bboard/bee'bord/ n.
[contraction of `bulletin board'] 1. Any electronic bulletin board; esp. used ofBBSsystems running on personal micros, less frequently of a Usenetnewsgroup(in fact, use of this term for a newsgroup generally marks one either as anewbiefresh in from the BBS world or as a real old-timer predating Usenet). 2. At CMU and other colleges with similar facilities, refers to campus-wide electronic bulletin boards. 3. The term `physical bboard' is sometimes used to refer to an old-fashioned, non-electronic cork-and-thumbtack memo board. At CMU, it refers to a particular one outside the CS Lounge.
In either of senses 1 or 2, the term is usually prefixed by the name of the intended board (`the Moonlight Casino bboard' or `market bboard'); however, if the context is clear, the better-read bboards may be referred to by name alone, as in (at CMU) "Don't post for-sale ads on general".
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BBS/B-B-S/ n.
[common; abbreviation, `Bulletin Board System'] An electronic bulletin board system; that is, a message database where people can log in and leave broadcast messages for others grouped (typically) intotopic groups. The term was especially applied to the thousands of local BBS systems that operated during the pre-Internet microcomputer era of roughly 1980 to 1995, typically run by amateurs for fun out of their homes on MS-DOS boxes with a single modem line each. Fans of Usenet and Internet or the big commercial timesharing bboards such as CompuServe and GEnie tended to consider local BBSes the low-rent district of the hacker culture, but they served a valuable function by knitting together lots of hackers and users in the personal-micro world who would otherwise have been unable to exchange code at all. Post-Internet, BBSs are likely to be local newsgroups on an ISP; efficiency has increased but a certain flavor has been lost. See alsobboard.
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BCPL// n.
[abbreviation, `Basic Combined Programming Language') A programming language developed by Martin Richards in Cambridge in 1967. It is remarkable for its rich syntax, small size of compiler (it can be run in 16k) and extreme portability. It reached break-even point at a very early stage, and was the language in which the originalhello worldprogram was written. It has been ported to so many different systems that its creator confesses to having lost count. It has only one data type (a machine word) which can be used as an integer, a character, a floating point number, a pointer, or almost anything else, depending on context. BCPL was a precursor of C, which inherited some of its features.
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beamvt.
[from Star Trek Classic's "Beam me up, Scotty!"] 1. To transfersoftcopyof a file electronically; most often in combining forms such as `beam me a copy' or `beam that over to his site'. 2. Palm Pilot users very commonly use this term for the act of exchanging bits via the infrared links on their machines (this term seems to have originated with the ill-fated Newton Message Pad). Compareblast,snarf,BLT.
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beanie keyn.
[Mac users] Seecommand key.
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beepn.,v.
Syn.feep. This term is techspeak under MS-DOS and OS/2, and seems to be generally preferred among micro hobbyists.
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Befungen.
A worthy companion toINTERCAL; a computer language family which escapes the quotidian limitation of linear control flow and embraces program counters flying through multiple dimensions with exotic topologies. Sadly, the Befunge home page has vanished, but a Befunge version of thehello worldprogram is athttp://www.catseye.mb.ca/esoteric/befunge.html.
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beige toastern.
A Macintosh. Seetoaster; compareMacintrash,maggotbox.
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bells and whistlesn.
[common] Features added to a program or system to make it moreflavorfulfrom a hacker's point of view, without necessarily adding to its utility for its primary function. Distinguished fromchrome, which is intended to attract users. "Now that we've got the basic program working, let's go back and add some bells and whistles." No one seems to know what distinguishes a bell from a whistle. The recognized emphatic form is "bells, whistles, and gongs".
It used to be thought that this term derived from the toyboxes on theater organs. However, the "and gongs" strongly suggests a different origin, at sea. Before powered horns, ships routinely used bells, whistles, and gongs to signal each other over longer distances than voice can carry.
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bells whistles and gongsn.
A standard elaborated form ofbells and whistles; typically said with a pronounced and ironic accent on the `gongs'.
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benchmarkn.
[techspeak] An inaccurate measure of computer performance. "In the computer industry, there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and benchmarks." Well-known ones include Whetstone, Dhrystone, Rhealstone (seeh), the Gabriel LISP benchmarks (seegabriel), the SPECmark suite, and LINPACK. See alsomachoflops,MIPS,smoke and mirrors.
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Berkeley Quality Softwareadj.
(often abbreviated `BQS') Term used in a pejorative sense to refer to software that was apparently created by rather spaced-out hackers late at night to solve some unique problem. It usually has nonexistent, incomplete, or incorrect documentation, has been tested on at least two examples, and core dumps when anyone else attempts to use it. This term was frequently applied to early versions of thedbx(1)debugger. See alsoBerzerkeley.
Note to British and Commonwealth readers: that's /berk'lee/, not /bark'lee/ as in British Received Pronunciation.
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berklix/berk'liks/ n.,adj.
[contraction of `Berkeley Unix'] SeeBSD. Not used at Berkeley itself. May be more common amongsuits attempting to sound like cognoscenti than among hackers, who usually just say `BSD'.
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Berzerkeley/b*r-zer'klee/ n.
[from `berserk', via the name of a now-deceased record label; poss. originated by famed columnist Herb Caen] Humorous distortion of `Berkeley' used esp. to refer to the practices or products of theBSDUnix hackers. Seesoftware bloat,Missed'em-five,Berkeley Quality Software.
Mainstream use of this term in reference to the cultural and political peculiarities of UC Berkeley as a whole has been reported from as far back as the 1960s.
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beta/bay't*/, /be't*/ or (Commonwealth) /bee't*/ n.
1. Mostly working, but still under test; usu. used with `in': `in beta'. In theReal World, systems (hardware or software) software often go through two stages of release testing: Alpha (in-house) and Beta (out-house?). Beta releases are generally made to a group of lucky (or unlucky) trusted customers. 2. Anything that is new and experimental. "His girlfriend is in beta" means that he is still testing for compatibility and reserving judgment. 3. Flaky; dubious; suspect (since beta software is notoriously buggy).
Historical note: More formally, to beta-test is to test a pre-release (potentially unreliable) version of a piece of software by making it available to selected (or self-selected) customers and users. This term derives from early 1960s terminology for product cycle checkpoints, first used at IBM but later standard throughout the industry. `Alpha Test' was the unit, module, or component test phase; `Beta Test' was initial system test. These themselves came from earlier A- and B-tests for hardware. The A-test was a feasibility and manufacturability evaluation done before any commitment to design and development. The B-test was a demonstration that the engineering model functioned as specified. The C-test (corresponding to today's beta) was the B-test performed on early samples of the production design, and the D test was the C test repeated after the model had been in production a while.
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BFI/B-F-I/ n.
Seebrute force and ignorance. Also encountered in the variants `BFMI', `brute force andmassiveignorance' and `BFBI' `brute force and bloody ignorance'. In dome parts of the U.S. this abbreviation was probably reinforced by a company called Browning-Ferris Industries who used to be in the waste-management business; a large BFI logo in white-on-blue could be seen on the sides of garbage trucks.
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biblen.
1. One of a small number of fundamental source books such asKnuth,K&R, or theCamel Book. 2. The most detailed and authoritative reference for a particular language, operating system, or other complex software system.
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BiCapitalizationn.
The act said to have been performed on trademarks (such asPostScript, NeXT,NeWS, VisiCalc, FrameMaker, TK!solver, EasyWriter) that have been raised above the ruck of common coinage by nonstandard capitalization. Too manymarketroidtypes think this sort of thing is really cute, even the 2,317th time they do it. Comparestudlycaps.
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B1FF/bif/ [Usenet] (alt. `BIFF') n.
The most famouspseudo, and the prototypicalnewbie. Articles from B1FF feature all uppercase letters sprinkled liberally with bangs, typos, `cute' misspellings (EVRY BUDY LUVS GOOD OLD BIFF CUZ HE"S A K00L DOOD AN HE RITES REEL AWESUM THINGZ IN CAPITULL LETTRS LIKE THIS!!!), use (and often misuse) of fragments oftalk modeabbreviations, a longsig block(sometimes even adoubled sig), and unbounded naivete. B1FF posts articles using his elder brother's VIC-20. B1FF's location is a mystery, as his articles appear to come from a variety of sites. However,BITNETseems to be the most frequent origin. The theory that B1FF is a denizen of BITNET is supported by B1FF's (unfortunately invalid) electronic mail address: B1FF@BIT.NET.
[1993: Now It Can Be Told! My spies inform me that B1FF was
originally created by Joe Talmadge
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BI//
Common written abbreviation forBreidbart Index.
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biff/bif/ vt.
To notify someone of incoming mail. From the BSD utilitybiff(1), which was in turn named after a friendly dog who used to chase frisbees in the halls at UCB while 4.2BSD was in development. There was a legend that it had a habit of barking whenever the mailman came, but the author ofbiffsays this is not true. No relation toB1FF.
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Big Gray Walln.
What faces aVMSuser searching for documentation. A full VMS kit comes on a pallet, the documentation taking up around 15 feet of shelf space before the addition of layered products such as compilers, databases, multivendor networking, and programming tools. Recent (since VMS version 5) documentation comes with gray binders; under VMS version 4 the binders were orange (`big orange wall'), and under version 3 they were blue. SeeVMS. Often contracted to `Gray Wall'.
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big ironn.
[common] Large, expensive, ultra-fast computers. Used generally ofnumber-crunchingsupercomputers such as Crays, but can include more conventional big commercial IBMish mainframes. Term of approval; compareheavy metal, opposedinosaur.
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Big Red Switchn.
[IBM] The power switch on a computer, esp. the `Emergency Pull' switch on an IBMmainframeor the power switch on an IBM PC where it really is large and red. "This !@%$%bitty boxis hung again; time to hit the Big Red Switch." Sources at IBM report that, in tune with the company's passion forTLAs, this is often abbreviated as `BRS' (this has also become established on FidoNet and in the PCcloneworld). It is alleged that the emergency pull switch on an IBM 360/91 actually fired a non-conducting bolt into the main power feed; the BRSes on more recent mainframes physically drop a block into place so that they can't be pushed back in. People get fired for pulling them, especially inappropriately (see alsomolly-guard). Comparepower cycle,three-finger salute,120 reset; see alsoscram switch.
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Big Roomn.
(Also `Big Blue Room') The extremely large room with the blue ceiling and intensely bright light (during the day) or black ceiling with lots of tiny night-lights (during the night) found outside all computer installations. "He can't come to the phone right now, he's somewhere out in the Big Room."
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big winn.
1. [common] Major success. 2. [MIT] Serendipity. "Yes, those two physicists discovered high-temperature superconductivity in a batch of ceramic that had been prepared incorrectly according to their experimental schedule. Small mistake; big win!" Seewin big.