Related:

• foreground: [UNIX] vt. To bring a task to the top of one's {stack} for immediate processing, and hackers often use it in this sense for non-computer tasks.
  If your presentation is due next week, I guess I'd better foreground writing up the design document....
• background n.,adj.,vt. [common] To do a task `in background' is to do it whenever foreground matters are not claiming your undivided attentio
  and `to background' something means to relegate it to a lower priority....
• background: n.,adj.,vt. To do a task `in background' is to do it whenever {foreground} matters are not claiming your undivided attentio
  and `to background' something means to relegate it to a lower priority....
• ITS /I-T-S/ n. 1. Incompatible Time-sharing System, an influential though highly idiosyncratic operating system written for PDP-6s and PDP-10s at MIT and long used at the MIT AI Lab.
  Much AI-hacker jargon derives from ITS folklore, and to have been `an ITS hacker' qualifies one instantly as an old-timer of the most venerable sort....
• ap: 1. n. A program interrupt, usually an interrupt caused by some exceptional situation in the user program.
  In most cases, the OS performs some action, then returns control to the program....
• ap 1. n. A program interrupt, usually an interrupt caused by some exceptional situation in the user program.
  In most cases, the OS performs some action, then returns control to the program....
• mart terminal: n. 1. A terminal that has enough computing capability to render graphics or to offload some kind of front-end processing from the computer it talks to.
  The development of workstations and personal computers has made this term and the product it describes semi-obsolescent, but one may still hear variants of the phrase `act like a smart terminal' used to describe the behavior of workstations or PCs with respect to programs that execute almost entirely out of a remote {server}'s storage, using said devices as displays....
• bug n. An unwanted and unintended property of a program or piece of hardware, esp.
  one that causes it to malfunction. Antonym of feature....
• ping [from the submariners' term for a sonar pulse] 1.
  . Slang term for a small network message (ICMP ECHO) sent by a computer to check for the presence and alertness of another....