WhatIs

/I-T-S/

n. 

/ī(-ə)rnməŋ-gər/

[IBM] n. Derogatory. A hardware specialist.

Compare sandbender, polygon pusher.

/ī(-ə)rn bäks/

[UNIX/Internet]

n. A special environment set up to trap a cracker logging in over remote connections long enough to be traced. May include a modified shell restricting the hacker's movements in unobvious ways, and 'bait' files designed to keep him interested and logged on.

/ī(-ə)rn āj/

n. In the history of computing, 1961-1971 -- the formative era of commercial mainframe technology, when big iron dinosaurs ruled the earth. These began with the delivery of the first PDP-1, coincided with the dominance of ferrite {core}, and ended with the introduction of the first commercial microprocessor (the Intel 4004) in 1971.

See also Stone Age; compare elder days.

/ī(-ə)rn/

n. Hardware, especially older and larger hardware of mainframe class with big metal cabinets housing relatively low-density electronics (but the term is also used of modern supercomputers). Often in the phrase big iron.

Oppose silicon.

See also dinosaur.

/in-tə-ˈrəpts läk'd au̇t/

When someone is ignoring you. In a restaurant, after several fruitless attempts to get the waitress's attention, a hacker might well observe "She must have interrupts locked out". The synonym 'interrupts disabled' is also common. Variations of this abound; "to have one's interrupt mask bit set" or "interrupts masked out" is also heard.

See also spl.

/in-tə-ˈrəpt list, t͟hə/

[MS-DOS]

n. The list of all known software interrupt calls (both documented and undocumented) for IBM PCs and compatibles, maintained and made available for free redistribution by Ralf Brown (ralf@cs.cmu.edu). As of early 1991, it had grown to approximately a megabyte in length.

/in-tə-ˈrəpt/

1. [techspeak] n. On a computer, an event that interrupts normal processing and temporarily diverts flow-of-control through an "interrupt handler" routine.

See also trap.

2. interj. A request for attention from a hacker. Often explicitly spoken.

"Interrupt -- have you seen Joe recently?"

See priority interrupt.

/in-tər-ˌnet ə-ˈdres/

n. 1. [techspeak] An absolute network address of the form foo@bar.baz, where foo is a user name, bar is a sitename, and baz is a 'domain' name, possibly including periods itself. Contrast with bang path; see also network, the and network address. All Internet machines and most UUCP sites can now resolve these addresses, thanks to a large amount of behind-the-scenes magic and PD software written since 1980 or so.

/in-t(ə-)rə-stiŋ/

adj. In hacker parlance, this word has strong connotations of 'annoying', or 'difficult', or both. Hackers relish a challenge, and enjoy wringing all the irony possible out of the ancient Chinese curse

"May you live in interesting times".

Oppose trivial, uninteresting.