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From gpinzone@GEORGE.BERKELEY.EDU) Thu Jan  3 22:19:09 1991
From: gpinzone@GEORGE.BERKELEY.EDU (A1 gerard pinzone (ee))
Newsgroups: rec.humor
Subject: Computer Terms
Date: 22 Dec 90 06:24:35 GMT
Reply-To: gpinzone@george.poly.edu
Organization: Polytechnic Univ., Farmingdale NY and East Coast Anime


                          DICTIONARY OF COMPUTER TERMS

                           rewritten by Gerard Pinzone

ANTIC:  What the Bugs in your program are up to.
BACKUP:  Opposite of forward.
BASIC:  A computer language used for generating errors.
BBS:  Not a 'Class A' B.S.
BCD:  Three of the first four letters in the alphabet.
BOARD:  State of mind of the programmers spouse.
BOOLEAN LOGIC:  Your spouse's term for your reasoning.
BRANCH:  Stick used for beating CPU's. If the stick is watered it might turn
         into a computer club.
BUBBLE MEMORY:  Your spouse's nickname for you.
BUBBLE SORT: Your spouse's term for your friends.
BUG:  Intercom system used in the Watergate complex.
BUS:  Mode of transportation for programmers.
BYTE:  A large NIBBLE.
C:  The language of washed-up programmers.
CHIP:  1. One California Highway Patrolman  2. Used in computers, they come in
       four flavors: silicon, potato, chocolate and buffalo.
CLOAD:  Command to lock up keyboard.
COMPUTER MAGAZINE:  A place where your computer stores ammunition.
CONCATENATION:  A convention of all the nation's kitty cats.
CPU:  CP-30's mother.
CRASH:  Normal termination of a program.
CRT:  (see RT).
CSAVE:  A command to write blank tapes.
DEBUG:  Raid sprayed on the keyboard.
DEDICATED:  A programmer trying to decode a string packed program.
DIGITAL:  Something done with fingers, as in checking computer mathematics.
DIP:  Inventor of a famous switch.
DISK DRIVE:  A motor for a Frisbee.
DISK PACK:  Six cans of fluid, used by disk drive technicians to improve their
            thinking.
DMA:  Abbreviation for "Direct Memory Access"; "brain surgery".
DOWNTIME:  Slang for when a programmer is being realistic.
DUMP:  Spouse's term for area around the computer.
EBCDIC:  Security code for IBM computers. Means "Erase Backup, Chew Disk,
         Ignite Cards". For a variety of obvious reasons, only IBM computers
         use EBCDIC code.
EDITOR:  A program which deletes obscene commands.
ENDLESS LOOP:  (see LOOP, ENDLESS).
EPROM:  Acronym for "Exit Program, Read Owners manual".
ERROR:  A programmer's decision to skip making a flowchart and to exclude
        comments from his program.
ERROR TRAP:  A black hole placed in a computer to capture bugs.
EXECUTION:  What your computer did to your program, also known as murder.
EXPANSION:  Computer slang for "vital parts missing". A computer with
            "expansion capability" is capable of working only when the
            extra parts are purchased.
FIFO:  Good name for a French Poodle.
FIG-FOURTH:  A quartered Fig.
FILE:  Found in cakes, it is used to end lockups.
FIRMWARE:  Hardware that is beginning to melt.
FLIP FLOP CIRCUT:  Device used by politicians to determine policy.
FLOPPY DISK:  Back pain that you claim is from an old war injury.
FLOWCHART:  Current map of the Gulf of Mexico.
FLYING HEAD:  Airline toilet.
FORTH:  One of the top three computer languages.
GENERAL PURPOSE COMPUTER:  A computer not terribly good at anything in
                           particular.
GIGO:  "Garbage In-Garbage Out". Normal result of most computer programming.
GLITCH:  A bug with ambitions.
HANDSHAKING:  Symptom of too much programming. Most commonly seen among
              programmers who have just had their program erased by power
              fluctuations before they could save their program.
HARD COPY:  Cheating during a well monitored test.
HEXADECIMAL:  Unlucky numbers used by computers.
HIGH RESOLUTION:  A law passed in Denver.
HOME COMPUTER:  Real estate agent's loan calculator.
IBM:  Incredibly Big Machine.
INTERFACE:  The look on the face of the computer salesperson as you walk away
            with a machine you'll never know how to use.
ITERATE:  A health illiterate.
KEYBOARD:  The most important part of a computer. Resembling a typewriter, the
           keyboard is used for entering errors into a computer.
KEYPUNCH:  The one who won the fight.
KEYWORDS:  All the words left out of your computer.
LANGUAGE:  A system of organized and defining syntax errors.
LIFO:  What a programmer loses when he blows his STACK.
LOOKUP TABLE:  Crib sheet for computers.
LOOP, ENDLESS:  (see ENDLESS LOOP).
MAINFRAME:  What the salesman said you were getting when you bought your micro
            (see SIMULATOR).
MATH CHIP:  Piece of broken abacus.
MINICOMPUTER:  Wife of Ottocomputer.
MODEM:  The new version of 'Model'.
MUX:  Short for multiplexer, a device which plexes multis. A device which
      plexes cats is a perplexer.
NIBBLE:  A small BYTE.
NORMALIZE:  What a spouse claims to be trying to do by cutting the power to the
            computer.
PASSWORD:  The nonsense word taped to your CRT.
PERIPHERAL:  Your spouse after you bought your computer.
PINFEED:  The diet your spouse threatens you with every time you mention a new
          program or computer you want.
POINTER:  An informer.
POKEY:  A finger afliction of people that 'Hunt and Peck'.
PORT:  The left side of the computer.
PRIME NUMBER:  Tender, juicy numbers used in only expensive computers.
PROGRAMMER:  A person who thinks he knows how to talk to a computer. A person
             who really knows how to talk to a computer is known as a
             fruitcake.
PROTECTED DATA:  (definition withheld).
REAL NUMBERS:  What you wish your computer would use instead of all this phony
               binary/hex stuff.
RECURSION:  (see RECURSION).
REDUNDANCY:  KKeebboouunnccee..
REGISTER:  Never found in a Radio Shack store.
RESET:  Another way to end a four hour sort.
RIBBON:  What your spouse gives you every time your friends ask about your
         computer.
RND:  Short for "Random Number Generator", a computer command used for
      calculating checkbook balances, income tax, rent, phone bills....
ROM:  Built on seven hills and all roads lead to it.
RS232: R2-D2's father.
RT:  Remote Terminal: What the programmer considers his spouse.
SERIAL:  Wheaties, Cheerio's etc.
SIMULATOR:  What you actually purchased when you bought your computer (see
MAINFRAME).
STACK:  The area of a computers memory used to collect garbage bytes.
STAND ALONE:  What happens to a programmer when he starts talking about
              computers at a party.
STATE OF THE ART:  Undefined.
SUBROUTINE:  Close hatches before diving.
SUBSCRIPT:  Generally inferior to SUPERSCRIPT.
SUPERSCRIPT:  Generally superior to SUBSCRIPT.
TERMINAL:  Mental state of programmers.
USER:  Someone requiring during rehabilitation.
VOLATILE STORAGE:  A disk drive filled with nitroglycerine.
WORK STARION:  The last place you'd find a programmer.
WRITE:  Opposite of wrong.


Some of the entries were inspired from the 'ol Atari 800 days (ie. POKEY)
This file is pretty old. I found a printout of it one day and I re-typed it
out in 80 columns.

==========Gerard Pinzone======================gpinzone@george.poly.edu=========
    _______  ________   ________     Just on the border of your waking mind
   /   ___/ /  _____/  /  __   /     There lies another time
  /   ___/ /  /____   /  __   /      Where darkness and light are one
 /______/ /_______/  /__/ /__/       And as you tread the halls of sanity
        East Coast Anime             You feel so glad to be unable to go beyond
ELO: "Prologue"  -=-  Daicon IV      I have a message from another time...

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