videotex n. obs.
An electronic service offering people the privilege of paying
to read the weather on their television screens instead of having
somebody read it to them for free while they brush their teeth.
The idea bombed everywhere it wasn't government-subsidized,
because by the time videotex was practical the installed base of
personal computers could hook up to timesharing services and do
the things for which videotex might have been worthwhile better
and cheaper. Videotex planners badly overestimated both the
appeal of getting information from a computer and the cost of
local intelligence at the user's end. Like the gorilla arm effect, this has been a
cautionary tale to hackers ever since. See also vannevar.
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virgin adj.
Unused; pristine; in a known initial state. "Let's bring up a
virgin system and see if it crashes again." (Esp. useful after
contracting a virus through SEX.) Also, by extension, buffers and the
like within a program that have not yet been used.
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virtual adj.
[via the technical term `virtual memory', prob. from the term
`virtual image' in optics] 1. Common alternative to logical; often used to refer to the artificial
objects (like addressable virtual memory larger than physical
memory) simulated by a computer system as a convenient way to
manage access to shared resources. 2. Simulated; performing the
functions of something that isn't really there. An imaginative
child's doll may be a virtual playmate. Oppose real.