The New Hacker's Dictionary

1131

to be present and portable in all Unix versions (this was the standard gauge of portability before the POSIX and IEEE 1003 standards). Note that this usage does not derive from the release being the "seventh version of [14141]Unix"; research [14142]Unix at Bell Labs has traditionally been numbered according to the edition of the associated documentation. Indeed, only the widely-distributed Sixth and Seventh Editions are widely known as V[67]; the OS that might today be known as `V10' is instead known in full as "Tenth Edition Research Unix" or just "Tenth Edition" for short. For this reason, "V7" is often read by cognoscenti as "Seventh Edition". See [14143]BSD, [14144]USG Unix, [14145]Unix. Some old-timers impatient with commercialization and kernel bloat still maintain that V7 was the Last True Unix.

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vgrep /vee'grep/ v.,n.

Visual grep. The operation of finding patterns in a file optically rather than digitally (also called an `optical grep'). See [14149]grep; compare [14150]vdiff.

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vi /V-I/, not /vi:/ and never /siks/ n.

[from `Visual Interface'] A screen editor crufted together by Bill Joy for an early [14154]BSD release. Became the de facto standard Unix editor and a nearly undisputed hacker favorite outside of MIT until the rise of [14155]EMACS after about 1984. Tends to frustrate new users no end, as it will neither take commands while expecting input text nor vice versa, and the default setup on older versions provides no indication of which mode

1132

the editor is in (years ago, a correspondent reported that he has often heard the editor's name pronounced /vi:l/; there is now a vi clone named `vile'). Nevertheless vi (and variants such as vim and elvis) is still widely used (about half the respondents in a 1991 Usenet poll preferred it), and even EMACS fans often resort to it as a mail editor and for small editing jobs (mainly because it starts up faster than the bulkier versions of EMACS). See [14156]holy wars.

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video toaster n.

Historically, an Amiga fitted with a particular line of special video effects hardware from NewTek - long a popular platform at special-effects and video production houses. More generally, any computer system designed specifically for video production and manipulation. Compare [14160]web toaster and see [14161]toaster.

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videotex n. obs.

An electronic service offering people the privilege of paying to read the weather on their television screens instead of having somebody read it to them for free while they brush their teeth. The idea bombed everywhere it wasn't government-subsidized, because by the time videotex was practical the installed base of personal computers could hook up to timesharing services and do the things for which videotex might have been worthwhile better and cheaper. Videotex planners badly overestimated both the appeal of getting information from a computer and the cost of local intelligence at

1134

Praise or thanks. Used universally in the Linux community. Originally this term signified cash, after a famous incident in which some some Britishers who wanted to buy Linus a beer and sent him money to Finland to do so.

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virtual Friday n.

(also `logical Friday') The last day before an extended weekend, if that day is not a `real' Friday. For example, the U.S. holiday Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday. The next day is often also a holiday or taken as an extra day off, in which case Wednesday of that week is a virtual Friday (and Thursday is a virtual Saturday, as is Friday). There are also `virtual Mondays' that are actually Tuesdays, after the three-day weekends associated with many national holidays in the U.S.

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virtual reality n.

1. Computer simulations that use 3-D graphics and devices such as the Dataglove to allow the user to interact with the simulation. See [14186]cyberspace. 2. A form of network interaction incorporating aspects of role-playing games, interactive theater, improvisational comedy, and `true confessions' magazines. In a virtual reality forum (such as Usenet's alt.callahans newsgroup or the [14187]MUD experiments on Internet), interaction between the participants is written like a shared novel complete with scenery, `foreground characters' that may be personae utterly unlike the people who write them, and common `background characters' manipulable by all parties. The one iron law is that you may not write

1135

irreversible changes to a character without the consent of the person who `owns' it. Otherwise anything goes. See [14188]bamf, [14189]cyberspace, [14190]teledildonics.

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virtual shredder n.

The jargonic equivalent of the [14194]bit bucket at shops using IBM's VM/CMS operating system. VM/CMS officially supports a whole bestiary of virtual card readers, virtual printers, and other phantom devices; these are used to supply some of the same capabilities Unix gets from pipes and I/O redirection.

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virus n.

[from the obvious analogy with biological viruses, via SF] A cracker program that searches out other programs and `infects' them by embedding a copy of itself in them, so that they become [14198]Trojan horses. When these programs are executed, the embedded virus is executed too, thus propagating the `infection'. This normally happens invisibly to the user. Unlike a [14199]worm, a virus cannot infect other computers without assistance. It is propagated by vectors such as humans trading programs with their friends (see [14200]SEX). The virus may do nothing but propagate itself and then allow the program to run normally. Usually, however, after propagating silently for a while, it starts doing things like writing cute messages on the terminal or playing strange tricks with the display (some viruses include nice [14201]display hacks). Many nasty

1136

viruses, written by particularly perversely minded [14202]crackers, do irreversible damage, like nuking all the user's files.

In the 1990s, viruses became a serious problem, especially among Windows users; the lack of security on these machines enables viruses to spread easily, even infecting the operating system (Unix machines, by contrast, are immune to such attacks). The production of special anti-virus software has become an industry, and a number of exaggerated media reports have caused outbreaks of near hysteria among users; many [14203]lusers tend to blame everything that doesn't work as they had expected on virus attacks. Accordingly, this sense of `virus' has passed not only into techspeak but into also popular usage (where it is often incorrectly used to denote a [14204]worm or even a [14205]Trojan horse). See [14206]phage; compare [14207]back door; see also [14208]Unix conspiracy.

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visionary n.

1. One who hacks vision, in the sense of an Artificial Intelligence researcher working on the problem of getting computers to `see' things using TV cameras. (There isn't any problem in sending information from a TV camera to a computer. The problem is, how can the computer be programmed to make use of the camera information? See [14212]SMOP, [14213]AI-complete.) 2. [IBM] One who reads the outside literature. At IBM, apparently, such a penchant is viewed with awe and wonder.

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1137

VMS /V-M-S/ n.

[14217]DEC's proprietary operating system for its VAX minicomputer; one of the seven or so environments that loom largest in hacker folklore. Many Unix fans generously concede that VMS would probably be the hacker's favorite commercial OS if Unix didn't exist; though true, this makes VMS fans furious. One major hacker gripe with VMS concerns its slowness -- thus the following limerick: There once was a system called VMS Of cycles by no means abstemious. It's chock-full of hacks And runs on a VAX And makes my poor stomach all squeamious. --- The Great Quux

See also [14218]VAX, [14219]TOPS-10, [14220]TOPS-20, [14221]Unix, [14222]runic.

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V =

voice vt.

To phone someone, as opposed to emailing them or connecting in [14226]talk mode. "I'm busy now; I'll voice you later."

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voice-net n.

Hackish way of referring to the telephone system, analogizing it to a digital network. Usenet [14230]sig blocks not uncommonly include the sender's phone next to a "Voice:" or "Voice-Net:" header; common variants of this are "Voicenet" and "V-Net". Compare [14231]paper-net, [14232]snail-mail.

1140

*[14266]walk off the end of:

*[14267]walking drives:

*[14268]wall:

*[14269]wall follower:

*[14270]wall time:

*[14271]wall wart:

*[14272]wallpaper:

*[14273]wango:

*[14274]wank:

*[14275]wannabee:

*[14276]war dialer:

*[14277]-ware:

*[14278]warez:

*[14279]warez d00dz:

*[14280]warez kiddies:

*[14281]warlording:

*[14282]warm boot:

*[14283]wart: