WhatIs

/twi-dᵊl/

n. 1. Tilde (ASCII 1111110, '~'). Also called 'squiggle', 'sqiggle' (sic -- pronounced /skig'l/), and 'twaddle', but twiddle is the most common term.

2. A small and insignificant change to a program. Usually fixes one bug and generates several new ones.

/twe-neks/

n. The TOPS-20 operating system by DEC -- the second proprietary OS for the PDP-10 -- preferred by most PDP-10 hackers over TOPS-10 (that is, by those who were not ITS or WAITS partisans). TOPS-20 began in 1969 as Bolt, Beranek & Newman's TENEX operating system using special paging hardware. By the early 1970s, almost all of the systems on the ARPANET ran TENEX. DEC purchased the rights to TENEX from BBN and began work to make it their own.

/twēk/

vt. 1. To change slightly, usually in reference to a value. Also used synonymously with twiddle. If a program is almost correct, rather than figure out the precise problem you might just keep tweaking it until it works.

See frobnicate and fudge factor; also see shotgun debugging.

2. To tune or bum a program; preferred usage in the U.K.

/tu̇r-ist/

n. Var. sp. of tourist, q.v. Also in adjectival form, turistic. Poss. influenced by luser and Turing.

/tər-bō nərd/

n. See computer geek.

/tün/

[from automotive or musical usage]

vt. To optimize a program or system for a particular environment, esp. by adjusting numerical parameters designed as hooks for tuning, e.g., by changing '#define' lines in C. One may 'tune for time' (fastest execution), 'tune for space' (least memory use), or 'tune for configuration' (most efficient use of hardware).

See bum, hot spot, hand-hacking.

/tü-nəfish/

n. In hackish lore, refers to the mutated punchline of an age-old joke to be found at the bottom of the manual pages of 'tunefs(8)' in the original BSD 4.2 distribution. The joke was removed in later releases once commercial sites started developing in 4.2. Tunefs relates to the 'tuning' of file-system parameters for optimum performance, and at the bottom of a few pages of wizardly inscriptions was a 'BUGS' section consisting of the line "You can tune a file system, but you can't tunafish".

/tyüb tīm/

n. Time spent at a terminal or console. More inclusive than hacking time; commonly used in discussions of what parts of one's environment one uses most heavily.

"I find I'm spending too much of my tube time reading mail since I started this revision."

/tyüb/

1. n. A CRT terminal. Never used in the mainstream sense of TV; real hackers don't watch TV, except for Loony Toons, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Trek Classic, the Simpsons, and the occasional cheesy old swashbuckler movie (see appendix B).

2. [IBM] To send a copy of something to someone else's terminal.

"Tube me that note?"

/T-T-Y/, /tit'ee/

[UNIX | ITS, but some UNIX people say it this way as well; this pronunciation is not considered to have sexual undertones]

n. 1. A terminal of the teletype variety, characterized by a noisy mechanical printer, a very limited character set, and poor print quality. Usage: antiquated (like the TTYs themselves).

See also bit-paired keyboard.

2. [especially UNIX] Any terminal at all; sometimes used to refer to the particular terminal controlling a given job.