The Hacker's Dictionary, - [best reads of all time .txt] 📗

a timing loop with the real-time clock; in other words, it figured out how fast the PDP-6 was that day, and corrected appropriately.

Compare {bit rot}.

:softwarily: /soft-weir'i-lee/ adv. In a way pertaining to software.

"The system is softwarily unreliable." The adjective `softwary' is not used. See {hardwarily}.

:softy: [IBM] n. Hardware hackers' term for a software expert who is largely ignorant of the mysteries of hardware.

:some random X: adj. Used to indicate a member of class X, with the implication that Xs are interchangeable. "I think some random cracker tripped over the guest timeout last night." See also {J. Random}.

:sorcerer's apprentice mode: [from Friedrich Schiller's `Der Zauberlehrling' via the film "Fantasia"] n. A bug in a protocol where, under some circumstances, the receipt of a message causes multiple messages to be sent, each of which, when received, triggers the same bug. Used esp. of such behavior caused by {bounce message} loops in {email} software. Compare {broadcast storm}, {network meltdown}.

:SOS: n.,obs. /S-O-S/ 1. An infamously {losing} text editor.

Once, back in the 1960s, when a text editor was needed for the PDP-6, a hacker crufted together a {quick-and-dirty} stopgap editor' to be used until a better one was written. Unfortunately, the old one was never really discarded when new ones (in particular, {TECO}) came along. SOS is a descendant (Son of Stopgap') of that editor, and many PDP-10 users gained the dubious pleasure of its acquaintance. Since then other programs similar in style to SOS have been written, notably the early font editor BILOS

/bye'lohs/, the Brother-In-Law Of Stopgap (the alternate expansion `Bastard Issue, Loins of Stopgap' has been proposed). 2. /sos/

n. To decrease; inverse of {AOS}, from the PDP-10 instruction set.

:source of all good bits: n. A person from whom (or a place from which) useful information may be obtained. If you need to know about a program, a {guru} might be the source of all good bits.

The title is often applied to a particularly competent secretary.

:space-cadet keyboard: n. A now-legendary device used on MIT LISP

machines, which inspired several still-current jargon terms and influenced the design of {EMACS}. It was equipped with no fewer than seven shift keys: four keys for {bucky bits}

(control',meta', hyper', andsuper') and three like regular shift keys, called shift',top', and front'. Many keys had three symbols on them: a letter and a symbol on the top, and a Greek letter on the front. For example, theL' key had an L' and a two-way arrow on the top, and the Greek letter lambda on the front. By pressing this key with the right hand while playing an appropriatechord' with the left hand on the shift keys, you can get the following results:

L lowercase l shift-L uppercase L front-L lowercase lambda front-shift-L uppercase lambda top-L two-way arrow (front and shift are ignored)

And of course each of these might also be typed with any combination of the control, meta, hyper, and super keys. On this keyboard, you could type over 8000 different characters! This allowed the user to type very complicated mathematical text, and also to have thousands of single-character commands at his disposal. Many hackers were actually willing to memorize the command meanings of that many characters if it reduced typing time (this attitude obviously shaped the interface of EMACS). Other hackers, however, thought having that many bucky bits was overkill, and objected that such a keyboard can require three or four hands to operate. See {bucky bits}, {cokebottle}, {double bucky}, {meta bit}, {quadruple bucky}.

Note: early versions of this entry incorrectly identified the space-cadet keyboard with the `Knight keyboard'. Though both were designed by Tom Knight, the latter term was properly applied only to a keyboard used for ITS on the PDP-10 and modeled on the Stanford keyboard (as described under {bucky bits}). The true space-cadet keyboard evolved from the Knight keyboard.

:SPACEWAR: n. A space-combat simulation game, inspired by E. E. "Doc" Smith's "Lensman" books, in which two spaceships duel around a central sun, shooting torpedoes at each other and jumping through hyperspace. This game was first implemented on the PDP-1 at MIT in 1960--61. SPACEWAR aficionados formed the core of the early hacker culture at MIT. Nine years later, a descendant of the game motivated Ken Thompson to build, in his spare time on a scavenged PDP-7, the operating system that became {{UNIX}}. Less than nine years after that, SPACEWAR was commercialized as one of the first video games; descendants are still {feep}ing in video arcades everywhere.

:spaghetti code: n. Code with a complex and tangled control structure, esp. one using many GOTOs, exceptions, or other unstructured' branching constructs. Pejorative. The synonymkangaroo code' has been reported, doubtless because such code has many jumps in it.

:spaghetti inheritance: n. [encountered among users of object-oriented languages that use inheritance, such as Smalltalk] A convoluted class-subclass graph, often resulting from carelessly deriving subclasses from other classes just for the sake of reusing their code. Coined in a (successful) attempt to discourage such practice, through guilt-by-association with {spaghetti code}.

:spam: [from the {MUD} community] vt. To crash a program by overrunning a fixed-size buffer with excessively large input data. See also {buffer overflow}, {overrun screw}, {smash the stack}.

:special-case: vt. To write unique code to handle input to or situations arising in program that are somehow distinguished from normal processing. This would be used for processing of mode switches or interrupt characters in an interactive interface (as opposed, say, to text entry or normal commands), or for processing of {hidden flag}s in the input of a batch program or {filter}.

:speedometer: n. A pattern of lights displayed on a linear set of LEDs (today) or nixie tubes (yesterday, on ancient mainframes).

The pattern is shifted left every N times the software goes through its main loop. A swiftly moving pattern indicates that the system is mostly idle; the speedometer slows down as the system becomes overloaded. The speedometer on Sun Microsystems hardware bounces back and forth like the eyes on one of the Cylons from the wretched "Battlestar Galactica" TV series.

Historical note: One computer, the Honeywell 6000 (later GE 600) actually had an analog speedometer on the front panel, calibrated in instructions executed per second.

:spell: n. Syn. {incantation}.

:spiffy: /spi'fee/ adj. 1. Said of programs having a pretty, clever, or exceptionally well-designed interface. "Have you seen the spiffy {X} version of {empire} yet?" 2. Said sarcastically of a program that is perceived to have little more than a flashy interface going for it. Which meaning should be drawn depends delicately on tone of voice and context. This word was common mainstream slang during the 1940s, in a sense close to #1.

:spike: v. To defeat a selection mechanism by introducing a (sometimes temporary) device which forces a specific result. The word is used in several industries; telephone engineers refer to spiking a relay by inserting a pin to hold the relay in either the closed or open state, and railroaders refer to spiking a track switch so that it cannot be moved. In programming environments it normally refers to a temporary change, usually for testing purposes (as opposed to a permanent change which would be called {hardwired}).

:spin: vi. Equivalent to {buzz}. More common among C and UNIX

programmers.

:spl: /S-P-L/ [abbrev, from Set Priority Level] The way traditional UNIX kernels implement mutual exclusion by running code at high interrupt levels. Used in jargon to describe the act of tuning in or tuning out ordinary communication. Classically, spl levels run from 1 to 7; "Fred's at spl 6 today." would mean that he is very hard to interrupt. "Wait till I finish this; I'll spl down then." See also {interrupts locked out}.

:splat: n. 1. Name used in many places (DEC, IBM, and others) for the asterisk (*') character (ASCII 0101010). This may derive from thesquashed-bug' appearance of the asterisk on many early line printers. 2. [MIT] Name used by some people for the `#' character (ASCII 0100011). 3. [Rochester Institute of Technology] The {feature key} on a Mac (same as {alt}, sense 2). 4. [Stanford] Name used by some people for the Stanford/ITS extended ASCII

circle-x

character. This character is also called blobby' andfrob', among other names; it is sometimes used by mathematicians as a notation for `tensor product'. 5. [Stanford] Name for the semi-mythical extended ASCII

circle-plus

character. 6. Canonical name for an output routine that outputs whatever the local interpretation of `splat' is.

With ITS and WAITS gone, senses 4--6 are now nearly obsolete. See also {{ASCII}}.

:spod: [Great Britain] n. A lower form of life found on {talker system}s and {MUD}s. The spod has few friends in {RL} and uses talkers instead, finding communication easier and preferable over the net. He has all the negative traits of the {computer geek} without having any interest in computers per se. Lacking any knowledge of or interest in how networks work, and considering his access a God-given right, he is a major irritant to sysadmins, clogging up lines in order to reach new MUDs, following passed-on instructions on how to sneak his way onto Internet ("Wow! It's in America!") and complaining when he is not allowed