Computer Proverbs

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated Sun, 14 Jan 2001 18:28:48  Eastern Standard Time,   Fred 
Shapiro <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>writes:

>I am collecting proverbs or catch-phrases relating to computers.  Examples 
would 
>be "Garbage in, garbage out" or "Do not fold, spindle or mutilate"
>or "On the Internet, nobody knows you're a dog."  Can anyone suggest other
>sayings of this nature?s

That should have been "Do not bend, fold, spindle, or mutilate."  

WYSIWYG (acronym for "What you see is what you get") sounds like a proverb 
but it isn't.  Rather it is a descriptive adjectival phrase, stating that 
what is displayed on the monitor matches what will appear on the printer.

"to boot" a computer has nothing to do with footwear, kicking a 
malfunctioning machine, or the apocryphal German training film for PC users 
"DOS Boot".  Instead it is a shortening of "bootstrap", itself extracted from 
the old saying "to pull oneself up by one's own bootstraps".  When a computer 
is first brought into operation (known as a "cold start", as opposed to a 
"warm start", in which software is still running from a previous use) a small 
program known as a "bootstrap loader" has to be run to bring in a bigger 
program which brought in etc. until all the necessary software was in the 
computer's memory and ready to run.  In punch-card days bootstrapping a 
computer could be a major effort.  Nowadays the bootstrap loader is in ROM 
and almost invisible.

"three-finger salute" sounds obscene but isn't.  Instead it is the 
Control-Alt-Delete key sequence needed to boot a PC-compatible.  By the way, 
those three keys were chosen because with the original IBM PC keyboard it was 
impossible to hit those three keys simultaneously by accident with one hand.  

"hard reset" (to fix a problem by turning the power off and back on)

"deadly embrace" a type of computer gridlock e.g. program A is using tape 
drive 1 and wants tape drive 2; program B is using drive 2 and wants drive 1; 
neither can proceed until one program is cancelled

"race condition" situation in which two or more programs are running and the 
outcome depends on which one gets started first

"aomic operation" a computer operation that cannot be interrupted before it 
is completed

big-endian versus little endian—a term picked up from Gulliver's Travels.  
Describes whether numbers are stored in a computer high-end first or low-end 
first (a headache in certain types of programming)

FUD or "Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt" in the old days what IBM salesmen were 
said to create in the mind of users contemplating using a competitor's 
product.  

"iron" computer hardware, with the connotation of either 1) mainframe 
hardware or 2) obsolescence

"IBM and the Seven Dwarfs" IBM and its domestic competitors Burroughs, 
Univac, National Cash Register, Control Data, Honeywell, General Electric and 
RCA.  After the last two dropped out, the competitors became "the BUNCH".  

"bit bucket" the mythical but much-cited destination for data that gets lost 
during processing.  A one-time supervisor of mine preferred "that big 
database in the sky".

"write-only memory" euphemism for not being able to remember something

"daisy-wheel" a type of printer common in the early 1980's but no longer seen

"golf ball" the type element for the once-omnipresent IBM Selectric 
typewriter.  I had a friend who was descended from a long line of Marine 
sergeants and habitually spoke as such. He also owned a Selectric.   I 
unintentionally left him speechless one day when I needed some typewriter 
cleaner and asked him, "Do you have any of that stuff you clean your balls 
with?"

"gender-changer" or "gender-bender" a piece of equipment to join two male 
plugs or two female plugs.  I requisitioned a gender-changer once and 
Purchasing called me long-distance to ask if this were a joke?

"Winchester" the original name for what is now prosaically called a "hard 
disk."  Named after the Winchester .30-30 rifle because the original model 
stored 30 megabytes of data with an access time of 30 milliseconds.
                  James A. Landau
                  Systems Engineer
                  FAA Technical Center (ACT-350/BCI)
                  Atlantic City Airport NJ 08405 USA

P,.S. to Bapopil at AOL.COM:   Airplanes do not have "drive by wire".  Instead 
they use "fly-by-wire", a term cited in Merriam-Webster's Tenth Collegiate as 
dating from 1968 (the technique goes back at least to the Boeing B-17)
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/ads-l/attachments/20010116/5d44de03/attachment.htm>