JargonFile/entries/hysterical reasons.txt
2014-04-26 16:54:15 +01:00

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hysterical reasons
n. (also hysterical raisins ) A variant on the stock phrase for historical
reasons , indicating specifically that something must be done in some stupid
way for backwards compatibility, and moreover that the feature it must be
compatible with was the result of a bad design in the first place. All IBM
PC video adapters have to support MDA text mode for hysterical reasons.
Compare bug-for-bug compatible.