26 lines
3.9 KiB
HTML
26 lines
3.9 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>glitch</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="../G.html" title="G"/><link rel="previous" href="glassfet.html" title="glassfet"/><link rel="next" href="glob.html" title="glob"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">glitch</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="glassfet.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">G</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="glob.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="glitch"/><dt xmlns="" id="glitch"><b>glitch</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="pronunciation">/glich/</span></dt></dt><dd><p> [very common; from German ‘glitschig’ slippery, via
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Yiddish ‘glitshen’, to slide or skid] </p></dd><dd><p> 1. <span class="grammar">n.</span> A sudden interruption in
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electric service, sanity, continuity, or program function. Sometimes
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recoverable. An interruption in electric service is specifically called a
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<span class="firstterm">power glitch</span> (also
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<a href="../P/power-hit.html"><i class="glossterm">power hit</i></a>), of grave concern because it usually crashes all the
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computers. In jargon, though, a hacker who got to the middle of a sentence
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and then forgot how he or she intended to complete it might say,
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“<span class="quote">Sorry, I just glitched</span>”. </p></dd><dd><p> 2. <span class="grammar">vi.</span> To commit a glitch. See
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<a href="gritch.html"><i class="glossterm">gritch</i></a>. </p></dd><dd><p> 3. <span class="grammar">vt.</span> [Stanford] To scroll a
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display screen, esp. several lines at a time.
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<a href="../W/WAITS.html"><i class="glossterm">WAITS</i></a> terminals used to do this in order to avoid
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continuous scrolling, which is distracting to the eye. </p></dd><dd><p> 4. obs. Same as <a href="../M/magic-cookie.html"><i class="glossterm">magic cookie</i></a>, sense
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2.</p></dd><dd><p>All these uses of <span class="firstterm">glitch</span> derive
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from the specific technical meaning the term has in the electronic hardware
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world, where it is now techspeak. A glitch can occur when the inputs of a
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circuit change, and the outputs change to some
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<a href="../R/random.html"><i class="glossterm">random</i></a> value for some very brief time before they
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settle down to the correct value. If another circuit inspects the output
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at just the wrong time, reading the random value, the results can be very
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wrong and very hard to debug (a glitch is one of many causes of electronic
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<a href="../H/heisenbug.html"><i class="glossterm">heisenbug</i></a>s).</p><div class="mediaobject"><a id="crunchly73-06-04"/><img src="../graphics/73-06-04.png"/><div class="caption"><p>Coping with a hydraulic <a href="glitch.html"><i class="glossterm">glitch</i></a>.</p><p>(The next cartoon in the Crunchly saga is
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<a href="../O/overflow-bit.html#crunchly73-07-24">73-07-24</a>. The previous one is
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<a href="../B/bells-and-whistles.html#crunchly73-05-28">73-05-28</a>.)</p></div></div></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="glassfet.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../G.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="glob.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">glassfet </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> glob</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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