" ten years later, but for
a long time after that it was much more exclusively
{suit}-oriented and boring. Following a change of editorship in
1994, Datamation is trying for more of the technical content and
irreverent humor that marked its early days.

Datamation now has a WWW page at http://www.datamation.com
worth visiting for its selection of computer humor, including
"Real Programmers Don't Use Pascal" and the `Bastard Operator
From Hell' stories by Simon Travaglia (see {BOFH}).

:DAU: /dow/ [German FidoNet] /n./ German acronym for
D"ummster Anzunehmender User (stupidest imaginable user).
From the engineering-slang GAU for Gr"osster Anzunehmender
Unfall, worst assumable accident, esp. of a LNG tank farm plant
or something with similarly disastrous consequences. In popular
German, GAU is used only to refer to worst-case nuclear acidents
such as a core meltdown. See {cretin}, {fool}, {loser} and
{weasel}.

:day mode: /n./ See {phase} (sense 1). Used of people only.

:dd: /dee-dee/ /vt./ [Unix: from IBM {JCL}] Equivalent to
{cat} or {BLT}. Originally the name of a Unix copy command
with special options suitable for block-oriented devices; it was
often used in heavy-handed system maintenance, as in "Let's
`dd' the root partition onto a tape, then use the boot PROM to
load it back on to a new disk". The Unix `dd(1)' was
designed with a weird, distinctly non-Unixy keyword option syntax
reminiscent of IBM System/360 JCL (which had an elaborate DD
`Dataset Definition' specification for I/O devices); though the
command filled a need, the interface design was clearly a prank.
The jargon usage is now very rare outside Unix sites and now nearly
obsolete even there, as `dd(1)' has been {deprecated} for a
long time (though it has no exact replacement). The term has been
displaced by {BLT} or simple English `copy'.

:DDT: /D-D-T/ /n./ 1. Generic term for a program that assists
in debugging other programs by showing individual machine
instructions in a readable symbolic form and letting the user
change them. In this sense the term DDT is now archaic, having
been widely displaced by `debugger' or names of individual
programs like `adb', `sdb', `dbx', or `gdb'.
2. [ITS] Under MIT's fabled {{ITS}} operating system, DDT (running
under the alias HACTRN, a six-letterism for `Hack Translator') was
also used as the {shell} or top level command language used to
execute other programs. 3. Any one of several specific DDTs (sense
1) supported on early {DEC} hardware. The DEC PDP-10 Reference
Handbook (1969) contained a footnote on the first page of the
documentation for DDT that illuminates the origin of the term:

Historical footnote: DDT was developed at MIT for the PDP-1
computer in 1961. At that time DDT stood for "DEC Debugging
Tape". Since then, the idea of an on-line debugging program has
propagated throughout the computer industry. DDT programs are
now available for all DEC computers. Since media other than tape
are now frequently used, the more descriptive name "Dynamic
Debugging Technique" has been adopted, retaining the DDT
abbreviation. Confusion between DDT-10 and another well known
pesticide, dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (C14-H9-Cl5) should
be minimal since each attacks a different, and apparently
mutually exclusive, class of bugs.

(The `tape' referred to was, incidentally, not magnetic but paper.)
Sadly, this quotation was removed from later editions of the
handbook after the {suit}s took over and DEC became much more
`businesslike'.

The history above is known to many old-time hackers. But there's
more: Peter Samson, compiler of the original {TMRC} lexicon,
reports that he named `DDT' after a similar tool on the TX-0
computer, the direct ancestor of the PDP-1 built at MIT's Lincoln
Lab in 1957. The debugger on that ground-breaking machine (the
first transistorized computer) rejoiced in the name FLIT
(FLexowriter Interrogation Tape).