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confuser n. Common soundalike slang for 'computer'. Usually encountered in compounds such as confuser room, personal confuser, confuser guru. Usage: silly. |
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connector conspiracy n. [probably came into prominence with the appearance of the KL-10 (one model of the PDP-10), none of whose connectors matched anything else] The tendency of manufacturers (or, by extension, programmers or purveyors of anything) to come up with new products that don't fit together with the old stuff, thereby making you buy either all new stuff or expensive interface devices. The KL-10 Massbus connector was actually patented by DEC, which reputedly refused to license the design and thus effectively locked third parties out of competition for the lucrative Massbus peripherals market. This policy is a source of never-ending frustration for the diehards who maintain older PDP-10 or VAX systems. Their CPUs work fine, but they are stuck with dying, obsolescent disk and tape drives with low capacity and high power requirements. |
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(A closely related phenomenon, with a slightly different intent, is the habit manufacturers have of inventing new screw heads so that only Designated Persons, possessing the magic screwdrivers, can remove covers and make repairs or install options. A good 1990s example is the use of Torx screws for cable-TV set-top boxes. Older Apple Macintoshes took this one step further, requiring not only a hex wrench but a specialized case-cracking tool to open the box.) |
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In these latter days of open-systems computing this term has fallen somewhat into disuse, to be replaced by the observation that ''Standards are great! There are so many of them to choose from!" Compare backward combatability. |
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cons /konz/ or /kons/ [from LISP] 1. vt. To add a new element to a specified list, esp. at the top. "OK, cons picking a replacement for the console TTY onto the agenda." 2. cons up: vt. To synthesize from smaller pieces: "to cons up an example". |
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In LISP itself, cons is the most fundamental operation for building structures. It takes any two objects and returns a dot-pair or two-branched tree with one object hanging from each branch. Because the result of a cons is an object, it can be used to build binary trees of any shape and complexity. Hackers think of it as a sort of universal constructor, and that is where the jargon meanings spring from. |
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considered harmful adj. Edsger W. Dijkstra's note in the March 1968 Communications of the ACM, "Goto Statement Considered Harmful", fired |
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