13 lines
2.5 KiB
HTML
13 lines
2.5 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>fossil</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../F.html" title="F"/><link rel="previous" href="forum.html" title="forum"/><link rel="next" href="four-color-glossies.html" title="four-color glossies"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">fossil</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="forum.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">F</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="four-color-glossies.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="fossil"/><dt xmlns="" id="fossil"><b>fossil</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> 1. In software, a misfeature that becomes understandable only in
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historical context, as a remnant of times past retained so as not to break
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compatibility. Example: the retention of octal as default base for string
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escapes in <a href="../C/C.html"><i class="glossterm">C</i></a>, in spite of the better match of
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hexadecimal to ASCII and modern byte-addressable architectures. See
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<a href="../D/dusty-deck.html"><i class="glossterm">dusty deck</i></a>. </p></dd><dd><p> 2. More restrictively, a feature with past but no present utility.
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Example: the force-all-caps (LCASE) bits in the V7 and
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<a href="../B/BSD.html"><i class="glossterm">BSD</i></a> Unix tty driver, designed for use with monocase
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terminals. (In a perversion of the usual backward-compatibility goal, this
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functionality has actually been expanded and renamed in some later USG Unix
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releases as the IUCLC and OLCUC bits.) </p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="forum.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../F.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="four-color-glossies.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">forum </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> four-color glossies</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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