toast 1. n.
Any completely inoperable system or component, esp. one that
has just crashed and burned: "Uh, oh ... I think
the serial board is toast." 2. vt. To cause a system to crash
accidentally, especially in a manner that requires manual
rebooting. "Rick just toasted the firewall machine again." Compare
fried.
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toaster n.
1. The archetypal really stupid application for an embedded
microprocessor controller; often used in comments that imply that
a scheme is inappropriate technology (but see elevator controller). "DWIM for an assembler? That'd be as silly as
running Unix on your toaster!"
2. A very, very dumb computer. "You could run this program on any
dumb toaster." See bitty box,
Get a real
computer!, toy, beige toaster. 3. A Macintosh, esp.
the Classic Mac. Some hold that this is implied by sense 2. 4. A
peripheral device. "I bought my box without toasters, but since
then I've added two boards and a second disk drive." 5. A
specialized computer used as an appliance. See web toaster, video toaster.
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toeprint n.
A footprint of especially
small size.
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toggle vt.
To change a bit from whatever state
it is in to the other state; to change from 1 to 0 or from 0 to
1. This comes from `toggle switches', such as standard light
switches, though the word `toggle' actually refers to the
mechanism that keeps the switch in the position to which it is
flipped rather than to the fact that the switch has two
positions. There are four things you can do to a bit: set it
(force it to be 1), clear (or zero) it, leave it alone, or toggle
it. (Mathematically, one would say that there are four distinct
boolean-valued functions of one boolean argument, but saying that
is much less fun than talking about toggling bits.)
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tool 1. n.
A program used primarily to create, manipulate, modify, or
analyze other programs, such as a compiler or an editor or a
cross-referencing program. Oppose app,
operating system. 2.
[Unix] An application program with a simple, `transparent'
(typically text-stream) interface designed specifically to be
used in programmed combination with other tools (see filter, plumbing). 3. [MIT: general to students
there] vi. To work; to study (connotes tedium). The TMRC
Dictionary defined this as "to set one's brain to the
grindstone". See hack. 4. n. [MIT] A
student who studies too much and hacks too little. (MIT's student
humor magazine rejoices in the name "Tool and Die".)