WhatIs

/täpz-twen-tē/

n. See TWENEX.

/täpz-ten/

n. DEC's proprietary OS for the fabled PDP-10 machines, long a favorite of hackers but now effectively extinct. A fountain of hacker folklore; see appendix A.

See also ITS, TOPS-20, TWENEX, VMS, operating system.

TOPS-10 was sometimes called BOTS-10 (from 'bottoms-ten') as a comment on the inappropriateness of describing it as the top of anything.

/tä-pik grüp/

n. Syn. forum.

/tä-pik drift/

n. Term used on GEnie, USENET and other electronic fora to describe the tendency of a thread to drift away from the original subject of discussion (and thus, from the Subject header of the originating message), or the results of that tendency. Often used in gentle reminders that the discussion has strayed off any useful track.

"I think we started with a question about Niven's last book, but we've ended up discussing the sexual habits of the common marmoset. Now *that's* topic drift!"

/tül-smith/

n. The software equivalent of a tool-and-die specialist; one who specializes in making the tools with which other programmers create applications.

See also uninteresting.

/tül/

1. n. A program used primarily to create, manipulate, modify, or analyze other programs, such as a compiler or an editor or a cross-referencing program.

Oppose app, operating system.

2. [UNIX] An application program with a simple, 'transparent' (typically text-stream) interface designed specifically to be used in programmed combination with other tools (see filter).

/tä-gəl/

vt. To change a bit from whatever state it is in to the other state; to change from 1 to 0 or from 0 to 1. This comes from 'toggle switches', such as standard light switches, though the word 'toggle' actually refers to the mechanism that keeps the switch in the position to which it is flipped rather than to the fact that the switch has two positions. There are four things you can do to a bit: set it (force it to be 1), clear (or zero) it, leave it alone, or toggle it.

/tō-print/

n. A footprint of especially small size.

/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."

/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."