Dragon: N. [MIT] A Program Similar To A {daemon}, Except That
It Is Not Invoked At All, But Is Instead Used By The System To
Perform Various Secondary Tasks.
:dragon: n. [MIT] A program similar to a {daemon}, except that
it is not invoked at all, but is instead used by the system to
perform various secondary tasks. A typical example would be an
accounting program, which keeps track of who is logged in,
accumulates load-average statistics, etc. Under ITS, many
terminals displayed a list of people logged in, where they were,
what they were running, etc., along with some random picture (such
as a unicorn, Snoopy, or the Enterprise), which was generated by
the `name dragon'. Usage: rare outside MIT --- under UNIX and most
other OSes this would be called a `background demon' or
{daemon}. The best-known UNIX example of a dragon is
`cron(1)'. At SAIL, they called this sort of thing a
`phantom'.
-- The AI Hackers Dictionary
