WhatIs

/kə-ˈnekt'r kən-ˈspir-ə-sē/

[probably came into prominence with the appearance of the KL-10 (one model of the PDP-10), none of whose connectors matched anything else]

/kän-dəm/

n. 1. The protective plastic bag that accompanies 3.5-inch microfloppy diskettes. Rarely, also used of (paper) disk envelopes. Unlike the write protect tab, the condom (when left on) not only impedes the practice of SEX but has also been shown to have a high failure rate as drive mechanisms attempt to access the disk -- and can even fatally frustrate insertion.

2. The protective cladding on a light pipe.

/kən-ˈdi-shən au̇t/

vt. To prevent a section of code from being compiled by surrounding it with a conditional-compilation directive whose condition is always false. The canonical examples are '#if 0' (or '#ifdef notdef', though some find this bletcherous) and '#endif' in C.

Compare comment out.

/kom'pyoo-tron'/

n. 1. A notional unit of computing power combining instruction speed and storage capacity, dimensioned roughly in instructions-per-second times megabytes-of-main-store times megabytes-of-mass-storage.

"That machine can't run GNU EMACS, it doesn't have enough computrons!"

This usage is usually found in metaphors that treat computing power as a fungible commodity good, like a crop yield or diesel horsepower.

/kəm-ˈpyü-tər gēk/

n. One who eats (computer) bugs for a living. One who fulfills all the dreariest negative stereotypes about hackers: an asocial, malodorous, pasty-faced monomaniac with all the personality of a cheese grater. Cannot be used by outsiders without implied insult to all hackers; compare black-on-black usage of 'nigger'. A computer geek may be either a fundamentally clueless individual or a proto-hacker in larval stage. Also called 'turbo nerd', 'turbo geek'.

/kəm-ˈpyü-tər kən-ˈfe-tē/

n. Syn. chad. Though this term is common, this use of the punched-card chad is not a good idea, as the pieces are stiff and have sharp corners that could injure the eyes. GLS reports that he once attended a wedding at MIT during which he and a few other guests enthusiastically threw chad instead of rice. The groom later grumbled that he and his bride had spent most of the evening trying to get the stuff out of their hair.

/kəmˈpjuːtər/

A "Computer" is a sophisticated electronic device designed to process and manipulate information. Its primary purpose is to execute tasks with remarkable speed and accuracy, surpassing human capabilities in various computational aspects.

The heart of a computer is its central processing unit (CPU), responsible for executing instructions and performing calculations. The CPU interacts with memory, where data and instructions are stored temporarily, and other peripheral devices to achieve specific tasks.

/compu$erve/

n. See CI$.

/kəm-ˈpres/

[UNIX]

vt. When used without a qualifier, generally refers to crunching of a file using a particular C implementation of Lempel-Ziv compression by James A. Woods et al. and widely circulated via USENET. Use of crunch itself in this sense is rare among UNIX hackers.

/kəm-ˈpī-lər jäk/

n. See jock (sense 2).