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Computer Disctionary
640K:
The salary the average Wall Street PC analyst pulls in each year.
Algorithm:
A catchy 1930 song by George and Ira Gershwin.
Availability:
Date when a dozen copies of the beta version will be hurriedly
shrink-wrapped for the benefit of the press and the investment
community.
Backup:
The chore you were really, honestly, going to do the very next
thing before you switched drive letters and accidentally copied
older, out-of-date versions of you files over all your newer ones
at 3 a.m.
Buffer:
The only other job - involving a chamois at the car wash - for
which most computer store salespeople are qualified.
Bundled
software: Free applications like home dentistry packages
and Esperanto spelling dictionaries that are thrown in with cheap
clones so you think you're getting real value for your money.
CD-ROM:
A $30 dollar mechanism in a $300 cabinet that accesses vast quantities
of valuable information too slowly to use.
Copy
protection: A sly technique employed by hardware vendors
to combat software piracy by continually changing the size and
compatibility of disk drives (from 160K to 320K to 360K to 1.2MB
to 720K to 1.44MB to 2.88MB, etc.).
CP/M:
An antiquated operation system from the early days of computing,
based on inscrutable prompts like A>, terse commands, and absurdly
backward conventions, such as 11-character limits on filenames.
Contrasted with today's modern versions of DOS.
Database,
flat-file: A program selling for under $500 that most
people use to keep lists of names and addresses, etc.
Database,
relational/programmable: A program selling for over $500
that most people use to keep lists of names and addresses, etc.
Debugging:
The process of uncovering glitches by packaging prerelease software
as finished products, then waiting for irate customers to report
problems.
Downward
compatibility: You really didn't have to spend the money
for the upgraded version, since all you use anyway is the old
set of features.
End
User: One born every minute.
Entry
level: Only slightly above most users' heads.
Expanded
memory: RAM that is, uh, well, um, different from extended
memory.
Expansion
slot: The computer didn't come with everything you needed.
Extended
memory: RAM that is, uh, well, um, different from expanded
memory.
FAX:
Originally a last resort for procrastinators who missed the final
Federal Express pickup; these days, an expensive way to order
lunch from the pizza place around the corner.
Firmware:
Software with permanent bugs hardwired into it.
Icon:
One picture is worth a thousand lawsuits. Or, as Shakespeare might
have put it, "He who steals my trash better have a large
purse.
Installation
routine: A process employed by many applications to overwrite
and thereby trash the user's existing and painstakingly created
AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files
Interface,
character-based: A way of presenting information to the
user that's every bit as good as a user interface except in the
areas of readability, ease of use, intuitiveness, and productivity.
Interface,
graphic user (GUI): An increasingly popular way of presenting
information to the user, originally designed by Xerox PARC and
now being adopted by dozens of competitors; otherwise known as
the Trial Attorney Full Employment Act.
Laptop:
A dinky keyboard wedded to a lousy LCD screen, all with bad battery
life.
Live
links: A clever system that lets you unknowingly corrupt
data in lots of separate files at the same time.
Low-bandwidth:
The process of talking to a corporate press relations official.
(Question: How many IBM PR types does it take to change a light
bulb? Answer: We'll have to get back to you on that.)
Nanosecond:
The time it takes after your warranty expires for your hard disk
to start making a sound like a monkey wrench in a blender.
NiCad
battery: A cell that powers a laptop long enough to let
you do three solid hours of work, then dies before you're ready
to save any of it to disk.
Open
system: Made up of parts from different manufacturers
so that, when you crash, each vendor can blame the others.
Optional:
It should have come free, but someone in the marketing department
ran 1-2-3 and figured they'd double their profits this way.
Parity:
A ninth memory bit that one time in nine will crash an otherwise
perfectly functioning system when it detects an error in itself.
Partition:
A wall you have to build around a noisy dot matrix printer that
makes only slightly less noise than a tree chipper.
Point-and-shoot:
You mean you'd rather click on a menu choice than have to type
things like DEVICE=\DOS\UTS\DRIVER.SYS /D:0 /T:80 /S:15 /H:2 /F:1
?
Power
Surge: What an MIS director feels when he denies you
access to your own database.
Power
user: Someone who's read the manual all the way through
once.
Productivity:
Printing out 30 different versions of your document before getting
the spacing correct.
Real-time
clock: A 50-dollar option based on a five-cent chip.
SAA:
Silly And Awkward.
Shell:
A clumsy program that forces users to stumble through ten menus
to get anything done instead of typing a simple three-character
command.
Shock-mounted:
Make sure you're sitting down when you ask the price.
Spreadsheet:
Sophisticated software that can be used as a database, rudimentary
word processor, graphing program, and, in a pinch, a ledger.
Stack:
The place in the corner of the room where you pile unopened software
manuals.
Standard:
Manufactured by the company that does the flashiest advertising.
Support:
Fast, simple, courteous, friendly, accurate help available to
any user who happens to work for any company that bought 1,000
copies of the product.
Throughput:
What you feel like doing with your foot and your computer screen
after you see the message "General Failure Error Reading
Drive C:".
Toll-free
hotline: An AT&T busy-signal test number.
Toner
cartridge: A device to refill laser printers; invented
by the Association of American Dry Cleaners.
Torture
test: Everyone - from the FedEx guy to the clerk who
opened the box to the trainee who executed the speed test - accidentally
dropped it.
Tutorial:
A program that forces you to sit through lessons on every last
obscure and little-used feature of an application while ignoring
overall fundamental tricks that would make you far more productive.
Unix,
year of: See Calendar, perpetual.
Value-added:
A lot more expensive.
Virus:
Commonly, the belief of incompetent users that some mysterious
external force is to blame for their mistakes at the keyboard.
Workstation:
Any PC that sells for more than $10,000.
XT:
All the computer that most users who just type letters and run
typical spreadsheets will ever need, even though a 386 machine
will reformat their text a whole tenth of a second faster.
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