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UUCPNET
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V7
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UTSL
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= U =
UUCPNETn. obs.
The store-and-forward network consisting of all the world's connected Unix machines (and others running some clone of the UUCP (Unix-to-Unix CoPy) software). Any machine reachable only via abang pathis on UUCPNET. This term has been rendered obsolescent by the spread of cheap Internet connections in the 1990s; the few remaining UUCP links are essentially slow channels to the Internet rather than an autonomous network. Seenetwork address.
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= V =
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= W =
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The Jargon Lexicon
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V7
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vadding
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UUCPNET
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= V =
V7/V'sev'en/ n.
SeeVersion 7.
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vadding
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vanilla
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V7
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vadding/vad'ing/ n.
[from VAD, a permutation of ADV (i.e.,ADVENT), used to avoid a particularadmin's continual search-and-destroy sweeps for the game] A leisure-time activity of certain hackers involving the covert exploration of the `secret' parts of large buildings -- basements, roofs, freight elevators, maintenance crawlways, steam tunnels, and the like. A few go so far as to learn locksmithing in order to synthesize vadding keys. The verb is `to vad' (comparephreaking; see alsohack, sense 9). This term dates from the late 1970s, before which such activity was simply called `hacking'; the older usage is still prevalent at MIT.
The most extreme and dangerous form of vadding is `elevator rodeo', a.k.a. `elevator surfing', a sport played by wrasslin' down a thousand-pound elevator car with a 3-foot piece of string, and then exploiting this mastery in various stimulating ways (such as elevator hopping, shaft exploration, rat-racing, and the ever-popular drop experiments). Kids, don't try this at home! See alsohobbit(sense 2).
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vanilla
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vanity domain
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vadding
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= V =
vanillaadj.
[from the default flavor of ice cream in the U.S.] Ordinaryflavor, standard. When used of food, very often does not mean that the food is flavored with vanilla extract! For example, `vanilla wonton soup' means ordinary wonton soup, as opposed to hot-and-sour wonton soup. Applied to hardware and software, as in "Vanilla Version 7 Unix can't run on a vanilla 11/34." Also used to orthogonalize chip nomenclature; for instance, a 74V00 means what TI calls a 7400, as distinct from a 74LS00, etc. This word differs fromcanonicalin that the latter means `default', whereas vanilla simply means `ordinary'. For example, when hackers go on agreat-wall, hot-and-sour soup is thecanonicalsoup to get (because that is what most of them usually order) even though it isn't the vanilla (wonton) soup.
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vanity domain
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vannevar
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vanilla
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vanity domainn.
[common; from `vanity plate' as in car license plate] An Internet domain, particularly in the .com or .org top-level domains, apparently created for no reason other than boosting the creator's ego.
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vannevar
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vaporware
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vanity domain
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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, and in isolation from one another when in fact the learning curve tends to be highly nonlinear, revolutions are common, and competition is the rule. The prototype was Vannevar Bush's prediction of `electronic brains' the size of the Empire State Building with a Niagara-Falls-equivalent cooling system for their tubes and relays, a prediction made at a time when the semiconductor effect had already been demonstrated. Other famous vannevars have included magnetic-bubble memory, LISP machines,videotex, and a paper from the late 1970s that computed a purported ultimate limit on areal density for ICs that was in fact less than the routine densities of 5 years later.
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vaporware
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var
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vannevar
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vaporware/vay'pr-weir/ n.
Products announced far in advance of any release (which may or may not actually take place). See alsobrochureware.
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var
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vaston
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vaporware
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= V =
var/veir/ or /var/ n.
Short for `variable'. Comparearg,param.
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vaston
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VAX
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var
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= V =
vastonn.
[Durham, UK] The unit of `load average'. A measure of how much work a computer is doing. A meter displaying this as a function of time is known as a `vastometer'. First used during a computing practical in December 1996.
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VAX
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VAXectomy
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vaston
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= V =
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 in 1978 and its eclipse bykiller micros after about 1986, the VAX was probably the hacker's favorite machine of them all, esp. after the 1982 release of 4.2 BSD Unix (seeBSD). Esp. noted for its large, assembler-programmer-friendly instruction set -- an asset that became a liability after the RISC revolution. 2. A major brand of vacuum cleaner in Britain. Cited here because its sales pitch, "Nothing sucks like a VAX!" became a sort of battle-cry of RISC partisans. It is even sometimes claimed that DEC actually entered a cross-licensing deal with the vacuum-Vax people that allowed them to market VAX computers in the U.K. in return for not challenging the vacuum cleaner trademark in the U.S.
A rival brand actually pioneered the slogan: its original form was "Nothing sucks like Electrolux". It has apparently become a classic example (used in advertising textbooks) of the perils of not knowing the local idiom. But in 1996, the press manager of Electrolux AB, while confirming that the company used this slogan in the late 1960s, also tells us that their marketing people were fully aware of the possible double entendre and intended it to gain attention.
And gain attention it did - the VAX-vacuum-cleaner people thought the slogan a sufficiently good idea to copy it. Several British hackers report that VAX's promotions used it in 1986-1987, and we have one report from a New Zealander that the infamous slogan surfaced there in TV ads for the product in 1992.
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VAXectomy
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VAXen
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VAX
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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. Thus, if one knows one has a replacement coming, VAX removal can be cause for celebration.
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VAXen
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vaxherd
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VAXectomy
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= V =
VAXen/vak'sn/ n.
[from `oxen', perhaps influenced by `vixen'] (alt. `vaxen') The plural canonically used among hackers for theDECVAX computers. "Our installation has four PDP-10s and twenty vaxen." Seeboxen.
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vaxherd
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vaxism
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VAXen
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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'.
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vaxism
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vaxocentrism
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vaxherd
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vaxism/vak'sizm/ n.
A piece of code that exhibitsvaxocentrismin critical areas. ComparePC-ism,unixism.
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vaxocentrism
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vdiff
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vaxism
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vaxocentrism/vak`soh-sen'trizm/ n.
[analogy with `ethnocentrism'] A notional disease said to afflict C programmers who persist in coding according to certain assumptions that are valid (esp. under Unix) onVAXenbut false elsewhere. Among these are:
Note that a programmer can validly be accused of vaxocentrism even if he or she has never seen a VAX. Some of these assumptions (esp. 2-5) were valid on the PDP-11, the original C machine, and became endemic years before the VAX. The terms `vaxocentricity' and `all-the-world's-a-VAX syndrome' have been used synonymously.
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vdiff
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veeblefester
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vaxocentrism
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vdiff/vee'dif/ v.,n.
Visual diff. The operation of finding differences between two files byeyeball search. The term `optical diff' has also been reported, and is sometimes more specifically used for the act of superimposing two nearly identical printouts on one another and holding them up to a light to spot differences. Though this method is poor for detecting omissions in the `rear' file, it can also be used with printouts of graphics, a claim few if any diff programs can make. Seediff.
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veeblefester
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velveeta
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vdiff
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veeblefester/vee'b*l-fes`tr/ n.
[from the "Born Loser" comix via Commodore; prob. originally from "Mad" Magazine's `Veeblefetzer' parodies beginning in #15, 1954] Any obnoxious person engaged in the (alleged) professions of marketing or management. Antonym ofhacker. Comparesuit,marketroid.
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velveeta
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ventilator card
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veeblefester
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velveetan.
[Usenet: by analogy withspam. The trade name Velveeta is attached in the U.S. to a particularly nasty processed-cheese spread.] Also knows asECP; a message that is excessively cross-posted, as opposed tospamwhich is too frequently posted. This term is widely recognized but not commonly used; most people refer to both kinds of abuse as spam. Comparejello.
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ventilator card
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Venus flytrap
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velveeta
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= V =
ventilator cardn.
Syn.lace card.
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Venus flytrap
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verbage
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ventilator card
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Venus flytrapn.
[after the insect-eating plant] Seefirewall machine.
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verbage
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verbiage
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Venus flytrap
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verbage/ver'b*j/ n.
A deliberate misspelling and mispronunciation ofverbiagethat assimilates it to the word `garbage'. Comparecontent-free. More pejorative than `verbiage'.
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verbiage
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Version 7
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verbage
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verbiagen.
When the context involves a software or hardware system, this refers todocumentation. This term borrows the connotations of mainstream `verbiage' to suggest that the documentation is of marginal utility and that the motives behind its production have little to do with the ostensible subject.