Books: The New Hacker\'s Dictionary version 4.2.2

V >> Various editors >> The New Hacker\'s Dictionary version 4.2.2

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::= | "."

::=

[]
|

::= []

::= ","

This translates into English as: "A postal-address consists of a
name-part, followed by a street-address part, followed by a zip-code
part. A personal-part consists of either a first name or an initial
followed by a dot. A name-part consists of either: a personal-part
followed by a last name followed by an optional `jr-part' (Jr., Sr.,
or dynastic number) and end-of-line, or a personal part followed by a
name part (this rule illustrates the use of recursion in BNFs,
covering the case of people who use multiple first and middle names
and/or initials). A street address consists of an optional apartment
specifier, followed by a street number, followed by a street name. A
zip-part consists of a town-name, followed by a comma, followed by a
state code, followed by a ZIP-code followed by an end-of-line." Note
that many things (such as the format of a personal-part, apartment
specifier, or ZIP-code) are left unspecified. These are presumed to be
obvious from context or detailed somewhere nearby. See also
[1636]parse. 2. Any of a number of variants and extensions of BNF
proper, possibly containing some or all of the [1637]regexp wildcards
such as * or +. In fact the example above isn't the pure form invented
for the Algol-60 report; it uses [], which was introduced a few years
later in IBM's PL/I definition but is now universally recognized. 3.
In [1638]science-fiction fandom, a `Big-Name Fan' (someone famous or
notorious). Years ago a fan started handing out black-on-green BNF
buttons at SF conventions; this confused the hacker contingent
terribly.
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Node:boa, Next:[1639]board, Previous:[1640]BNF, Up:[1641]= B =

boa [IBM] n.

Any one of the fat cables that lurk under the floor in a
[1642]dinosaur pen. Possibly so called because they display a
ferocious life of their own when you try to lay them straight and flat
after they have been coiled for some time. It is rumored within IBM
that channel cables for the 370 are limited to 200 feet because beyond
that length the boas get dangerous -- and it is worth noting that one
of the major cable makers uses the trademark `Anaconda'.
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board n.

1. In-context synonym for [1646]bboard; sometimes used even for Usenet
newsgroups (but see usage note under [1647]bboard, sense 1). 2. An
electronic circuit board.
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Node:boat anchor, Next:[1648]bob, Previous:[1649]board, Up:[1650]= B =

boat anchor n.

[common; from ham radio] 1. Like [1651]doorstop but more severe;
implies that the offending hardware is irreversibly dead or useless.
"That was a working motherboard once. One lightning strike later,
instant boat anchor!" 2. A person who just takes up space. 3. Obsolete
but still working hardware, especially when used of an old S100-bus
hobbyist system; originally a term of annoyance, but became more and
more affectionate as the hardware became more and more obsolete.
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Node:bob, Next:[1652]bodysurf code, Previous:[1653]boat anchor,
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bob n.

At [1655]Demon Internet, all tech support personnel are called "Bob".
(Female support personnel have an option on "Bobette"). This has
nothing to do with Bob the divine drilling-equipment salesman of the
[1656]Church of the SubGenius. Nor is it acronymized from "Brother Of
[1657]BOFH", though all parties agree it could have been. Rather, it
was triggered by an unusually large draft of new tech-support people
in 1995. It was observed that there would be much duplication of
names. To ease the confusion, it was decided that all support techs
would henceforth be known as "Bob", and identity badges were created
labelled "Bob 1" and "Bob 2". ("No, we never got any further" reports
a witness).

The reason for "Bob" rather than anything else is due to a [1658]luser
calling and asking to speak to "Bob", despite the fact that no "Bob"
was currently working for Tech Support. Since we all know "the
customer is always right", it was decided that there had to be at
least one "Bob" on duty at all times, just in case.

This sillyness inexorably snowballed. Shift leaders and managers began
to refer to their groups of "bobs". Whole ranks of support machines
were set up (and still exist in the DNS as of 1999) as bob1 through
bobN. Then came alt.tech-support.recovery, and it was filled with
Demon support personnel. They all referred to themselves, and to
others, as `bob', and after a while it caught on. There is now a
[1659]Bob Code describing the Bob nature.
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Node:bodysurf code, Next:[1660]BOF, Previous:[1661]bob, Up:[1662]= B =

bodysurf code n.

A program or segment of code written quickly in the heat of
inspiration without the benefit of formal design or deep thought. Like
its namesake sport, the result is too often a wipeout that leaves the
programmer eating sand.
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Node:BOF, Next:[1663]BOFH, Previous:[1664]bodysurf code, Up:[1665]= B
=

BOF /B-O-F/ or /bof/ n.

1. [common] Abbreviation for the phrase "Birds Of a Feather" (flocking
together), an informal discussion group and/or bull session scheduled
on a conference program. It is not clear where or when this term
originated, but it is now associated with the USENIX conferences for
Unix techies and was already established there by 1984. It was used
earlier than that at DECUS conferences and is reported to have been
common at SHARE meetings as far back as the early 1960s. 2. Acronym,
`Beginning of File'.
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BOFH // n.

[common] Acronym, Bastard Operator From Hell. A system administrator
with absolutely no tolerance for [1669]lusers. "You say you need more
filespace? Seems to me you have plenty
left..." Many BOFHs (and others who would be BOFHs if they could get
away with it) hang out in the newsgroup alt.sysadmin.recovery,
although there has also been created a top-level newsgroup hierarchy
(bofh.*) of their own.

Several people have written stories about BOFHs. The set usually
considered canonical is by Simon Travaglia and may be found at the
[1670]Bastard Home Page. BOFHs and BOFH wannabes hang out on
[1671]scary devil monastery and wield [1672]LARTs.
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Node:bogo-sort, Next:[1673]bogometer, Previous:[1674]BOFH, Up:[1675]=
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bogo-sort /boh`goh-sort'/ n.

(var. `stupid-sort') The archetypical perversely awful algorithm (as
opposed to [1676]bubble sort, which is merely the generic bad
algorithm). Bogo-sort is equivalent to repeatedly throwing a deck of
cards in the air, picking them up at random, and then testing whether
they are in order. It serves as a sort of canonical example of
awfulness. Looking at a program and seeing a dumb algorithm, one might
say "Oh, I see, this program uses bogo-sort." Esp. appropriate for
algorithms with factorial or super-exponential running time in the
average case and probabilistically infinite worst-case running time.
Compare [1677]bogus, [1678]brute force, [1679]lasherism.

A spectacular variant of bogo-sort has been proposed which has the
interesting property that, if the Many Worlds interpretation of
quantum mechanics is true, it can sort an arbitrarily large array in
constant time. (In the Many-Worlds model, the result of any quantum
action is to split the universe-before into a sheaf of
universes-after, one for each possible way the state vector can
collapse; in any one of the universes-after the result appears
random.) The steps are: 1. Permute the array randomly using a quantum
process, 2. If the array is not sorted, destroy the universe.
Implementation of step 2 is left as an exercise for the reader.
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Node:bogometer, Next:[1680]BogoMIPS, Previous:[1681]bogo-sort,
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bogometer /boh-gom'-*t-er/ n.

A notional instrument for measuring [1683]bogosity. Compare the
[1684]Troll-O-Meter and the `wankometer' described in the [1685]wank
entry; see also [1686]bogus.
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Node:BogoMIPS, Next:[1687]bogon, Previous:[1688]bogometer, Up:[1689]=
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BogoMIPS /bo'go-mips/ n.

The number of million times a second a processor can do absolutely
nothing. The [1690]Linux OS measures BogoMIPS at startup in order to
calibrate some soft timing loops that will be used later on; details
at [1691]the BogoMIPS mini-HOWTO. The name Linus chose, of course, is
an ironic comment on the uselessness of all other [1692]MIPS figures.
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Node:bogon, Next:[1693]bogon filter, Previous:[1694]BogoMIPS,
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bogon /boh'gon/ n.

[very common; by analogy with proton/electron/neutron, but doubtless
reinforced after 1980 by the similarity to Douglas Adams's `Vogons';
see the [1696]Bibliography in Appendix C and note that Arthur Dent
actually mispronounces `Vogons' as `Bogons' at one point] 1. The
elementary particle of bogosity (see [1697]quantum bogodynamics). For
instance, "the Ethernet is emitting bogons again" means that it is
broken or acting in an erratic or bogus fashion. 2. A query packet
sent from a TCP/IP domain resolver to a root server, having the reply
bit set instead of the query bit. 3. Any bogus or incorrectly formed
packet sent on a network. 4. By synecdoche, used to refer to any bogus
thing, as in "I'd like to go to lunch with you but I've got to go to
the weekly staff bogon". 5. A person who is bogus or who says bogus
things. This was historically the original usage, but has been
overtaken by its derivative senses 1-4. See also [1698]bogosity,
[1699]bogus; compare [1700]psyton, [1701]fat electrons, [1702]magic
smoke.

The bogon has become the type case for a whole bestiary of nonce
particle names, including the `clutron' or `cluon' (indivisible
particle of cluefulness, obviously the antiparticle of the bogon) and
the futon (elementary particle of [1703]randomness, or sometimes of
lameness). These are not so much live usages in themselves as examples
of a live meta-usage: that is, it has become a standard joke or
linguistic maneuver to "explain" otherwise mysterious circumstances by
inventing nonce particle names. And these imply nonce particle
theories, with all their dignity or lack thereof (we might note
parenthetically that this is a generalization from "(bogus particle)
theories" to "bogus (particle theories)"!). Perhaps such particles are
the modern-day equivalents of trolls and wood-nymphs as standard
starting-points around which to construct explanatory myths. Of
course, playing on an existing word (as in the `futon') yields
additional flavor. Compare [1704]magic smoke.
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bogon filter /boh'gon fil'tr/ n.

Any device, software or hardware, that limits or suppresses the flow
and/or emission of bogons. "Engineering hacked a bogon filter between
the Cray and the VAXen, and now we're getting fewer dropped packets."
See also [1708]bogosity, [1709]bogus.
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bogon flux /boh'gon fluhks/ n.

A measure of a supposed field of [1713]bogosity emitted by a speaker,
measured by a [1714]bogometer; as a speaker starts to wander into
increasing bogosity a listener might say "Warning, warning, bogon flux
is rising". See [1715]quantum bogodynamics.
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Node:bogosity, Next:[1716]bogotify, Previous:[1717]bogon flux,
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bogosity /boh-go's*-tee/ n.

1. [orig. CMU, now very common] The degree to which something is
[1719]bogus. Bogosity is measured with a [1720]bogometer; in a
seminar, when a speaker says something bogus, a listener might raise
his hand and say "My bogometer just triggered". More extremely, "You
just pinned my bogometer" means you just said or did something so
outrageously bogus that it is off the scale, pinning the bogometer
needle at the highest possible reading (one might also say "You just
redlined my bogometer"). The agreed-upon unit of bogosity is the
[1721]microLenat. 2. The potential field generated by a [1722]bogon
flux; see [1723]quantum bogodynamics. See also [1724]bogon flux,
[1725]bogon filter, [1726]bogus.
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bogotify /boh-go't*-fi:/ vt.

To make or become bogus. A program that has been changed so many times
as to become completely disorganized has become bogotified. If you
tighten a nut too hard and strip the threads on the bolt, the bolt has
become bogotified and you had better not use it any more. This coinage
led to the notional `autobogotiphobia' defined as `the fear of
becoming bogotified'; but is not clear that the latter has ever been
`live' jargon rather than a self-conscious joke in jargon about
jargon. See also [1730]bogosity, [1731]bogus.
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bogue out /bohg owt/ vi.

To become bogus, suddenly and unexpectedly. "His talk was relatively
sane until somebody asked him a trick question; then he bogued out and
did nothing but [1735]flame afterwards." See also [1736]bogosity,
[1737]bogus.
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Node:bogus, Next:[1738]Bohr bug, Previous:[1739]bogue out, Up:[1740]=
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bogus adj.

1. Non-functional. "Your patches are bogus." 2. Useless. "OPCON is a
bogus program." 3. False. "Your arguments are bogus." 4. Incorrect.
"That algorithm is bogus." 5. Unbelievable. "You claim to have solved
the halting problem for Turing Machines? That's totally bogus." 6.
Silly. "Stop writing those bogus sagas."

Astrology is bogus. So is a bolt that is obviously about to break. So
is someone who makes blatantly false claims to have solved a
scientific problem. (This word seems to have some, but not all, of the
connotations of [1741]random -- mostly the negative ones.)

It is claimed that `bogus' was originally used in the hackish sense at
Princeton in the late 1960s. It was spread to CMU and Yale by Michael
Shamos, a migratory Princeton alumnus. A glossary of bogus words was
compiled at Yale when the word was first popularized there about
1975-76. These coinages spread into hackerdom from CMU and MIT. Most
of them remained wordplay objects rather than actual vocabulary items
or live metaphors. Examples: `amboguous' (having multiple bogus
interpretations); `bogotissimo' (in a gloriously bogus manner);
`bogotophile' (one who is pathologically fascinated by the bogus);
`paleobogology' (the study of primeval bogosity).

Some bogowords, however, obtained sufficient live currency to be
listed elsewhere in this lexicon; see [1742]bogometer, [1743]bogon,
[1744]bogotify, and [1745]quantum bogodynamics and the related but
unlisted [1746]Dr. Fred Mbogo.

By the early 1980s `bogus' was also current in something like hacker
usage sense in West Coast teen slang, and it had gone mainstream by
1985. A correspondent from Cambridge reports, by contrast, that these
uses of `bogus' grate on British nerves; in Britain the word means,
rather specifically, `counterfeit', as in "a bogus 10-pound note".
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Bohr bug /bohr buhg/ n.

[from quantum physics] A repeatable [1750]bug; one that manifests
reliably under a possibly unknown but well-defined set of conditions.
Antonym of [1751]heisenbug; see also [1752]mandelbug,
[1753]schroedinbug.
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boink /boynk/

[Usenet: variously ascribed to the TV series "Cheers" "Moonlighting",
and "Soap"] 1. v. To have sex with; compare [1757]bounce, sense 3.
(This is mainstream slang.) In Commonwealth hackish the variant `bonk'
is more common. 2. n. After the original Peter Korn `Boinkon'
[1758]Usenet parties, used for almost any net social gathering, e.g.,
Miniboink, a small boink held by Nancy Gillett in 1988; Minniboink, a
Boinkcon in Minnesota in 1989; Humpdayboinks, Wednesday get-togethers
held in the San Francisco Bay Area. Compare [1759]@-party. 3. Var of
`bonk'; see [1760]bonk/oif.
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bomb

1. v. General synonym for [1764]crash (sense 1) except that it is not
used as a noun; esp. used of software or OS failures. "Don't run
Empire with less than 32K stack, it'll bomb." 2. n.,v. Atari ST and
Macintosh equivalents of a Unix `panic' or Amiga [1765]guru
meditation, in which icons of little black-powder bombs or mushroom
clouds are displayed, indicating that the system has died. On the Mac,
this may be accompanied by a decimal (or occasionally hexadecimal)
number indicating what went wrong, similar to the Amiga [1766]guru
meditation number. [1767]MS-DOS machines tend to get [1768]locked up
in this situation.
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bondage-and-discipline language n.

A language (such as [1772]Pascal, [1773]Ada, APL, or Prolog) that,
though ostensibly general-purpose, is designed so as to enforce an
author's theory of `right programming' even though said theory is
demonstrably inadequate for systems hacking or even vanilla
general-purpose programming. Often abbreviated `B&D'; thus, one may
speak of things "having the B&D nature". See [1774]Pascal; oppose
[1775]languages of choice.
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bonk/oif /bonk/, /oyf/ interj.

In the U.S. [1779]MUD community, it has become traditional to express
pique or censure by `bonking' the offending person. Convention holds
that one should acknowledge a bonk by saying `oif!' and there is a
myth to the effect that failing to do so upsets the cosmic bonk/oif
balance, causing much trouble in the universe. Some MUDs have
implemented special commands for bonking and oifing. Note: in parts of
the U.K. `bonk' is a sexually loaded slang term; care is advised in
transatlantic conversations (see [1780]boink). Commonwealth hackers
report a similar convention involving the `fish/bang' balance. See
also [1781]talk mode.
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book titles

There is a tradition in hackerdom of informally tagging important
textbooks and standards documents with the dominant color of their
covers or with some other conspicuous feature of the cover. Many of
these are described in this lexicon under their own entries. See
[1785]Aluminum Book, [1786]Blue Book, [1787]Camel Book,
[1788]Cinderella Book, [1789]Devil Book, [1790]Dragon Book,
[1791]Green Book, [1792]Orange Book, [1793]Purple Book, [1794]Red
Book, [1795]Silver Book, [1796]White Book, [1797]Wizard Book,
[1798]Yellow Book, and [1799]bible; see also [1800]rainbow series.
Since about 1983 this tradition has gotten a boost from the popular
O'Reilly and Associates line of technical books, which usually feature
some kind of exotic animal on the cover.
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boot v.,n.

[techspeak; from `by one's bootstraps'] To load and initialize the
operating system on a machine. This usage is no longer jargon (having
passed into techspeak) but has given rise to some derivatives that are
still jargon.

The derivative `reboot' implies that the machine hasn't been down for
long, or that the boot is a [1804]bounce (sense 4) intended to clear
some state of [1805]wedgitude. This is sometimes used of human thought
processes, as in the following exchange: "You've lost me." "OK,
reboot. Here's the theory...."

This term is also found in the variants `cold boot' (from power-off
condition) and `warm boot' (with the CPU and all devices already
powered up, as after a hardware reset or software crash).

Another variant: `soft boot', reinitialization of only part of a
system, under control of other software still running: "If you're
running the [1806]mess-dos emulator, control-alt-insert will cause a
soft-boot of the emulator, while leaving the rest of the system
running."

Opposed to this there is `hard boot', which connotes hostility towards
or frustration with the machine being booted: "I'll have to hard-boot
this losing Sun." "I recommend booting it hard." One often hard-boots
by performing a [1807]power cycle.

Historical note: this term derives from `bootstrap loader', a short
program that was read in from cards or paper tape, or toggled in from
the front panel switches. This program was always very short (great
efforts were expended on making it short in order to minimize the
labor and chance of error involved in toggling it in), but was just
smart enough to read in a slightly more complex program (usually from
a card or paper tape reader), to which it handed control; this program
in turn was smart enough to read the application or operating system
from a magnetic tape drive or disk drive. Thus, in successive steps,
the computer `pulled itself up by its bootstraps' to a useful
operating state. Nowadays the bootstrap is usually found in ROM or
EPROM, and reads the first stage in from a fixed location on the disk,
called the `boot block'. When this program gains control, it is
powerful enough to load the actual OS and hand control over to it.
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Borg n.

In "Star Trek: The Next Generation" the Borg is a species of cyborg
that ruthlessly seeks to incorporate all sentient life into itself;
their slogan is "You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile." In
hacker parlance, the Borg is usually [1811]Microsoft, which is thought
to be trying just as ruthlessly to assimilate all computers and the
entire Internet to itself (there is a widely circulated image of Bill
Gates as a Borg). Being forced to use Windows or NT is often referred
to as being "Borged". Interestingly, the [1812]Halloween Documents
reveal that this jargon is live within Microsoft itself. (Other
companies, notably Intel and UUNet, have also occasionally been
equated to the Borg.) See also [1813]Evil Empire, [1814]Internet
Exploiter.

In IETF circles, where direct pressure from Microsoft is not a daily
reality, the Borg is sometimes Cisco. This usage commemmorates their
tendency to pay any price to hire talent away from their competitors.
In fact, at the Spring 1997 IETF, a large number of ex-Cisco
employees, all former members of Routing Geeks, showed up with
t-shirts printed with "Recovering Borg".
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borken adj.

(also `borked') Common deliberate typo for `broken'.
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Node:bot, Next:[1818]bot spot, Previous:[1819]borken, Up:[1820]= B =

bot n

[common on IRC, MUD and among gamers; from `robot'] 1. An [1821]IRC or
[1822]MUD user who is actually a program. On IRC, typically the robot
provides some useful service. Examples are NickServ, which tries to
prevent random users from adopting [1823]nicks already claimed by
others, and MsgServ, which allows one to send asynchronous messages to
be delivered when the recipient signs on. Also common are `annoybots',
such as KissServ, which perform no useful function except to send cute
messages to other people. Service bots are less common on MUDs; but
some others, such as the `Julia' bot active in 1990-91, have been
remarkably impressive Turing-test experiments, able to pass as human
for as long as ten or fifteen minutes of conversation. 2. An
AI-controlled player in a computer game (especially a first-person
shooter such as Quake) which, unlike ordinary monsters, operates like
a human-controlled player, with access to a player's weapons and
abilities. An example can be found at
[1824]http://www.telefragged.com/thefatal/. 3. Term used, though less
commonly, for a web [1825]spider. The file for controlling spider
behavior on your site is officially the "Robots Exclusion File" and
its URL is "http:///robots.txt")

Note that bots in all senses were `robots' when the terms first
appeared in the early 1990s, but the shortened form is now habitual.
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bot spot n.

[MUD] The user on a MUD with the longest connect time. Derives from
the fact that [1829]bots on MUDS often stay constantly connected and
appear at the bottom of the list.
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bottom feeder n.

1. An Internet user that leeches off ISPs - the sort you can never
provide good enough services for, always complains about the price, no
matter how low it may be, and will bolt off to another service the
moment there is even the slimmest price difference. While most bottom
feeders infest free or almost free services such as AOL, MSN, and
Hotmail, too many flock to whomever happens to be the cheapest
regional ISP at the time. Bottom feeders are often the classic problem
user, known for unleashing spam, flamage, and other breaches of
[1833]netiquette. 2. Syn. for [1834]slopsucker, derived from the
fishermen's and naturalists' term for finny creatures who subsist on
the primordial ooze. (This sense is older.)
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bottom-up implementation n.

Hackish opposite of the techspeak term `top-down design'. It has been
received wisdom in most programming cultures that it is best to design
from higher levels of abstraction down to lower, specifying sequences
of action in increasing detail until you get to actual code. Hackers
often find (especially in exploratory designs that cannot be closely
specified in advance) that it works best to build things in the
opposite order, by writing and testing a clean set of primitive
operations and then knitting them together. Naively applied, this
leads to hacked-together bottom-up implementations; a more
sophisticated response is `middle-out implementation', in which
scratch code within primitives at the mid-level of the system is
gradually replaced with a more polished version of the lowest level at
the same time the structure above the midlevel is being built.
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Node:bounce, Next:[1838]bounce message, Previous:[1839]bottom-up
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bounce v.

1. [common; perhaps by analogy to a bouncing check] An electronic mail
message that is undeliverable and returns an error notification to the
sender is said to `bounce'. See also [1841]bounce message. 2.
[Stanford] To play volleyball. The now-demolished [1842]D. C. Power
Lab building used by the Stanford AI Lab in the 1970s had a volleyball
court on the front lawn. From 5 P.M. to 7 P.M. was the scheduled
maintenance time for the computer, so every afternoon at 5 would come
over the intercom the cry: "Now hear this: bounce, bounce!", followed
by Brian McCune loudly bouncing a volleyball on the floor outside the
offices of known volleyballers. 3. To engage in sexual intercourse;
prob. from the expression `bouncing the mattress', but influenced by
Roo's psychosexually loaded "Try bouncing me, Tigger!" from the
"Winnie-the-Pooh" books. Compare [1843]boink. 4. To casually reboot a
system in order to clear up a transient problem. Reported primarily
among [1844]VMS and [1845]Unix users. 5. [VM/CMS programmers]
Automatic warm-start of a machine after an error. "I logged on this
morning and found it had bounced 7 times during the night" 6. [IBM] To
[1846]power cycle a peripheral in order to reset it.
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Node:bounce message, Next:[1847]boustrophedon, Previous:[1848]bounce,
Up:[1849]= B =

bounce message n.

[common] Notification message returned to sender by a site unable to
relay [1850]email to the intended [1851]Internet address recipient or
the next link in a [1852]bang path (see [1853]bounce, sense 1).
Reasons might include a nonexistent or misspelled username or a
[1854]down relay site. Bounce messages can themselves fail, with
occasionally ugly results; see [1855]sorcerer's apprentice mode and
[1856]software laser. The terms `bounce mail' and `barfmail' are also
common.
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Node:boustrophedon, Next:[1857]box, Previous:[1858]bounce message,
Up:[1859]= B =

boustrophedon n.

[from a Greek word for turning like an ox while plowing] An ancient
method of writing using alternate left-to-right and right-to-left
lines. This term is actually philologists' techspeak and typesetters'
jargon. Erudite hackers use it for an optimization performed by some
computer typesetting software and moving-head printers. The adverbial
form `boustrophedonically' is also found (hackers purely love
constructions like this).
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Node:box, Next:[1860]boxed comments, Previous:[1861]boustrophedon,
Up:[1862]= B =

box n.

1. A computer; esp. in the construction `foo box' where foo is some
functional qualifier, like `graphics', or the name of an OS (thus,
`Unix box', `MS-DOS box', etc.) "We preprocess the data on Unix boxes
before handing it up to the mainframe." 2. [IBM] Without qualification
but within an SNA-using site, this refers specifically to an IBM
front-end processor or FEP /F-E-P/. An FEP is a small computer
necessary to enable an IBM [1863]mainframe to communicate beyond the
limits of the [1864]dinosaur pen. Typically used in expressions like
the cry that goes up when an SNA network goes down: "Looks like the
[1865]box has fallen over." (See [1866]fall over.) See also [1867]IBM,
[1868]fear and loathing, [1869]Blue Glue.
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Node:boxed comments, Next:[1870]boxen, Previous:[1871]box, Up:[1872]=
B =

boxed comments n.

Comments (explanatory notes attached to program instructions) that
occupy several lines by themselves; so called because in assembler and
C code they are often surrounded by a box in a style something like
this:

/*************************************************
*
* This is a boxed comment in C style
*
*************************************************/

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