TCP/IP /T'C-P I'P/ n.
1. [Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol] The
wide-area-networking protocol that makes the Internet work, and
the only one most hackers can speak the name of without laughing
or retching. Unlike such allegedly `standard' competitors such as
X.25, DECnet, and the ISO 7-layer stack, TCP/IP evolved primarily
by actually being used, rather than being handed down
from on high by a vendor or a heavily-politicized standards
committee. Consequently, it (a) works, (b) actually promotes
cheap cross-platform connectivity, and (c) annoys the hell out of
corporate and governmental empire-builders everywhere. Hackers
value all three of these properties. See creationism. 2. [Amateur Packet Radio]
Formerly expanded as "The Crap Phil Is Pushing". The reference is
to Phil Karn, KA9Q, and the context was an ongoing
technical/political war between the majority of sites still
running AX.25 and the TCP/IP relays. TCP/IP won.
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TechRef /tek'ref/ n.
[MS-DOS] The original "IBM PC Technical Reference Manual",
including the BIOS listing and complete schematics for the PC.
The only PC documentation in the original-issue package that was
considered serious by real hackers.
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TECO /tee'koh/ n.,v. obs.
1. [originally an acronym for `[paper] Tape Editor and
COrrector'; later, `Text Editor and COrrector'] n. A text editor
developed at MIT and modified by just about everybody. With all
the dialects included, TECO may have been the most prolific
editor in use before EMACS, to which
it was directly ancestral. Noted for its powerful
programming-language-like features and its unspeakably hairy
syntax. It is literally the case that every string of characters
is a valid TECO program (though probably not a useful one); one
common game used to be mentally working out what the TECO
commands corresponding to human names did. 2. vt. Originally, to
edit using the TECO editor in one of its infinite variations (see
below). 3. vt.,obs. To edit even when TECO is not the
editor being used! This usage is rare and now primarily
historical.
As an example of TECO's obscurity, here is a TECO program that
takes a list of names such as:
Loser, J. Random
Quux, The Great
Dick, Moby
sorts them alphabetically according to surname, and then puts
the surname last, removing the comma, to produce the
following:
Moby Dick
J. Random Loser
The Great Quux