17 lines
2.8 KiB
HTML
17 lines
2.8 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>bit rot</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="../B.html" title="B"/><link rel="previous" href="bit-decay.html" title="bit decay"/><link rel="next" href="bit-twiddling.html" title="bit twiddling"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">bit rot</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="bit-decay.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">B</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="bit-twiddling.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="bit-rot"/><dt xmlns="" id="bit-rot"><b>bit rot</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> [common] Also <a href="bit-decay.html"><i class="glossterm">bit decay</i></a>. Hypothetical
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disease the existence of which has been deduced from the observation that
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unused programs or features will often stop working after sufficient time
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has passed, even if ‘nothing has changed’. The theory explains
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that bits decay as if they were radioactive. As time passes, the contents
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of a file or the code in a program will become increasingly garbled.</p><p>There actually are physical processes that produce such effects
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(alpha particles generated by trace radionuclides in ceramic chip packages,
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for example, can change the contents of a computer memory unpredictably,
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and various kinds of subtle media failures can corrupt files in mass
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storage), but they are quite rare (and computers are built with
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error-detecting circuitry to compensate for them). The notion long favored
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among hackers that cosmic rays are among the causes of such events turns
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out to be a myth; see the <a href="../C/cosmic-rays.html"><i class="glossterm">cosmic rays</i></a> entry for
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details.</p><p>The term <a href="../S/software-rot.html"><i class="glossterm">software rot</i></a> is almost synonymous.
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Software rot is the effect, bit rot the notional cause.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="bit-decay.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../B.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="bit-twiddling.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">bit decay </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> bit twiddling</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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