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even in mainstream slang, but has additional hackish connotations: namely, that the computations are mindless and involve massive use of brute force. This is not always evil, esp. if it involves ray tracing or fractals or some other use that makes pretty pictures, esp. if such pictures can be used as wallpaper. See also crunch. |
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numbers n. [scientific computation] Output of a computation that may not be significant results but at least indicate that the program is running. May be used to placate management, grant sponsors, etc. Making numbers means running a program because output any output, not necessarily meaningful output is needed as a demonstration of progress. See pretty pictures, math-out, social science number. |
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NUXI problem /nuk'see pro'bl m/ n. Refers to the problem of transferring data between machines with differing byte-order. The string 'UNIX' might look like 'NUXI' on a machine with a different byte sex (e.g., when transferring data from a little-endian to a big-endian, or vice-versa). See also middle-endian, swab, and bytesexual. |
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nybble /nib'l/ (alt. nibble) n. [from v. 'nibble' by analogy with 'bite' -> 'byte'] Four bits; one hex digit; a half-byte. Though 'byte' is now techspeak, this useful relative is still jargon. Compare byte; see also bit, Apparently the 'nybble' spelling is uncommon in Commonwealth Hackish, as British orthography suggests the pronunciation /n 'bl/. |
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Following 'bit', 'byte' and 'nybble' there have been quite a few analogical attempts to construct unambiguous terms for bit blocks of other sizes. All of these are strictly jargon, not techspeak, and not very common jargon at that (most hackers would recognize them in context but not use them spontaneously). We collect them here for reference together with the ambiguous techspeak terms 'word', 'half-word' and 'quadwords'; some (indicated) have substantial information separate entries. |
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crumb, quad, quarter, tayste |
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playte, chawmp (on a 32-bit machine), word (on a 16-bit machine), half-word (on a 32-bit machine). |
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chawmp (on a 36-bit machine), half-word (on a 36-bit machine) |
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