Hacker's New Dictionary - I hope to convey to you, Reader, at least one part of at least one of the terms of the Scene.

My many attempts to write a meaningful article
about the terms Scenes, about people Scenes end without result.
However, I hope to convey to you, Reader, at least one
part of at least one of the Scene terms.
We will again talk about hackers, or rather about their jargon.
Here, in this article, and in the next ones, I will try
bring together the most interesting and general ones (in my opinion)
Jargon terms.
Well, let's start a little...

amoeba (amoeba), noun. Humorous name for a personal
Commodore Amiga computer.

angry fruit salad (fruit salad in poisonous tones), noun.
Poor user interface, over-applying
many flowers. Comes, of course, from fancy flowers
canned fruit salad. If the interface
developed using X type window systems like
effects occur very often. In computing design
techniques there is a tendency to create very impressive
displays that use piercingly bright, garish colors;
Of course, at exhibitions they look very tempting
and attract the eye, but for long-term work
no good.

bagbiter (junk), noun 1. May refer to such
concepts, a program or computer that either does not work
in general, or work inappropriately. "This editor
texts does not allow me to create files with line length
more than 80 characters! What a bagbiter!"
2. A person who accidentally or intentionallycauses
a lot of inconvenience for other programmers, violating correctness
system operation. Synonyms: loser, cretin, chomper
3. As an adjective, bagbiting means 'having
quality bagbiter-a'. "This junk system doesn't give me
calculate the factorial of a negative number!" Wed. with losing,
cretinous, bletcherous.
4. bite the bag means to become faulty, to act up.
"Today the system crashes every 5 minutes." "Yes, controller
The disk is acting up." The original meaning of this term
was frankly obscene, especially in those cases when he
used together with the word 'scrotum', but in modern
In language, the term has practically lost its connotation of vulgarity.
Lexiphage program on an old PDP-10 in the lab
MIT artificial intelligence on 'sacrificial' bitmap
terminal, first drew the words 'THE' in intricate letters
BAG', then a pair of jaws appeared on the screen, which
bit off the inscription one letter at a time until it
there was nothing left. This is the first one to date
the last program that was a bagbaiter live
meaning of this word (to bite = bite off).

bagbiting, adj. Possessing the properties of bagbitera. For example:
"This bagbiting system won't let me calculate the factorial
negative number." Wed. with losing, cretinous, bletcherous,
'barfucious' (under barfulous), 'chomping' (under chomp).

bamf/bamf/(bamf) [from the old comics about Jackass X],intl.
1. Imaginary sound that accompanies teleportation
person or object located within earshot.
Often used in virtual reality (see virtual
reality), especially in games like MUDs, when one of the
characters wants to attract attention (i.e. effectively
enter the session or exit it with a bang).
2. The sound of magical transformation, used in virtual
reality is similar to bamf value 1.
3. [from Don Washington's Survival Guide] First
letters from 'Bad-Ass Mother Fucker' (to put it mildly, #?@...@#%.$&)
- this is the name of some vile monsters in LPMUD or others
similar to MUDs.

banana problem, noun [from a story about a little girl who
said: "I know how to pronounce the word 'banana'
('ba-na-na'), but I don't know when to stop."].
Denotes an inability to figure out where and when to
put an end to it. Wed. with fencepost error. Banana problem
arises in algorithms with insufficiently clearly defined
or simply incorrect termination conditions or in the process
discussing the promising possibilities of the project being developed
(see also creeping elegance, creeping featuritis). See
ITEM 176 in the NAKMEM article, which describes Banana
the problem is in the implementation of Dissociated Press. See also
one-banana problem.

barf (to throw up) [from a common slang term
'vomit' ('vomiting')]
1. int. Expressiondisgust. For hackers, this term is
a close equivalent of the expression 'Stand across your throat'.
See bletch.
2. Ch. Say "barf!" or something like that,
expressing disgust. The phrase "I showed him my last
program and he vomited" does not mean that he
vomit erupted in the literal sense, but only reflects
the fact that he didn't like the program at all.
3. Ch. Stop work due to unacceptable input data;
also meaning 'result in an error message'. Examples:
"When attempting to divide by zero, the barfs division instruction
(vomited)" (i.e. the instruction checks the divisor for equality
zero and if zero, terminates execution
non-specific, but always obvious). "Text
barfs editor (nauseating) if you try to read a new one
file before you write the old one." See choke, gag. Residents
outside the US, English-speaking hackers usually replace barf
to 'puke' and 'vom'. Sometimes barf is used as a name
metasyntactic variable, similar to
foo or bar.

beige toaster (beige toaster), noun. Informal name
Macintosh computer. See toaster, cf. from Macintrash, maggotbox.

bells and whistles (bells and whistles) [by analogy
with elephants on the chest of drawers] (Russian hackers in this case
they use baubles and wicks for approx. trans.), noun. Added
into a system or program capabilities or characteristic
features,making it more piquant (see flavorful)
from a hacker's point of view, although from a functional point of view
they don't change anything. Not to be confused with chrome (see chrome),
which polishes the program in order to make
its more attractive from the point of view of potential
user. "Now that the program is debugged, let's
Let's go back and put up some bells and whistles."
Nobody can tell you what the difference between bells and whistles is.

bells, whistles, and gongs (bells, whistles and gongs), noun.
A more expanded form of bells and whistles; usually
pronounced with ironic emphasis on the last word.

BiCapitalization, noun. An action whose results we see
in the names of some brands (such as NeXT, NeWS,
VisiCalc, FrameMaker, TK!solver, EasyWritter), which
stand out from the crowd due to the unusual use of capital letters
letters By offering such a trademark spelling, many
marketoids (see marketroid) think they are very original,
although they do this 2317 times. Wed. from studlycaps.

BIFF [USENET], n. The most famous pseudo-user
(see pseudo) and the prototypical hacker convert (see newbie).
His messages are famous for being written in all caps.
letters, generously strewn with the stupidest spelling errors
and are replete with exclamation marks: (EVRY BUDY LUVS GOOD OLD
BIFF CUZ HE'S A KOOL DOOD AN HE RITES REEL AWESUM THINGZ IN
CAPITULL LETTERS LIKETHIS!!! (roughly can be translated as
EVERY GUY LOVES OLD BIFF PATAMUSHTO HE'S A COOL GUY
AND WRITES TERRIBLE NEWS IN CAPITAL LETTERS LIKE HERE!!!)).
BIFF often uses (and always imprecisely) conventional
abbreviations from chatter mode (see talk mode), long nominal
block (signature, see sig block) (sometimes even a double nominal
block (see doubled sig)); Moreover, he is stunningly naive.
BIFF sends its messages using the VIC-20 of its senior
brother, but his whereabouts are unknown, since messages
come from a variety of places (although BITNET is more common
others). The email address is BIFF@BIT.NET, which he
subscribed (unfortunately, such an address does not exist
in nature), also suggests that he is still part of the team
BITNET.

biff (knock), ch. Notify the recipient that he has received
mail. By the name of the utility biff(l) (BSD), which in its
the queue was named after the dog of the developer of this utility
(every time she saw the postman, she barked loudly). None
connection with BIFF.

big iron (big iron), noun. Big, very expensive
super fast computer. This is usually what the intended ones are called.
for crunching numbers (see number-crunching) supercomputer type
Crays, although the term may equally refer to
to more convenient commercial computers from IBM.

bignum [from MIT MacLISP], n. 
1.[technospeak] Machine representation of a very large number
with multiple precision(i.e. accurate to N digits,
where N is very large). In a more general sense it means
just a very large number. "Have you already seen the new budget?
United States? This is bignum!"
2. [Stanford] In the game of backgammon, this is the name of a large number
dropped points, especially if it is two fives or two
sixes (compare with moby in the value 4). See also El Camino Bignum.

The value 1 requires some further clarification.
Almost all programming languages have a data type
called 'integer' (whole number), but the numbers described
this type are very limited in size: as a rule, they
must be less than 2^31 (2,147,483,648) or as
on primitive personal computers, less than 2^15 (32,768).
If you want to work with large numbers, you will have to
use another data type - floating numbers
commas, which give precision to only 6 or 7 digits.
Programming languages with a built-in bignum type allow
perform precise calculations on very large numbers,
such, for example, as the factorial of a thousand
(1000!=1000 * 999 * 998 * ... * 2 * 1).

bitty box (tiny box, killer box).
1. The computer is so small, primitive and poor that
just the thought of having to write for him
program, the hacker begins to suffer from claustrophobia. Especially
refers to small, obsolete and working
only in single-tasking mode on Atari 800 computers,Osborne,
Sinclair, VIC-20, TRS-80 or IBM PC.

2. [Dismissive] In a more general sense - any computer,
which cannot be called a real computer',
see Get a real computer!, as well as mess-dos, toaster, toy.

blech (blech) [from 'brechen' - in German and Yiddish means
emetic; perhaps due to what is found in many
comics 'blech', int. A term of disgust. Commonly used
like 'Ugh, blech!'. Wed. with barf.

bletcherous (sickening), adj. Disgusting by design
or functionality; aesthetically unacceptable
point of view. The term is very harsh and categorical.
It is almost never applied to people. "This keyboard is just
Nauseating!" (perhaps the keys or the keyboard itself are stuck
very confusing and inconvenient). See losing, cretinous,
bagbiting, bogus, random.
The aesthetics of a program or hardware module can be
nauseating or cretinous, while the definitions
'losing' and 'bagbiting' reflect module mismatch
fundamental criteria; terms 'bogus' and 'random'
Compared to those listed, they have many more nuances.

blinkenlights (distorted 'blinking lights'), noun.
Diagnostic lights on the front panel of the computer are mostly
on dinosaurs (see dinosaur). The origin of the term
owes the last word to the famous announcement of the rules
behavior in the engine room, written in pseudo-German
language (at one time a poster with thisalmost decorated with an ad
not all machine rooms in the English-speaking world).
One version of these rights looks like this:
[Sorry, but my scanner does not recognize the gothic font:(]

This example of folk wisdom first appeared in 1959
at Stanford University. After the early 60's
years, a message about him came from the ATLAS London node
university, it can be considered that it has become a property
international community. There is a great variety
variations of these rules, and some of them are actually
end with the word 'blinkenlights'.
After some time, the German programmers got back their money,
offering your own version of this ad. This time
it was written in broken English with German
accent. One version of this work is offered below:

ATTENTION
This room is fullfilled with special electronische equipment.
Finger-grabbing and pressing the cnoeppkes from the computers
is allowed for die experts only! So all the "lefthanders" stay
away and do not disturb the brainstorming von here working
intelligences. Otherwise you will be thrown out and kicked
and somewhere! Also: please keep still and only watchen
astaunished the blinkenlights.

Translated into Russian with a German accent it sounds something like this:
ATTENTION!
This Zimmer is located in many specialized electronic fields.
equipment-faniya. Touching fingers and pressing buttons on a computer
allowedonly to wundermans! Therefore, we ask all outsiders:
bitte, don't come here and disturb the computer arbeiters.
Otherwise, the background will kick you and, damn it, you will fly away zero white!
And also, bitte, stay at attention and just look at the flickering lights
(blinkehlights).
See also geef.

blow out (fly into the air; stall), ch. About the software
product - fail effectively; almost in terms of consequences
as serious as crash and burn (see crash and burn).
See also blow past, blow up, die horribly.

bogon (moron) [by analogy with proton/electron/neutron,
although there is no doubt that in hacker jargon this term
gained a foothold after the publication of Douglas Adams's book
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, 11980);
see the list of references in Appendix C], noun.
1. Elementary particle of debility in quantum debility dynamics
(see quantum bogodynamics). For example, the phrase "Ethernet again
emits morons" means that the connection is interrupted or that
The network is behaving inappropriately.
2. A request sent from the TCP/IP node to the root server,
in the header of which the response bit is set instead of the request bit.
3. Any stupid or incorrectly designed network packet.
4. Can be used as an indicator of debility for oneself
a wide range of concepts, such as “I would really like
have breakfast with you, but I have to go to our weekly
separate moron."
5. A person who is either from birthmoronic, or often
is talking nonsense. Initially the term was used only in this
value until derivative values 1-4 appeared.
See also bogosity, bogus; Wed with psyton, fat electrons,
magic smoke.

bogosity (moronicity), noun.
1. Degree of debility. At Carnegie Mellon University
debility is measured using a debility meter, and when
At a seminar, the speaker starts talking nonsense, the listener may
Raise your hand and say: “My retard meter is off the charts.”
In more extreme cases, you can say: "Thanks to you
there's a breakdown in my debilometer." Universally recognized unit
debility is the microLenet (mkL), the largest unit
for everyday use.
2. Potential field formed by the flow of debilons;
see quantum bogodynamics, bogon flux, bogon filter, bogus.

Historical information. Per unit of debility according to urgent
at the request of a student with experience (see teamed graduate student) selected
microLenet, an attack against a famous scientist in the field
Doug Lenet's computers. Doug failed an important exam on this one.
student just because he answered the question posed
"I'm a moron" (he actually said "AI is bogus" which should
was meant to mean 'artificial intelligence is a pseudoscience', but
in English it sounds like "I'm bogus"
i.e. "I'm a moron"). It is clear that all this happened unintentionally,
but Doug latched on to this 'disclaimer' and gave the student
'unit'. FriendsArc agree that microLenet is selected
as a unit of debility, since it is just
one millionth of Lenet's intelligence. Some comrades
propose to rename the unit of debility to micro-Raid
in honor of that same student.

break-even point (breakthrough point), noun. Indicates a stage
in the process of developing a new programming language,
in which this language becomes so effective that it
you can write on it yourself. Let me explain. Let's say, hypothetically,
that there is a new language called FOOGOL. 'Break-even
point' comes for him when he can write
demo compiler FOOGOLa on FOOGOLe, discard
initial language and subsequently use working
language versions for writing new ones.
Break-even point is an important milestone in the history of the language See MFTL.

(After the first edition of the hacker's dictionary, several of our
correspondents were told that, indeed, there was
a compiler for some tiny Algol-like language,
which was called FOOGOL. It has been used on numerous
vaxen in the early 80s. Therefore the above example,
as it turns out, it’s not at all hypothetical. - approx. ESR]

BUAF [from alt. fan. warlord], n. Short for Big Ugly ASCII
Font (Huge and Ugly ASCII Font) - a special form of ASCII
art (see ASCII ART). There are various programs for
converting text strings to pseudo-text characters4-6 points high (which is smaller than the letters that are created
old versions of banner programs). These characters are sometimes
are used to convert a name to
sig blocks See also warlording.

BUAG [from alt.fan.warlordl, n. Short for Big Ugly ASCII
Graphic (Huge and Ugly ASCII Graphic). Derogatory
term referring to ugly ASCII art (see ASCII
ART). This is especially true for the contents of sig blockob.
For some unknown reason, sig blockax is quite
there are often images of a mutant similar to Bart
Simpson. See also warlording.

bug (insect, bug), noun. Extremely undesirable and
an unintended property of a program or hardware, especially
if it leads to incorrect operation. Antonym of feature.
(The word bug has taken root among Russian hackers - approx.)
"There is a bug in this editor - the editor writes everything backwards.";
“The system crashed due to some kind of bug in the hardware”;
"Fred is a champion, of course, but he has a few bugs"
(means Fred is a great guy, but he also has problems
of a personal nature).

Historical information. Some argue that originally
this term was used by telephone company employees
in expressions like 'bugs in the telephone cable' to justify
noise on the line, but... As Grace Hopper liked to tell
(one of the computer pioneers, better known as the creator
COBOLa, admiral besidessame), once at Harvard University
technicians looking for the cause of a Mark-2 computer malfunction
found a real bug between the contacts of one of the relays
(or rather, it was a moth). After removing the moth, the machine
worked safely, remained as a memory of the incident
entry in the fault log, the hackers got
term, and the bug itself (or rather, the moth) was put under glass
Naval Surface Warfare Center
actions). True, Grace Hopper always stipulated that personally
was not present at such a significant event. Complete
summary of this story with photographs of the log book
and that same moth can be read in Annals of the History
of Computing (Chronicle of the history of computing, vol. 3,
number 3 (July 1981), pp. 285-286).
Log entry dated September 9
1945 reads: "1545 Relay #70 Panel F (mol) in relay. Thus
Thus, the first real bug has been discovered." From this post
It clearly follows that in those days the term 'bug'
was used in its present specific meaning.
But if we look into more ancient times, we will see
that this term is used to designate any defects in technology
used during the time of Thomas Edison, and even under Shakespeare (!)
various destructions were called a bug, so Grace's version
Hopper is not parity. In the first edition of Samuel's dictionary
Johnsonone of the meanings of the word 'bug' is given as 'terrible
creature; wandering ghost', from where it's just a stone's throw away
'bugbear' - in Welsh folklore it means 'scarecrow',
'bogeyman'. By the way, thanks to entertainment computer
games where terrible monsters are called 'bugbear', this term
also became popular.
In any case, it seems to us that this word never served
in informal speech to refer to an insect. Here's an example
plausible, but unlikely to actually happen
dialogue:
"There's an insect in this anthill!"
"What do you mean? I don't see any ants here."
"And this is a bug."
[There is another myth - supposedly the hero of Harvard history,
in whose honor the term arose, was placed in Smysonian
(Museum of the History of Technology in the USA - approx.). But when
we tried to check this fact, we did not find any
traces of a bug. Using questioning and logical conclusions
we figured out that the bug is still in NSWC, from where it was unsuccessful
are trying to convey to Smithonian, and that the current curator of the museum
history of American technology knew nothing about intentions
NSWC, but he's sure the bug would make a great museum piece
exhibit. One thing is clear: if this
historical bug, the above version will get excellent
material evidence and will remain as a keepsake
descendants. -ESR]

buzz, ch.
1. (spin) About the program - work without any indication,when it is impossible to understand, she paused, entered
in an endless loop or completely frozen. According to external manifestations
The behavior of the program in this situation is similar to the state
catatonia (see catatonic), but if from catatonia the program
will never come out on its own, then when scrolling it 
It can unexpectedly, on its own, take over and work out.
"The program was spinning for about 10 seconds, trying to sort everything
names in order." See also grovel.
2. [ETA systems] Check the conductivity of the tracks in the printed circuit
board using alternating current, because constant signal
does not always detect a gap.
3. Consistently process a large array of data, and
Identical processing is performed for each element of the array.
"This program will run in a loop until
will not encounter a termination character in the array."

byte (byte) [technospeak], noun. Memory capacity or quantity
information required to represent one character
(letters); on modern computers equals, as a rule,
8 bits, but there are also 9-bit bytes on a computer with the length of the machine
words 36 bit. On some older models it was called a byte
a sequence of 6 or 7 bits, and on the PDP-10 it could be a byte
any sequence from 1 to 36 bits long can be called!
Nowadays, the term is almost never found in this meaning.
and even a 9-bit sequence almost never anymore
is not called a byte.

Historical information. For the first timethis term appeared in 1956
in the early stages of designing the IBM Stretch computer.
Denoted a sequence of bits ranging in length from 1 to 6
(standard I/O hardware worked in those days
with 6-bit 'chunks' of information). Switch to 8-bit bytes
occurred at the end of 1956, and after the operating system
System/360 was generally taken as the standard. The word 'byte' itself
is a corruption of 'bite' (piece, bite off) to
not to confuse it with 'bit', I had to replace one letter.
See also nybble.