Computer Vocabuluary

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  • Analog
    Hors d’oeurve, usually made from cheese and covered with crushed nuts

  • Backup
    Opposite of go forward

  • Batch Processing
    Making a lot of cookies at once

  • Binary
    Possessing the ability to have friends of both sexes

  • Bit
    12 1/2 cents

  • Branch
    If watered, it will grow into a computer club (see computer club)

  • Buffer
    Programmer who works in the nude

  • Bug
    Programmer’s term for a feature

    An elusive creature living in a program which makes it incorrect.

    Note: the activity of “debugging” or removing bugs from a program ends when a programmer gets tired of doing it, not when all the bugs are removed

  • Character Density
    The number of very weird people in the office, divided by the floor space

  • Computer
    A device designed to speed and automate errors

  • Computer Club
    Used to strike computer forcefully upon receiving error messages

  • Coding
    An addictive drug

  • Compile
    A heap of decomposing vegetable matter

  • Compiler
    Noah Webster (1758-1843)

  • Console
    What one does to a depressed computer

  • Cursor
    An expert in 4-letter words

  • Dump
    A system programmer’s work area

  • Feature
    Hardware limitation as described by a marketing representative

  • Hardware
    The parts of a computer which can be kicked

  • Keyboard
    An instrument used for entering errors into a system

  • Language
    A system of organizing and defining error messages

  • Loop
    See loop

  • Machine-independent Program
    A program which will not run on any machine

  • Microcomputer
    One millionth of a computer

  • Null String
    The result of a 4-hour database search

  • On-line
    The idea that a human should always be accessible

  • Password
    The nonsense word taped to your terminal

  • Performance
    A statement of the speed at which a computer system works. Or rather, might work under certain circumstances. Or was rumored to be working about a month ago

  • Printer
    Johann Gutenberg (1400-1468)

  • Quality Control
    Ensuring that the quality of a product does not get out of hand and add to the cost of its manufacture or design

  • Strategy
    A long-range plan whose merit cannot be evaluated until sometime after those creating it have left the organization

  • User
    Someone requiring drug rehabilitation

  • 8-bit machine
    A computer selling for $1.00 (see bit)

  • 16-bit machine
    A computer selling for $2.00 (see bit)