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of treating all devices uniformly as special files. All the members but GE eventually pulled out after determining that second-system effect had bloated Multics to the point of practical unusability (the 'lean' predecessor in question was CTSS). Honeywell commercialized Multics after buying out GE's computer group, but it was never very successful (among other things, on some versions one was commonly required to enter a password to log out). One of the developers left in the lurch by the project's breakup was Ken Thompson, a circumstance which led directly to the birth of Unix. For this and other reasons, aspects of the Multics design remain a topic of occasional debate among hackers. See also brain-damaged and GCOS. |
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multitask n. Often used of humans in the same meaning it has for computers, to describe a person doing several things at once (but see thrash). The term 'multiplex', from communications technology (meaning to handle more than one channel at the same time), is used similarly. |
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mumblage /muhm'bl j/ n. The topic of one's mumbling (see mumble). "All that mumblage" is used like "all that stuff" when it is not quite clear how the subject of discussion works, or like "all that crap" when 'mumble' is being used as an implicit replacement for pejoratives. |
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mumble interj. 1. Said when the correct response is too complicated to enunciate, or the speaker has not thought it out. Often prefaces a longer answer, or indicates a general reluctance to get into a long discussion. "Don't you think that we could improve LISP performance by using a hybrid reference-count transaction garbage collector, if the cache is big enough and there are some extra cache bits for the microcode to use?" "Well, mumble I'll have to think about it." 2. [MIT] Expression of not-quite-articulated agreement, often used as an informal vote of consensus in a meeting: "So, shall we dike out the COBOL emulation?" "Mumble!" 3. Sometimes used as an expression of disagreement (distinguished from sense 2 by tone of voice and other cues). "I think we should buy a VAX.'' "Mumble!" Common variant: mumble frotz (see frotz; interestingly, one does not say 'mumble frobnitz' even though 'frotz' is short for 'frobnitz'). 4. Yet another metasyntactic variable, like foo. 5. When used as a question ("Mumble?") means "I didn't understand you". 6. Sometimes used in 'public' contexts on-line as a placefiller for things one is barred from giving details about. For example, a poster with pre-released hardware in his machine might say "Yup, my machine now has an extra 16M of memory, thanks to the card I'm testing for Mumbleco." 7. A conversational wild card used to designate something one doesn't want to bother spelling out, but |
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