WhatIs

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/tōst-ər/

n. 1. The archetypal really stupid application for an embedded microprocessor controller; often used in comments that imply that a scheme is inappropriate technology (but see elevator controller).

"DWIM for 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."

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/tōst/

1. 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 the firewall machine again."

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/tü ā fərst ə-präk-sə-mā-shən/

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.

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/T-M-R-C/

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 which became basics of the hackish vocabulary (see esp. foo and frob).

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/T-L-A/

[Three-Letter Acronym]

n. 1. Self-describing acronym 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.

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/titz ȯn ā kē-bȯrd/

n. Small bumps on certain keycaps to keep touch-typists registered (usually on the 5 of a numeric keypad, and on the F and J of a QWERTY keyboard).

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/tī(-ə)rd ī(-ə)rn/

[IBM]

n. 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 a dinosaur.

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/tip əv t͟hə īs-kyüb/

[IBM]

n. 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 actually nontrivial.

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/tī-nē-krəd/

n. A pejorative used by habitues of older game-oriented MUD versions for TinyMUDs and other user-extensible MUD variants; esp. common among users of the rather violent and competitive AberMUD and MIST systems. These people justify the slur on the basis of how (allegedly) inconsistent and lacking in genuine atmosphere the scenarios generated in user extensible MUDs can be. Other common knocks on them are that they feature little overall plot, bad game topology, little competitive interaction, etc.