Jargon File

Jargon File

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vannevar /van'*-var/ n. A bogus technological prediction or a foredoomed engineering concept, esp.
one that fails by implicitly assuming that technologies develop linearly, incrementally...
vaporware /vay'pr-weir/ n. Products announced far in advance of any release (which may or may not actually take place).
See also brochureware....
var /veir/ or /var/ n. Short for `variable'. Compare arg, param.
vaston n. [Durham, UK] The unit of `load average'.
A measure of how much work a computer is doing....
VAX /vaks/ n. 1. [from Virtual Address eXtension] The most successful minicomputer design in industry history, possibly excepting its immediate ancestor, the PDP-11.
Between its release i...
VAXectomy /vak-sek't*-mee/ n. [by analogy with `vasectomy'] A VAX removal.
DEC's Microvaxen, especially, are much slower than newer RISC-based workstations such as the SPARC....
VAXen /vak'sn/ n. [from `oxen', perhaps influenced by `vixen'] (alt.
`vaxen') The plural canonically used among hackers for the DEC VAX computers....
vaxherd /vaks'herd/ n. obs. [from `oxherd'] A VAX operator.
The image is reinforced because VAXen actually did tend to come in herds, technically known as `clusters'....
vaxism /vak'sizm/ n. A piece of code that exhibits vaxocentrism in critical areas.
Compare PC-ism, unixism....
vaxocentrism /vak`soh-sen'trizm/ n.

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