Jargon File

Jargon File

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punched card n.obs. [techspeak] (alt. `punch card') The signature medium of computing's Stone Age, now obsolescent outside of some IBM shops.
The punched card actually predated compute...
punt v. [from the punch line of an old joke referring to American football
Drop back 15 yards and punt!"] 1. To give up, typically without any intention of retrying....
Purple Book n. 1. The "System V Interface Definition".
The covers of the first editions were an amazingly nauseating shade of off-lavender....
purple wire n. [IBM] Wire installed by Field Engineers to work around problems discovered during testing or debugging.
These are called `purple wires' even when (as is frequently the case)...
Python /pi:'thon/ In the words of its author, "the other scripting language" (other than Perl, that is).
Python's design is notably clean, elegant, and well thought through; it tends to a...
quad n. 1. Two bits; syn. for quarter, crumb, tayste.
2. A four-pack of anything (compare hex, sense 2)....
quadruple bucky n. obs. 1. On an MIT space-cadet keyboard, use of all four of the shifting keys (control, hyper, and super) while typing a character key.
2. On a Stanford or MIT keyboard i...
quantifiers In techspeak and jargon, the standard metric prefixes used in the SI (Systè
me International) conventions for scientific measurement have dual uses....
quantum bogodynamics /kwon'tm boh`goh-di:-nam'iks/ n.

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