2014-04-26 10:52:28 -04:00
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luser
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2014-04-26 11:54:15 -04:00
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/loozr/ , n. [common] A user ; esp. one who is also a loser. ( luser and
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loser are pronounced identically.) This word was coined around 1975 at MIT.
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Under ITS, when you first walked up to a terminal at MIT and typed Control-Z
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to get the computer's attention, it printed out some status information,
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including how many people were already using the computer; it might print 14
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users , for example. Someone thought it would be a great joke to patch the
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system to print 14 losers instead. There ensued a great controversy, as some
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of the users didn't particularly want to be called losers to their faces
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every time they used the computer. For a while several hackers struggled
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covertly, each changing the message behind the back of the others; any time
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you logged into the computer it was even money whether it would say users or
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losers. Finally, someone tried the compromise lusers , and it stuck. Later
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one of the ITS machines supported luser as a request-for-help command. ITS
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died the death in mid-1990, except as a museum piece; the usage lives on,
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however, and the term luser is often seen in program comments and on Usenet.
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Compare mundane , muggle , newbie , chainik.
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