MIPS /mips/ n.
[abbreviation] 1. A measure of computing speed; formally,
`Million Instructions Per Second' (that's 10^6 per second, not
2^(20)!); often rendered by hackers as `Meaningless Indication of
Processor Speed' or in other unflattering ways, such as
`Meaningless Information Provided by Salesmen'. This joke
expresses an attitude nearly universal among hackers about the
value of most benchmark claims,
said attitude being one of the great cultural divides between
hackers and marketroids (see
also BogoMIPS). The singular is
sometimes `1 MIP' even though this is clearly etymologically
wrong. See also KIPS and GIPS. 2. Computers, especially large computers,
considered abstractly as sources of computrons. "This is just a workstation; the
heavy MIPS are hidden in the basement." 3. The corporate name of
a particular RISC-chip company; among other things, they designed
the processor chips used in DEC's 3100
workstation series. 4. Acronym for `Meaningless Information per
Second' (a joke, prob. from sense 1).