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times-or-divided-by
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TINC
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time T
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times-or-divided-byquant.
[by analogy with `plus-or-minus'] Term occasionally used when describing the uncertainty associated with a scheduling estimate, for either humorous or brutally honest effect. For a software project, the scheduling uncertainty factor is usually at least 2.
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TINC
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Tinkerbell program
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times-or-divided-by
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TINC//
[Usenet] Abbreviation: "There Is No Cabal". Seebackbone cabalandNANA, but note that this abbreviation did not enter use until long after the dispersal of the backbone cabal.
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Tinkerbell program
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TINLC
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TINC
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Tinkerbell programn.
[Great Britain] A monitoring program used to scan incoming network calls and generate alerts when calls are received from particular sites, or when logins are attempted using certain IDs. Named after `Project Tinkerbell', an experimental phone-tapping program developed by British Telecom in the early 1980s.
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TINLC
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tip of the ice-cube
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TINLC//
Abbreviation: "There Is No Lumber Cartel". SeeLumber Cartel. TINLC is a takeoff onTINC.
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tip of the ice-cube
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tired iron
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TINLC
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tip of the ice-cuben. //
[IBM] The visible part of something small and insignificant. Used as an ironic comment in situations where `tip of the iceberg' might be appropriate if the subject were at all important.
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tired iron
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tits on a keyboard
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tired ironn.
[IBM] Hardware that is perfectly functional but far enough behind the state of the art to have been superseded by new products, presumably with sufficient improvement in bang-per-buck that the old stuff is starting to look a bit like adinosaur.
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tits on a keyboard
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TLA
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tired iron
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tits on a keyboardn.
Small bumps on certain keycaps to keep touch-typists registered. Usually on the5of a numeric keypad, and on theFandJof aQWERTYkeyboard; but older Macs, perverse as usual, had them on theDandKkeys (this changed in 1999).
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TLA
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(TM)
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TLA/T-L-A/ n.
[Three-Letter Acronym] 1. Self-describing abbreviation for a species with which computing terminology is infested. 2. Any confusing acronym. Examples include MCA, FTP, SNA, CPU, MMU, SCCS, DMU, FPU, NNTP, TLA. People who like this looser usage argue that not all TLAs have three letters, just as not all four-letter words have four letters. One also hears of `ETLA' (Extended Three-Letter Acronym, pronounced /ee tee el ay/) being used to describe four-letter acronyms. The term `SFLA' (Stupid Four-Letter Acronym) has also been reported. See alsoYABA.
The self-effacing phrase "TDM TLA" (Too Damn Many...) is often used to bemoan the plethora of TLAs in use. In 1989, a random of the journalistic persuasion asked hacker Paul Boutin "What do you think will be the biggest problem in computing in the 90s?" Paul's straight-faced response: "There are only 17,000 three-letter acronyms." (To be exact, there are 26^3 = 17,576.) There is probably some karmic justice in the fact that Paul Boutin subsequently became a journalist.
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(TM)
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TMRC
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(TM)//
[Usenet] ASCII rendition of the trademark-superscript symbol appended to phrases that the author feels should be recorded for posterity, perhaps in future editions of this lexicon. Sometimes used ironically as a form of protest against the recent spate of software and algorithm patents and `look and feel' lawsuits. See alsoUNX.
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TMRC
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TMRCie
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TMRC/tmerk'/ n.
The Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT, one of the wellsprings of hacker culture. The 1959 "Dictionary of the TMRC Language" compiled by Peter Samson included several terms that became basics of the hackish vocabulary (see esp.foo,mung, andfrob).
By 1962, TMRC's legendary layout was already a marvel of complexity and has grown in the years since. All the features described here were still present when the old layout was decomissioned in 1998 just before the demolition of MIT Building 20, and will almost certainly be retained when the old layout is rebuilt (expected in 2003). The control system alone featured about 1200 relays. There werescram switches located at numerous places around the room that could be thwacked if something undesirable was about to occur, such as a train going full-bore at an obstruction. Another feature of the system was a digital clock on the dispatch board, which was itself something of a wonder in those bygone days before cheap LEDs and seven-segment displays. When someone hit a scram switch the clock stopped and the display was replaced with the word `FOO'; at TMRC the scram switches are therefore called `foo switches'.
Steven Levy, in his book "Hackers" (see theBibliographyin Appendix C), gives a stimulating account of those early years. TMRC's Signals and Power Committee included many of the early PDP-1 hackers and the people who later became the core of the MIT AI Lab staff. Thirty years later that connection is still very much alive, and this lexicon accordingly includes a number of entries from a recent revision of the TMRC dictionary.
TMRC has a web page at http://web.mit.edu/tmrc/www/.
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TMRCie
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TMTOWTDI
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TMRCie/tmerk'ee/, n.
[MIT] A denizen ofTMRC.
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TMTOWTDI
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TMRCie
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TMTOWTDI/tim-toh'-dee/
There's More Than One Way To Do It. This abbreviation of the official motto ofPerlis frequently used on newsgroups and mailing lists related to that language.
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to a first approximation
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to a zeroth approximation
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to a first approximationadj.
1. [techspeak] When one is doing certain numerical computations, an approximate solution may be computed by any of several heuristic methods, then refined to a final value. By using the starting point of a first approximation of the answer, one can write an algorithm that converges more quickly to the correct result. 2. In jargon, a preface to any comment that indicates that the comment is only approximately true. The remark "To a first approximation, I feel good" might indicate that deeper questioning would reveal that not all is perfect (e.g., a nagging cough still remains after an illness).
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to a zeroth approximation
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toad
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to a first approximation
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to a zeroth approximation
[from `to a first approximation'] Areallysloppy approximation; a wild guess. Comparesocial science number.
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toad
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toast
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to a zeroth approximation
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toadvt. [MUD]
1. Notionally, to change aMUDplayer into a toad. 2. To permanently and totally exile a player from the MUD. A very serious action, which can only be done by a MUDwizard; often involves a lot of debate among the other characters first. See alsofrog,FOD.
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toast
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toaster
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toast1. n.
Any completely inoperable system or component, esp. one that has just crashed and burned: "Uh, oh...I think the serial board is toast." 2. vt. To cause a system to crash accidentally, especially in a manner that requires manual rebooting. "Rick just toasted thefirewall machineagain." Comparefried.
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toaster
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toeprint
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toast
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toastern.
1. The archetypal really stupid application for an embedded microprocessor controller; often used in comments that imply that a scheme is inappropriate technology (but seeelevator controller). "DWIMfor an assembler? That'd be as silly as running Unix on your toaster!" 2. A very, very dumb computer. "You could run this program on any dumb toaster." Seebitty box,Get a real computer!,toy,beige toaster. 3. A Macintosh, esp. the Classic Mac. Some hold that this is implied by sense 2. 4. A peripheral device. "I bought my box without toasters, but since then I've added two boards and a second disk drive." 5. A specialized computer used as an appliance. Seeweb toaster,video toaster.
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toeprint
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toggle
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toaster
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toeprintn.
Afootprintof especially small size.
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toggle
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tool
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togglevt.
To change abitfrom whatever state it is in to the other state; to change from 1 to 0 or from 0 to 1. This comes from `toggle switches', such as standard light switches, though the word `toggle' actually refers to the mechanism that keeps the switch in the position to which it is flipped rather than to the fact that the switch has two positions. There are four things you can do to a bit: set it (force it to be 1), clear (or zero) it, leave it alone, or toggle it. (Mathematically, one would say that there are four distinct boolean-valued functions of one boolean argument, but saying that is much less fun than talking about toggling bits.)
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tool
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toolsmith
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tool1. n.
A program used primarily to create, manipulate, modify, or analyze other programs, such as a compiler or an editor or a cross-referencing program. Opposeapp,operating system. 2. [Unix] An application program with a simple, `transparent' (typically text-stream) interface designed specifically to be used in programmed combination with other tools (seefilter,plumbing). 3. [MIT: general to students there] vi. To work; to study (connotes tedium). The TMRC Dictionary defined this as "to set one's brain to the grindstone". Seehack. 4. n. [MIT] A student who studies too much and hacks too little. (MIT's student humor magazine rejoices in the name "Tool and Die".)
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toolsmith
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toolsmithn.
The software equivalent of a tool-and-die specialist; one who specializes in making thetools with which other programmers create applications. Many hackers consider this more fun than applications per se; to understand why, seeuninteresting. Jon Bentley, in the "Bumper-Sticker Computer Science" chapter of his book "More Programming Pearls", quotes Dick Sites fromDECas saying "I'd rather write programs to write programs than write programs".
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toor
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topic drift
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toorn.
The Bourne-Again Super-user. An alternate account with UID of 0, created on Unix machines where the root user has an inconvenient choice of shell. Compareavatar.
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topic drift
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topic group
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toor
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topic driftn.
Term used on GEnie, Usenet and other electronic fora to describe the tendency of athreadto drift away from the original subject of discussion (and thus, from the Subject header of the originating message), or the results of that tendency. The header in each post can be changed to keep current with the posts, but usually isn't due to forgetfulness or laziness. A single post may often result in several posts each responding to a different point in the original. Some subthreads will actually be in response to some off-the-cuff side comment, possibly degenerating into aflame war, or just as often evolving into a separate discussion. Hence, discussions aren't really so much threads as they are trees. Except that they don't really have leaves, or multiple branching roots; usually some lines of discussion will just sort of die off after everyone gets tired of them. This could take anywhere from hours to weeks, or even longer.
The term `topic drift' is often used in gentle reminders that the discussion has strayed off any useful track. "I think we started with a question about Niven's last book, but we've ended up discussing the sexual habits of the common marmoset. Nowthat'stopic drift!"
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topic group
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TOPS-10
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topic drift
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topic groupn.
Syn.forum.
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TOPS-10
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TOPS-20
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topic group
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TOPS-10/tops-ten/ n.
DEC's proprietary OS for the fabledPDP-10machines, long a favorite of hackers but now effectively extinct. A fountain of hacker folklore; see Appendix A. See alsoITS,TOPS-20,TWENEX,VMS,operating system. TOPS-10 was sometimes called BOTS-10 (from `bottoms-ten') as a comment on the inappropriateness of describing it as the top of anything.
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TOPS-20
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tourist
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TOPS-20/tops-twen'tee/ n.
SeeTWENEX.
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tourist
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tourist information
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TOPS-20
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touristn.
1. [ITS] A guest on the system, especially one who generally logs in over a network from a remote location forcomm mode, email, games, and other trivial purposes. One step belowluser. ITS hackers often used to spell thisturist, perhaps by some sort of tenuous analogy withluser(this usage may also have expressed the ITS culture's penchant for six-letterisms, and-or been some sort of tribute to Alan Turing). Comparetwink,lurker,read-only user. 2. [IRC] AnIRCuser who goes from channel to channel without saying anything; seechannel hopping.