:wallpaper: n. 1. A file containing a listing (e.g., assembly
listing) or a transcript, esp. a file containing a transcript of
all or part of a login session. (The idea was that the paper for
such listings was essentially good only for wallpaper, as evidenced
at Stanford, where it was used to cover windows.) Now rare,
esp. since other systems have developed other terms for it (e.g.,
PHOTO on TWENEX). However, the UNIX world doesn't have an
equivalent term, so perhaps {wallpaper} will take hold there.
The term probably originated on ITS, where the commands to begin
and end transcript files were `:WALBEG' and `:WALEND',
with default file `WALL PAPER' (the space was a path
delimiter). 2. The background pattern used on graphical
workstations (this is techspeak under the `Windows' graphical user
interface to MS-DOS). 3. `wallpaper file' n. The file that
contains the wallpaper information before it is actually printed on
paper. (Even if you don't intend ever to produce a real paper copy
of the file, it is still called a wallpaper file.)
-- The AI Hackers Dictionary
magic number n.
[Unix/C; common] 1. In source code
some non-obvious constant whose value is significant to the
operation of a program and that is inserted inconspicuously in-line
(hardcoded), rather than expanded in by a symbol set by a
commented #define....
