| Analog: | Hors d'oeuvre, usually made from cheese and covered with crushed nuts |
| Backup: | Opposite of go forward |
| Batch Processing: | Making a lot of cookies at once |
| Binary: | Possessing the ability to have friends of both sexes |
| Bit: | 12 1/2 cents |
| Branch: | If watered, it will grow into a computer club (see computer club) |
| Buffer: | Programmer who works in the nude |
| Bug: | 1. Programmer's term for a feature 2. An elusive creature living in a program which makes it incorrect. Note: the activity of "debugging" or removing bugs from a program ends when a programmer gets tired of doing it, not when all the bugs are removed |
| Character density: | The number of very weird people in the office, divided by the floor space |
| Computer: | A device designed to speed and automate errors |
| Computer Club: | Used to strike computer forcefully upon receiving error messages |
| Coding: | An addictive drug |
| Compile: | A heap of decomposing vegetable matter |
| Compiler: | Noah Webster (1758-1843) |
| Console: | What one does to a "down" computer |
| Cursor: | An expert in 4-letter words |
| Dump: | A system programmer's work area |
| Feature: | Hardware limitation as described by a marketing representative |
| Hardware: | The parts of a computer which can be kicked |
| Keyboard: | An instrument used for entering errors into a system |
| Language: | A system of organizing and defining error messages |
| Loop: | See loop |
| Machine-independent Program: | A program which will not run on any machine |
| Microcomputer: | One millionth of a computer |
| Null String: | The result of a 4-hour database search |
| On-line: | The idea that a human should always be accessible |
| Password: | The nonsense word taped to your terminal |
| Performance: | A statement of the speed at which a computer system works. Or rather, might work under certain circumstances. Or was rumored to be working about a month ago |
| Printer: | Johann Gutenberg (1400-1468) |
| Quality Control: | Ensuring that the quality of a product does not get out of hand and add to the cost of its manufacture or design |
| Strategy: | A long-range plan whose merit cannot be evaluated until sometime after those creating it have left the organization |
| User: | Someone requiring drug rehabilitation |
| 8-bit machine: | A computer selling for $1.00 (see bit) |
| 16-bit machine: | A computer selling for $2.00 (see bit) |