| slovo | definícia |
runes
(encz) | runes,runy n: pl. Zdeněk Brož |
runes
(foldoc) | runes
1. Anything that requires heavy wizardry or black art to
parse: core dumps, JCL commands, APL or code in a
language you haven't a clue how to read. Not quite as bad as
line noise, but close.
Compare casting the runes, Great Runes.
2. Special display characters (for example, the high-half
graphics on an IBM PC).
[Jargon File]
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runes
(jargon) | runes
pl.n.
1. Anything that requires heavy wizardry or black art to parse: core
dumps, JCL commands, APL, or code in a language you haven't a clue how to
read. Not quite as bad as line noise, but close. Compare {casting the
runes}, Great Runes.
2. Special display characters (for example, the high-half graphics on an
IBM PC).
3. [borderline techspeak] 16-bit characters from the Unicode multilingual
character set.
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| | podobné slovo | definícia |
casting the runes
(foldoc) | casting the runes
What a guru does when you ask him or her to run a
particular program because it never works for anyone else;
especially used when nobody can ever see what the guru is
doing different from what J. Random Luser does.
Compare incantation, runes, examining the entrails; also
see the AI koan about Tom Knight.
(1997-12-26)
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great runes
(foldoc) | Great Runes
Uppercase-only text or display messages. Some archaic
operating systems still emit these.
See also runes, smash case, fold case.
Back in the days when it was the sole supplier of
long-distance hardcopy transmision devices, the {Teletype
Corporation} was faced with a major design choice. To shorten
code lengths and cut complexity in the printing mechanism, it
had been decided that teletypes would use a monocase
font, either ALL UPPER or all lower. The Question Of The
Day was therefore, which one to choose. A study was conducted
on readability under various conditions of bad ribbon, worn
print hammers, etc. Lowercase won; it is less dense and has
more distinctive letterforms, and is thus much easier to read
both under ideal conditions and when the letters are mangled
or partly obscured. The results were filtered up through
management. The chairman of Teletype killed the proposal
because it failed one incredibly important criterion:
"It would be impossible to spell the name of the Deity correctly."
In this way (or so, at least, hacker folklore has it)
superstition triumphed over utility. Teletypes were the
major input devices on most early computers, and terminal
manufacturers looking for corners to cut naturally followed
suit until well into the 1970s. Thus, that one bad call
stuck us with Great Runes for thirty years.
(1994-12-02)
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casting the runes
(jargon) | casting the runes
n.
What a guru does when you ask him or her to run a particular program and
type at it because it never works for anyone else; esp. used when nobody
can ever see what the guru is doing different from what J. Random Luser
does. Compare incantation, runes, examining the entrails; also see
the AI koan about Tom Knight in Some AI Koans (in Appendix A).
A correspondent from England tells us that one of ICL's most talented
systems designers used to be called out occasionally to service machines
which the field circus had given up on. Since he knew the design inside
out, he could often find faults simply by listening to a quick outline of
the symptoms. He used to play on this by going to some site where the field
circus had just spent the last two weeks solid trying to find a fault, and
spreading a diagram of the system out on a table top. He'd then shake some
chicken bones and cast them over the diagram, peer at the bones intently
for a minute, and then tell them that a certain module needed replacing.
The system would start working again immediately upon the replacement.
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great runes
(jargon) | Great Runes
n.
Uppercase-only text or display messages. Some archaic operating systems
still emit these. See also runes, smash case, fold case.
There is a widespread legend (repeated by earlier versions of this entry,
though tagged as folklore) that the uppercase-only support of various old
character codes and I/O equipment was chosen by a religious person in a
position of power at the Teletype Company because supporting both upper and
lower cases was too expensive and supporting lower case only would have
made it impossible to spell ‘God’ correctly. Not true; the upper-case
interpretation of teleprinter codes was well established by 1870, long
before Teletype was even founded.
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